I am interested in the issue of how we know what we are thinking. How do we have access to our own mental states? And what makes that access special? I have tried to offer an answer to these questions for the cases of belief and desire that draws on the so-called 'transparency' of belief. I defend the view that we attribute beliefs and desires to ourselves based on our grounds for those beliefs and desires. I have also developed three applications of this view to put forward a solution to Moore's paradox, an account of the thought-insertion delusion, and an explanation of self-deception. In the future, I am hoping to extend this model to account for our knowledge of our own actions. I am currently working on an account of our awareness of our mental states as being our own.
This research is being funded by the Australian Research Council as part of the Future Fellowship project "The ownership of minds".
(2009) (with Tim Bayne) "Delusion and Self-deception: Mapping the terrain" in T. Bayne and J. Fernandez (Eds.) Delusion and Self-Deception: Affective influences on belief formation . New York: Psychology Press.