My name is Henry Schiller.


I’m a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at the University of Sheffield.
h.ianschiller (at) sheffield (dot) ac (dot) uk 
Curriculum Vitae



About me


My research addresses the following issues:

︎How creatures like us go around confronting the world and adjusting our minds to it.

︎How we use linguistic tools to induce those adjustments in others.

︎The normative significance thereof.

This research explores issues at the intersection of philosophy of language, social philosophy, and cognitive science. I completed my PhD at the University of Texas at Austin under the supervision of Josh Dever and Mark Sainsbury.

In May of 2022 I took up a 3-year Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at the University of Sheffield. My project is about changes in preference and other non-doxastic attitudes.

Outside of philosophy, I have been involved in various music projects in New York City and Austin, Texas. Some of my own recordings are sometimes used as background music on the NPR show Invisibilia.

















Published Writing


︎Directing Thought - Ergo (forthcoming)
︎Genericity and Inductive Inference - Philosophy of Science (2023)
︎What’s your opinion? Negation and ‘Weak’ Attitude Verbs - Phil. Quarterly (2023)
︎Meaning and Responsibility w/ Ray Buchanan - Mind & Language (2023)
︎Pragmatic Particularism w/ Ray Buchanan - PPR (2022)
︎A Hole in the Box and a Pain in the Mouth w/ Laurenz Casser - Phil. Quarterly (2021)
︎This Paper Might Change Your Mind w/ Josh Dever - Noûs (2021)
︎Illocutionary Harm - Philosophical Studies (2021)
︎Acts of Desire - Inquiry (2021)
︎Is that a threat? - Erkenntnis (2021)
︎Phenomenal Dispositions - Synthese (2020)
︎Acquaintance and First-Person Attitude Reports - Analysis (2019)
︎The Nyaya Argument for Disjunctivism - History of Philosophy Quarterly (2019)
︎The Swapping Constraint - Minds & Machines (2018)


Work in Progress


revise and resubmit
︎A paper about rational learning and imperatives
︎A paper about domain restriction and cognitive defaults w/ Katherine Ritchie

under review [email for drafts]
︎A paper about how imperatives motivate w/ Shaun Nichols
︎A paper about what desires it’s rational to have w/ Daniel Drucker
︎A paper about practical questions and planning w/ Dan Harris
︎Two papers about the attitude of relief w/ Casey O’Callaghan

in progress [email to confirm existence of drafts]
︎A paper about rational learning and discourse structure
︎A paper about rational learning and desire satisfaction
︎A paper about rational learning and Jeffrey conditionalization w/ Josh Dever
︎A paper about domain restriction and discourse structure
︎A paper about domain restriction and rule learning w/ Shaun Nichols

︎A book review of The Politics of Language by David Beaver & Jason Stanley



Recent and Upcoming Talks (2024)


2/2024: “Wanting Brought to an End”, Washington University in St. Louis
3/2024: “Explaining Abilities”, Ability: Language and Action, Berlin
4/2024: “Default Domain Restriction Possibilities”, Dublin Language Workshop


Recent Activities


  • Nico Kirk-Giannini and I will be teaching a seminar on speech acts in dynamic pragmatics at ESSLLI this summer.
  • My paper “Wanting Brought to an End” is one of the co-winners of the Twelfth Annual Essay Prize at the Centre for Philosophical Psychology (Bence Nanay's research group).