Office:

Coombs building (#9), rm 2013

Phone:

+61 (0)2 6125 1691

Email:

carl.brusse }at{ anu.edu.au

Mobile:

+61 (0)401 811590

I came here from the University of Otago, where I did undergrad degrees in Philosophy and Physics and an MA on Aristotelian ethics and natural kinds.

My dissertation is on the methodology of the Personal Identity debate. This includes work on problem cases, ordinary language commitments and arguments from the forensic use of self reference and from more general metaphysics, with special attention to Relativism and Animalism. For example, some argue that if constitution is identity we should be Animalists about personal identity (I say it wouldn’t help Animalism either way).

I defend a pluralist view: that the best way to deal with conflicting cases and commitments is to embrace context-sensitivity about the best diachronic referent in persons-referring speech acts. With liberal enough an ontology under the hood, this leads to a realist pluralism rather than to Relativism. If you prefer a conservative ontology without co-location, this leads to an error theory and not to Animalism.

I'm also a research assistant at the ANU medical school, and a past president of the ANU postgraduate student's association (PARSA).

I'll get around to putting some papers up sometime... but in the meanwhile this is the only freebie:

Unofficial.pdf

This is a 3-pane pamphlet I made a while back for new arrivals to the department. There are ready-printed copies available outside the door to Di's office, but the most up-to-date version can always be downloaded from here (it's about 300kb).