Eric Schwitzgebel is Professor of Philosophy at Australian National University. Most of Professor Schwitzgebel’s research explores connections between empirical psychology and philosophy of mind, especially the nature of belief, the inaccuracy of our judgments about our stream of conscious experience, and the tenuous relationship between philosophical ethics and actual moral behavior. His research falls chiefly in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, the philosophy of biology, and general philosophy of science, but he also has ongoing interests in ethics, metaphysics and epistemology, and 17th and 18th century philosophy. Over the last few years he has been reading and thinking about eugenics, the contemporary uses of biotechnology, and the philosophy of psychiatry, amongst other things. He is also involved in several large-scale research projects that fall under the question What Sorts of People Should There Be?, which now has a mighty fine blog that's worth checking out. He is co-author, with psychologist Russell T. Hurlburt, of Describing Inner Experience? Proponent Meets Skeptic (2007) and author of Perplexities of Consciousness (Life and Mind: Philosophical Issues in Biology and Psychology). He maintains a secondary interest in classical Chinese philosophy.

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• Profile for Eric Schwitzgebel PhilPapers
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Eric Schwitzgebel Quotes

It's not clear to me that knowing a fact requires believing it. Knowledge is a capacity, while belief is a tendency. Consider knowing how to do something: I know how to juggle five balls if I can sometimes succeed, other than by pure luck, even if most of the time I fail. As long as I have the capacity for appropriate responding, I have the knowledge, even if that capacity is not successfully deployed on most relevant occasions.