I grew up in one of the suburbs surrounding Salt Lake City, Utah. My mother worked as a piecemeal seamstress; my father drove locomotive and painted military camouflage; I read a lot of books, tossed a lot of boxes out of trailers, and spent a little time building railroad (I also went to college for a little while). I did undergraduate work in philosophy and history at Westminster College of Salt Lake City; my graduate work in philosophy was carried out at Colorado State University, Washington University in St Louis, and UNC-Chapel Hill. And after I finished my Ph.D. in philosophy, I did postdoctoral research in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University and at the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University.
My current research and teaching bear the mark of this somewhat eclectic history. I am currently writing on a wide range of issues across the cognitive, biological, and social sciences. In recent publications, I have drawn inspiration from the work of philosophers such as Kathleen Akins, Dan Dennett, Paulo Friere, Emma Goldman, John Haugeland, Peter Kropotkin, Dharmakīrti, and Śāntideva. In my teaching, I try to build upon the work of people who see philosophy as a tool for practical engagement with the world; and I focus on questions about cognitive architecture, cognitive diversity, planning, prefigurative practice, propaganda and social exclusion, and the relationship between ethics and psychology.