In his dissertation, Jason Bridges, a candidate for the Ph.D. in Philosophy, takes up a fundamental shift in conception in twentieth-century philosophy of mind: a move away from a picture of mental life as taking place in a self-standing, inner realm, and toward a view of mental life as a phenomenon whose existence and character necessarily depend on our relations to our physical and social surroundings. In Locating Thought: Externalism and Reductionism in the Philosophy of Mind, Bridges argues that contemporary philosophy of mind has characteristically misunderstood the significance of this shift; that the resulting philosophical theories of the mind distort the external character of mental life; and finally, that the external character of mental life is better viewed as a reflection of our capacity to think and act on the basis of reasons, and as such cannot serve as the basis for a reductive explanation of the mind. Jason Bridges holds the Irving and Jean Stone Fellowship at the Townsend Center this year.