Michael Roche
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Office: LA 252
Education
Ph.D., Philosophy (2013), University of Wisconsin, Madison
M.A., Philosophy (2008), University of Wisconsin, Madison
B.A., Philosophy (2004), University of Utah
B.S., Psychology (2004), University of Utah
I tried not to become a philosopher. My older brother was in a PhD program in philosophy when I began my undergraduate education. And I wanted to be different. I soon found, however, that I was both more interested in, and better at, my philosophy classes than all the others. I especially appreciated philosophy’s vast range of topics: mind, language, knowledge, metaphysics, right and wrong, religion, death, meaning, etc. This is ultimately what caused me to surrender to philosophy! I moved from Utah to Wisconsin in 2005 to pursue a PhD in philosophy. After spending one year at Illinois Wesleyan and five years at Mississippi State, I was lucky enough to join the faculty at Idaho State in the fall of 2019.
I specialize in the philosophy of mind. Broadly speaking, this area of philosophy investigates the nature of the mind and its relationship to the physical world. Central questions include: What does it mean to have a particular belief or desire or intention? Is the mind identical to the brain? Can consciousness be explained in purely physical terms? Can machines have minds? Is psychology an autonomous science, or will it ultimately be reduced to neurobiology or physics? What kind of access do we have to the contents of our minds?
My published research has, to this point, primarily focused on this last question, which typically falls under the heading of ‘self-knowledge’. I am attracted to a view according to which we have a way of knowing about our own minds that relies on neither behavioral nor situational evidence about ourselves, and which—somewhat paradoxically—involves turning our attention away from the mind and towards the world. This view denies that distinctively first-personal self-knowledge requires anything like an “inner eye”; all that is required is the ability to think about the world. The publications noted below are on this topic.
I regularly teach introduction to philosophy, which I really enjoy. It allows me to expose students to the aforementioned wide variety of topics within philosophy. Nearly every student is gripped by at least one of these! I am also looking forward to teaching upper-level courses in the philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and other areas.
My personal website contains additional information about my teaching experience and research: https://sites.google.com/site/rochephilo/.
Selected Publications
Articles
“Introspection, Transparency, and Desire”, Journal of Consciousness Studies 30, 3 (2023) 132-154.
“Authority Without Privilege: How To Be a Dretskean Conciliatory Skeptic On Self-Knowledge”, Synthese 198 (2021) 1071–1087. (w/ William Roche)
"Dretske on Self-Knowledge and Contrastive Focus: How to Understand Dretske’s Theory, and Why It Matters" Erkenntnis 82 (2017) 975 - 992. (w/ William Roche)
“Knowing What One Believes – In Defense of a Dispositional Reliabilist Extrospective Account” American Philosophical Quarterly 53 (2016) 365 - 379.
“Physicalism and Supervenience: A Case for a New Sense of Physical Duplication” Erkenntnis 81 (2016) 669 - 681.
“Causal Overdetermination and Kim’s Exclusion Argument” Philosophia 42 (2014) 809 - 826.
“Povinelli’s Problem and Introspection” Review of Philosophy and Psychology 4 (2013) 559 - 76.
“A Difficulty for Testing the Inner Sense Theory of Introspection” Philosophy of Science 80 (2013) 1019 - 1030.
Book Reviews
Alex Byrne’s Transparency and Self-Knowledge (2018), Philosophical Psychology, forthcoming.
Quassim Cassam’s Self-Knowledge for Humans (2014) Philosophical Quarterly 68 (2018) 645 - 647.
Declan Smithies and Daniel Stoljar’s, eds., Introspection and Consciousness (2012) Philosophical Quarterly (2016) 66 203 - 208. (w/ William Roche)
Courses Taught
4435/5535: Metaphysics
4430/5530: Philosophy of Science
4420/5520: Philosophy of Mind
4410/5510: Philosophy of Language
2201: Introduction to Logic
1101: Introduction to Philosophy