Declan Smithies is a contemporary analytic philosopher at The Ohio State University specializing in epistemology and philosophy of mind. He is best known for defending the thesis that phenomenal consciousness plays a constitutive role in epistemic justification, arguing that the rational force of experience depends essentially on its phenomenal character. His work systematically bridges philosophy of mind and epistemology, with a focus on perceptual justification, access consciousness, and the epistemic significance of nonconceptual content.
Authored The Epistemic Role of Consciousness (Oxford University Press, 2019), a comprehensive defense of phenomenal consciousness as foundational to epistemic justification
Argued that experiences with nonconceptual content can still stand in evidential relations to beliefs, challenging purely conceptualist accounts of justification
Developed a consciousness-based internalism holding that only phenomenally conscious states can serve as epistemic reasons
Contributed to debates on access consciousness, introspection, and the relationship between rational agency and phenomenal experience
Engaged critically with higher-order theories of consciousness and their implications for epistemic normativity
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