Jake H. Davis

Bio

I am a doctoral student in Philosophy and Cognitive Science at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and hold a master's in Philosophy from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. I work at the intersection of philosophical psychology, moral psychology, and Buddhist philosophy, especially on debates around attention and consciousness, bodily awareness and the sense of self, moral sentiments and metaethics. Current projects include research on the attentional training of mindfulness meditation as a means of revealing unconscious moral sentiments, as well as exegetical work on mindfulness and moral psychology in the early Buddhist texts. With Dr. Willoughby Britton and the Brown University Contemplative Studies Initiative, and with Dr. Judson Brewer of Yale Therapeutic Neuroscience Clinic, I am a collaborator on teams investigating difficult stages of the contemplative path, the effects of attentional training on empathetic concern, and ecological momentary assessment of mindfulness.

Teaching Appointments

Adjunct Lecturer, Philosophy Department, The City College of New York.
Visiting Faculty, Barre Center for Buddhist Studies
Guest Teacher, Vipassana Hawai'i

Academic Service

Associate Director, “Contemporary Perspectives on Buddhist Ethics”, conference at Columbia University, October 6-7, 2011
PhilPapers.org leaf editor for Meditation and Consciousness.
Founding Member, Metro-Area Research Group on Awareness and Meditation.

Education

2009-	Ph.D. Student in Philosophy and Cognitive Science, CUNY Graduate Center.

2007-9	M.A. in Philosophy, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
	Master's thesis in the philosophy of perceptual experience and introspection, employing some areas of convergence between early Buddhist thought and recent philosophers of cognitive science such as Jesse Prinz and Alva Noë.
2003-5, 2000-1	Training as a Theravāda Buddhist monk under the venerable Sayadaw U Pandita of Burma.
2003-5, 2000-1	Study in Pāli Buddhist canonical texts, intensive mindfulness meditation, and interpretation between Burmese and English for meditation retreats. An article about my time with U Pandita is published as "Nothing Special", in an anthology from Wisdom Publications.
1998-2003	B.A. in Religion and Languages, Marlboro College, Vermont.
	Undergraduate thesis on the linguistic and cultural interpretation of a Burmese Buddhist system of meditation practice for an American audience, published online by the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies.