Scholarship
Publications & Presentations
Peer-Reviewed Publications
Do dogs rationally infer the causes of failed actions?
Bastos, A. P. M., Foster, G. R., & Krupenye, C.
Review of Acting for Reasons: In Defence of Common-Sense Psychology, by Emma Borg
Foster, G. R., & Westra, E.
Works in Progress
Bounded Epistemic Kantianism
Develops the groundwork for a bounded, non-consequentialist epistemology that is Kantian in spirit, extending Kantian ideas into the philosophy of inquiry. On the resulting view, which I call Bounded Epistemic Kantianism, it is epistemically rational to adopt a policy (a heuristic, an attention-management strategy, a rule for when to halt inquiry) just in case, in doing so, one respects one's own capacity for reason.
Good Beginnings: Kant, Infancy, and the Germs of Morality
Asks how Kant can deny that children are moral beings while holding that moral education cultivates natural predispositions, or "germs for the good." Using a synthetic Kantian method that brings Kant into line with developmental and moral psychology, it argues that children are born neither moral nor evil, but with a pre-conceptual sensitivity to morally significant features that becomes conceptualized as reason develops.
Primate Punishment: A Poor Proxy for Norm Psychology
Argues, against sceptics, that the apparent absence of third-party punishment among non-human primates is no good reason to deny them a norm psychology. After distinguishing traditions, culture, and social norms, it develops a parity argument: even humans who plainly possess social norms (children, WEIRD adults, and many small-scale societies) rarely engage in third-party punishment, so it should not be the evidential bar for primate normativity.
Selected Conference Presentations & Talks
The Pluralistic Evolution of Factive Mindreading
Canadian Philosophical Association Congress · Halifax, NS
Factive Mindreading and Species of Knowledge
33rd International Conference on Comparative Cognition · Montreal, QC
A Pluralistic Account of the Evolutionary Origins of Knowledge Attribution
Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology 2026 · Atlanta, GA
A Pluralistic Account of the Evolutionary Origins of Knowledge Attribution
Ruhr-University Bochum & LSE Joint Workshop on Animal Minds · Bochum, Germany
Desire Without Metarepresentation
Society for Philosophy and Psychology 2025 (with E. Westra) · Ithaca, NY
What Do Monkeys Know About Knowledge?
Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology 2025 · Mobile, AL
Reconsidering Factive Accounts of Monkey Mindreading
32nd International Conference on Comparative Cognition · Albuquerque, NM
The Logical Problem of Mindreading: A New Middle-Ground Account
The First Annual Association Association Conference · Gainesville, FL
InvitedReconsidering Behavioural Accounts of Theory of Mind in Great Apes
8th Panhellenic Conference on Philosophy of Science · Athens, Greece
Why Animal Mindreading Undermines Fictionalism about Folk Psychology
Workshop on Interpretivism, Mental Fictionalism, and Folk Psychology · Tartu, Estonia
InvitedA New Kantian Model of Animal Representation
Society for European Philosophy Conference 2024 · Cardiff, UK
Kant and Evolution: Deciphering Animal Cognition
CPA 2024, Canadian Philosophical Association Congress (with A. Brook) · Montreal, QC
Davidson on Animal Minds: Weakening Morgan's Canon
11th European Conference for Analytic Philosophy · Vienna, Austria
Davidson and Wittgenstein on Animal Minds: A Pluralistic Approach to Conceptualization
6th Early Career Researchers Workshop in Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science · Bochum, Germany
Pattern Realism as a Possible Solution to the Logical Problem in Animal Mindreading
Carleton Cognitive Science Graduate Conference 2023 · Ottawa, ON