Essays

Long-form thinking

Arguments developed at length, with footnotes, for readers who want more than a position. New essays are announced on the RSS feed.

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June 20268 min read

Knowing Without a Knower

Machine epistemology after the Turing test

Every classical theory of knowledge assumes a subject who believes and can be asked why. What happens to the concept when the outputs are true, the process is reliable, and there is no one to ask?

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2026

April 20267 min read

The Responsibility Gap Is a Map, Not a Hole

On what disappears, and what merely moves, when a learning system causes harm

The standard worry is that autonomous systems open a gap into which responsibility vanishes. I argue that the gap is better read as a map of where control and knowledge actually sit — and that reading it is the philosophical task.

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February 20268 min read

Agency Before Consciousness

Can something act for reasons with no one home?

The features that make behaviour count as action — sensitivity to reasons, flexibility, revision — can each be specified without mentioning experience. If they can be built without it, what did consciousness ever contribute to agency?

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2025

November 20257 min read

What Nyāya Can Teach a Language Model

Classical Indian testimony theory and the standing of machine speech

Western epistemology tends to reduce testimony to inference about the speaker. The Nyāya school asked instead about the speaker's standing. That question, I argue, is the right one to ask of a model's answer.

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September 20255 min read

The Transparent Tool

A phenomenological note on assistants that answer

Heidegger observed that a tool in use withdraws from attention; we notice the hammer only when it breaks. What happens when the tool that withdraws is one that speaks?

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