Brett Karlan

Assistant Professor of Philosophy

Purdue University

Welcome!

I am an assistant professor of philosophy at Purdue University.

I work on issues in the philosophy of cognitive science (especially psychology and machine learning) and in normative philosophy (especially epistemology and ethics). Much of this work involves conversations with (and sometimes collaborations with) scholars across philosophy, psychology, computer science, neuroscience, animal cognition, and political theory.

Prior to joining the faculty at Purdue, I held postdoctoral fellowships in the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society at Stanford (where I was also a fellow at the Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence) and in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. I completed my PhD at Princeton in 2020, where I was advised by Tom Kelly and Grace Helton.

My CV is here.

I spend most of my free time with my wife, Kelsey Wiggs Karlan (a rockstar ADHD researcher and clinical psychologist). We have, according to several objective measures, the cutest dog.

The easiest way to reach me is by email: bkarlan [at] purdue [dot] edu

Philosophical work

No right to an explanation (with Henrik Kugelberg). Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2025. [pdf]

On non-ideal individual epistemology. International Journal of Philosophical Studies (special journal issue on Robin McKenna's Non-Ideal Epistemology), 2024. [pdf]

Authenticity in algorithm-aided decision-making. Synthese, 2024. [pdf]

Engineered wisdom for learning machines (with Colin Allen). Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence, 2024. [pdf]

Human achievement and artificial intelligence. Ethics and Information Technology, 2023. [pdf]

Quantum of wisdom (with Colin Allen). In Viggiano (ed.), Quantum Computing and AI: Social, Ethical, and Geo-Political Implications, 2022. [pdf]

The rational dynamics of implicit thought. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2022. [pdf]

Reasoning with heuristics. Ratio, 2021. [pdf]

Works in progress

A paper on AI empiricism and nativism, for a volume on AI in the sciences edited by David Barack, Darrell Rowbottom, & Andre Curtis-Trudel. [Under review]

A short paper on practical capacities and human-centered AI, for a volume on moral psychology and AI edited by Daryl Cameron & Anat Perry. [Under review]

A paper (with Colin Allen) on group expertise in human-machine sociotechnical systems. [In preparation]

A paper (with Evan Westra) on the productivity of folk psychology. [In preparation]

A paper (with Dan Burnston) on biophysical rationality. [In preparation]

Empirical work

Damage to the medial prefrontal cortex impairs music-evoked autobiographical memories (with Amy Belfi and Dan Tranel). Psychomusicology, 2018. [pdf]

Neural correlates of recognition and naming of musical instruments (with Amy Belfi, Joel Bruss, Taylor Abel, and Dan Tranel). Neuropsychology, 2016. [pdf]

Music evokes vivid autobiographical memories (with Amy Belfi and Dan Tranel). Memory, 2016. [pdf]

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