After spending a few years in this program, I find myself being most interested in some metaphysical problems concerning personal identity (e.g. the debates between psychological approach versus biological approach regarding our persistence conditions, what exactly is the condition that determine what matters in survival, and how is it different (if different) from our persistence condition, the question of what we are: are we essentially persons, or animals?) In relation to this, I am currently trying to catch up with prominent theories of material constitution.

I am also very interested in the issues which I think interconnected between metaphysics and ethics. They include:

• Does moral responsibility requires freedom to do otherwise? (i.e. Is the following principle plausible: S is responsible for what she has done only if she could have done otherwise)
• Why is death bad?
• How could an action or a decision harm future persons, if they would not exist unless that action/decision is made now? (Parfit’s non-identity problem)

Although I am not specialized in ethics, thanks to Matt Hanser, I am intrigued by some bio-ethical issues such as “Does the implementation of preventive technology (including genetic screening program that can prevent the disabled people from existing) have a hurtful implication about the status of the disabled? And if so, is there any sensible way to make sense of it?”

My other research interest lies in some issues in epistemology and/or the philosophy of mind. They include:

1. Is the privileged first-person knowledge compatible with the content externalism?
2. The anti-skeptical arguments from semantic externalism (like Putnam’s)
3. What exactly is the relation between voluntary actions and the knowledge of relevant facts? (candidate: If S φs voluntarily, then S would φ if S knew the relevant facts about φ-ing.)

Other than those, I am concerned with some issues in the realm of the philosophy of language such as the causal and descriptivist theories of names and other theories of meaning. I focused on Wittgenstein during my M.A. years and I am still interested in the great heroes of the philosophy of language in its early years such as Frege, Russell as well as Wittgenstein.

Other Interests / Quotes / Links / Photos

I used to play guitar and piano but I’ll need some time to practice to play them again. I like rock music. My favorite bands include Dire Starts, Pink Floyd, Beatles, and many others. I also like to watch movies. The best films that I have seen include “What’s eating Gilbert Grape?,” “Ashes of Time (directed by Wong, Kar-wai).” These days I prefer Korean films. My best Korean films include “Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (directed by Park, Chan-Wook, the director of “Sympathy for Lady Vengeance” and “Old Boy”),” and “Memories of Murder (by Bong, Joon-Ho).” They are all available in Netflex.

** Some comments on my name: The spelling of my first name confuses everybody. Although it spells weird, it sounds like Hee-Yere. Or, if it’s difficult, it just sounds like the word 'here.'