Bio

     Throughout my career my abiding interest has always been in trying to understand the nature of the Self, especially in light of the growing movement in philosophy toward materialist conceptions. After having defended epiphenomenalism in my dissertation, I turned my attention to examining evidence that might complicate a straight-forward materialist view. In the tradition of William James, I both appreciated what evidence a scientific approach could bring to the discussion, and I thought that examining the more extraordinary human experiences could lend special insight into this issue. My early examination of altered states of consciousness (again, influenced by James) followed this approach; I first examined mystical experiences, meditation and mental imagery.

     Again, following James, I began looking into parapsychology, both as a way of addressing traditional philosophical problems in a new light, as well as asking whether the discipline provided solid experimental evidence for its claims. This led me to begin a research program, which helped me better understand issues in the philosophy of science. Many of my publications are in the area of the philosophical implications of parapsychology, as well as the results of experiments.

     The next step in my journey was to begin to ask how thought in other cultural traditions could inform our Western understandings of the Self. I began research, both through reading and through field work, on Australian Aboriginal and Balinese cultures (after my first trips in 1982). Taking a year-long sabbatical in 1990-91 in Australia (a month of which was spent in Bali ), I began in earnest to focus on cross-cultural work, especially on the individualist/collectivist distinction being discussed in cross-cultural psychology and in anthropology. Beginning in 1994, I started taking annual research trips to Bali . On my sabbatical in 1998-9, I spent a half year in Australia doing further work on Aboriginal culture, and then began a series of research projects in Bali, sponsored by the Bial Foundation and in collaboration with the Koestler Lab at the University of Edinburgh. These projects involved working with Dr. Luh Ketut Suryani at the University of Udyana and investigated a cross-cultural investigation of agency in the US and Bali , as well as took the form of a series of cognitive DMILS experiments.

     My work as Associate Dean of the Faculty and then as Interim Dean of the Faculty decidedly slowed my research down, but I came back to the teaching faculty in Fall 2007, and am continuing my cross-cultural work-both philosophical and experimental-in trying to develop a more robust understanding of the nature of the Self.