LUKE QUINTON

My main research interests are in the philosophy of mind and its intersection with issues in ethics, epistemology, and language. Current topics include the contents and formats of mental representation, the nature and epistemology of self-representation, the normativity of attention, and zetetic approaches in ethics and epistemology. Below is a selected list of some works-in-progress; please reach out if you're interested in reading/discussing drafts!

• "Perception, Conceptualism, and the Asymmetry Problem" – An argument for the existence of conceptualized properties in perceptual object representations and against constitutively iconic or nonconceptualist views of perception.

• "Hermeneutic Coercion" – A structural account of coercion in which a person can be responsible for unintentionally coercive threats by placing the coercee in an interpretative double bind.

• "Finding the Self in Self-Location" – A critical examination of a cluster of views on which perceptual experience is not necessarily self-locating and the resulting impact on the epistemology of perception.

•  "Norms of Attention and Moral Competence" (MA Thesis) – A virtue-theoretic framework of well-calibrated attention that argues for an attention-specific epistemic criteria for moral justification.

Teaching Roles

Assistant unless otherwise noted

• Fall 2024: Individual Morality and Social Justice – Johann Frick (UC Berkeley)

• Fall 2023: Ethics Bowl – Macy Salzberger (San Francisco State) 

• Spring 2023: Critical Thinking – Primary Instructor (San Francisco State) 

• Fall 2022: Ethics in Medicine – LaChanda Davis (San Francisco State)

• Fall 2022: Critical Thinking – Patrick Smith (San Francisco State)

• Fall 2022: Introduction to Philosophy – Patrick Smith (San Francisco State) 

Leadership Roles

In spring 2024 and 2025, I was a chapter co-director for Corrupt the Youth at Oakland Technical High School in Oakland, CA alongside Dill Malner and Georgia Cutter (2024) and Hannah DeBrine (2025).

In fall 2023, I co-taught an undergraduate ethics bowl class at SFSU with Macy Salzberger and prepared the students for an intercollegiate competition at Cal Poly SLO. I also ran the Philosophy and Minority & Philosophy (MAP) clubs with Asia Baclay and Sean Sliger (alongside many others).

Handouts can be made available upon request

Nov. 2025 – "Hermeneutic Coercion" at the UMass Amherst Graduate Conference