Welcome

profile of cameron buckner

I am a fifth year graduate student in philosophy at Indiana University in Bloomington.  I am currently writing a dissertation on the role of rationality in the philosophical foundations of cognitive science.  I start from the perspective that most rational inference is driven by heuristics and most representations are comprised of graded category structures like prototypes, arguing that a system built out of these components can demonstrate behaviors exhibiting a sufficient degree of rationality for intentional explanation to be legitimately and usefully applied to them.  These foundations are bolstered with a Neo-Dretskean theory of content which construes the hippocampal system as implementing the kind of intelligent representational plasticity characteristic of intentional agents. Instead of taking learning to merely recruit fully-formed indicators to positions of behavioral control, my modified Dretskean view holds that learning revises representations intelligently in response to errors so as to better improve their causal contact with adaptively-significant categories and situations.  This innovation proves important in helping the position avoid some of its most common criticisms, and the result is, I think, a plausible teleosemantic theory of content firmly grounded in the relevant psychology and neuroscience.

Education

As an undergraduate at Texas Tech University, I slowly drifted from mainstream computer science into artificial intelligence.  Once there, I began asking a number of pesky questions to which my computer science professors did not have easy answers, and I eventually found myself with enough philosophy credits to declare a second major.  In May 2004, I received a BS in Computer Science and a BA in Philosophy, graduating with highest honors.  After graduation, I was accepted into the PhD program at Indiana University Bloomington, where I am currently pursuing a doctorate in Philosophy with a minor in Cognitive Science.

Research Interests

I have worked on many problems in my coursework, but I am focusing on the intersection of the following issues:

  The psychology of human intuitive judgment
  Animal cognition
  The role of rationality in cognitive science
  The connectionism/classicism debate
  Comparative psychology
  Heuristics (both Heuristics & Biases and Simple Heuristics schools)
  The cognitive science of concepts:  prototypes, exemplars, and non-conceptual content
  Formal knowledge representation and reasoning, especially non-monotonic reasoning, formal ontologies, and answer set programming

 

Awards

I have won a few awards during my career for which I am very grateful:
 
 Presidential Scholarship, Texas Tech, Fall 1999-Spring 2004
  Jerry V. Fox Memorial Award, Texas Tech Department of Philosophy, 2003-2004 academic year
  Award for Graduate Academic Excellence, IUB Philosophy Department, 2005-2006 academic year
  Oscar R. Ewing Essay award, IUB Philosophy Department, May 2006
  Assistant Instructor Stipend, IUB Philosophy Department, Fall 2004-Spring 2009
k  Nelson Dissertation Fellowship, IUB Department of Philosophy, Fall 2008-Spring 2009
k  College of Arts and Sciences Dissertation Year Fellowship, Indiana University, Fall 2009-Spring 2010

Employment History

I have held (and currently hold) a number  of interesting jobs:

  Research Assistant at Pulsed Power and Power Electronics laboratory, Texas Tech University, 2001-2004
  Assistant Instructor with Indiana University Bloomington Department of Philosophy, 2004-Present
  Research Assistant on IUB New Horizons in the Humanities grant, Indiana Philosophy Ontology (InPhO) project with Colin Allen (PI) and Mathias Niepert, Summer 2006-Present
  Exhibits Coordinator at Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, Summer 2007-Present
  Webmaster, 2007 IUB Conference on Agency and Responsibility

  Webmaster, IUB Philosophy Department, 2007-

For my full resume, click here.

 



picture of cameron's fijian studentsI have also taught computer studies courses at the high school level in Savusavu Fiji for two summers.  I served as a volunteer teacher at Savusavu Secondary School and St. Bede's Secondary School during the summers of 2004 and 2005.  I also helped organize the Rava Computer Club, and participated in a number of other projects with the Savusavu Rotary Club.  Research has kept me busy the past two summers, but I hope to return to continue my work in Fiji soon.



pals

I also began volunteering with a great Bloomington organization, PALS, in May 2008. PALS (People and Animal Learning Services) is a non-profit equestrian therapy provider supplying therapeutic horseback riding to children and adults with cognitive, emotional, physical, and psychological disabilities. You can check out the organization (and chip in) at their web site here.

InPhO Project

InPhO logo







At the Indiana Philosophy Ontology Project, we are using information extraction methods to dynamically build a formal ontology for the discipline of philosophy.  We currently operate primarily on the content of the Stanford Encyclopedia of  Philosophy, but we also draw information from a number of other sources.  Our system efficiently harnesses expert feedback to semi-automatically build a conceptual taxonomy of philosophical ideas.  See our project web site for papers and more information.
UPDATE 8/16/2007:  The InPhO Project has received an NEH Digital Humanities Start-up grant that will allow us to continue our research for another year.  Huzzah!
UPDATE 3/22/2009:  The InPhO project has received a $400,000 preservation and access grant from NEH that will keep us fully-funded for the next two years!

Links