My name is Henry Schiller.
I’m a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at the University of Sheffield.
h.i.schiller (at) sheffield (dot) ac (dot) uk
Curriculum Vitae
About me
I’m an analytic philosopher. My work explores how creatures like us can use linguistic tools to shape and change one another's minds. Some questions I address in my research:
- How do we use language to exert social influence, and is this a ‘rational’ processs?
- How do we change through learning, and what does this tell us about human difference (and authenticity)?
- How do we represent our mental states – to ourselves and to others – and what is the function of doing so?
- How do our innate and default cognitive capacities give rise to and shape normative practices?
These projects put my work is at the intersection of philosophy of language, social philosophy, cognitive science, and moral psychology.
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 Leverhulme project is about the nature and acquisition of comparative attitudes. Outside of philosophy, I have been involved in various music projects in New York City and Austin, Texas.
Published Writing
︎Default Domain Restriction Possibilities w/ Katherine Ritchie - Semantics & Pragmatics (forthcoming)
︎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)
︎The Nyaya Argument for Disjunctivism - History of Philosophy Quarterly (2019)
Under Review
︎A paper about what we learn from imperatives (revise and resubmit)
Current Research
Some of the papers I’m currently working on, have recently worked on, or plan to work on soon. I’ve tried to organize them into different ‘projects’ (mostly for my own sake) but there’s a lot of crossover.
Communication, responsibility, and social influence:
︎A paper about how imperatives motivate w/ Shaun Nichols
︎A paper about domain restriction and discourse structure
︎A paper about conditional speech acts w/ Daniel Drucker
︎A critical notice of The Politics of Language by David Beaver & Jason Stanley
Learning and mental change:
︎A paper about rational learning and discourse structure
︎A paper about what it is to ‘possess’ information
︎A paper about ‘hoarding’ information w/ Jake Quilty-Dunn
︎A paper about rational learning and Jeffrey conditionalization w/ Josh Dever
Desire and desire satisfaction:
︎A paper about rational learning and desire satisfaction
︎A paper about the social function of ‘wants’
︎A paper about imagination, skill, and desire formation
︎Two papers about relief w/ Casey O’Callaghan
︎A paper about norms of attention in relationships w/ Margherita Harris
Innateness and normativity:
︎A paper about domain restriction and rule learning w/ Shaun Nichols
︎A paper about intentions and resource rationality w/ Dan Harris
‘Linguistic communication’