Paul Patton

I am a doctoral student at IHPST.  My primary research interests are in the philosophy and history of neuroscience and cognitive science, and in the integrated history and philosophy of science.  My thesis research concerns perceptual realism and the relationship between the perceived world and the objective physical world.  I focus on colours as an example.  I argue that items of our phenomenal ontology, like colours, are neither part of the objective world of physics, nor are they subjective mental entities.  They are rather, perspectival properties of the world as we are capable of encountering it. Phenomenal properties like colours are relational properties belonging to entities in the world.  These properties are constituted from a relation among properties of the perceiver’s visual system, properties of the entity, and sometimes contextual properties in the world.  I also have research interests in the integrated history and philosophy of science, and have published on a standard ontology for the process of scientific change and the role of tools and instruments in science as understood within such an ontology.

I also hold a doctorate in neurobiology from the University of Chicago, and have research experience in perceptual neuroscience, including sensorimotor control, multisensory integration, and the perceptual systems of blind cavefish and ecolocating bats.  I write about science for a general audience, including almost ten years of work for Indiana Public radio’s A Moment of Science.

You can find out more about my research and publications from my profiles on Philpeople and  Academia.edu

Philpeople:
https://philpeople.org/profiles/paul-edward-patton

Academia.edu:
https://utoronto.academia.edu/PaulPatton