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Last modified 11 Oct 08
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. Philosophy Program
RSSS, ANU
Ole Koksvik
  www.olekoksvik.net

CV Awards and Prizes Contact Details Pictures Calendar

I came to Canberra and the Philosophy Program at RSSS in February 2007. I'm originally from Norway, but I spent the last three years in Melbourne, doing Honours and then Masters in Philosophy. I wrote my masters thesis at Monash University.

My main interest is philosophy of mind, and particularly phenomenal experience: its role in motivation, decision-making and cognition in general, and its metaphysical status. I am also interested in the metaphysics of mind, and in metaphysics more broadly. Recently I have also become interested in epistemology.

My dissertation is on intuition. I am supervised by Professors David Chalmers, Daniel Stoljar and Frank Jackson.

News:

  • Sign a petition against the Northern Territory Intervention! (In case you didn't know, the racial discrimination act had to be suspended for the intervention to be legislated.)
  • For kicks I've started a blog. It's not philosophically serious; proceed at your own risk.

Publications

'Conservation of Energy is Relevant to Physicalism'
— dialectica, Vol. 61(4), 2007, pp. 573 - 582

I argue against Barbara Montero’s claim that Conservation of Energy (CoE) has nothing to do with physicalism. I reject her reconstruction of the argument for physicalism from CoE, and offer instead an alternative reconstruction that better captures the intuitions of those who believe that there is a conflict between interactionist dualism and CoE.

Masters Thesis

In Defence of Interactionism
The abstract is available here; the table of contens here. The entire thesis, including front matter and appendices, can be downloaded here (1.8MB). If the full file is too large to be comfortably downloaded on your connection, please ask me to send you the part(s) you are interested in separately.

Work in Progress

‘Dualism by Degrees’ (with Prof. John Bigelow)

Philosophers often ask one another whether they are monists or dualists. They very seldom ask to what degree their views are dualist. We hope that that will change. In place of a strict dichotomy we argue that the difference between monism and dualism in the philosophy of mind should be seen as variation along a continuous scale. Where on the scale a given view belongs is best characterised by estimating how radical it says that a break from current physical science will have to be in order for the joint science that then emerges to furnish a likely candidate for a theory that can account for consciousness, thoughts, and feelings.

’Interactionism and Conservation of Energy’

Interactionist dualism claims at least this much: the mind brings about some physical events that would not otherwise have occurred. The position is sometimes summarily dismissed on the grounds that it is supposed to be obviously at odds with certain well-established scientific results. I discuss, evaluate, and reject one influential claim of incompatibility, namely the claim that interactionist dualism is incompatible with the Conservation of Energy law in physics.

Awards and Prizes

2007  — 2010 Australian Postgraduate Award
March 07 Vice-Chancellor’s Commendation for Masters Thesis Excellence, Monash University
Nov 06  — Feb 07 Faculty of Arts Postgraduate Publication Award, Monash University
Jan 05  — Sept 06 Monash Graduate Scholarship and
Monash International Postgraduate Research Scholarship
Jul — Dec 04 Monash Arts International Postgraduate Research Scholarship

 

Pictures

The Epistemology of Experience, Workshop at the ANU, May 25th, 2007.
ANU Postgraduate Workshop at Kioloa, June 2007.

 

Contact Details

Office: Room #4109, H.C. Coombs Building, Fellows Road
Email:
Phone: +61 2 6125 9263 New!
Postal Address: Philosophy Program, Research School of Social Sciences
Coombs Building, The Australian National University
Canberra ACT 0200
Australia
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Last update of this page: 25.08.2008.