I was an assistant professor in the Department of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Groningen from 2020 to 2022. In 2022, I became bedbound overnight as a result of a COVID infection. I remain bedbound to this day with severe myalgic encephalomyelitis, a type of Long COVID. I can no longer work but remain an external staff member of the University of Groningen. I received my PhD from the Department of Philosophy, Logic, and Scientific Method at the London School of Economics (2016-2020). Previously, I read the MPhil Philosophy in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge (2015-2016), and the BSc Philosophy, Logic, and Scientific Method at LSE (2012-2015).
My research concerns the subject's partial, limited, and situated perspective on the world, its formation, and its normative evaluation. My core interest lies in the problem of induction: the normative evaluation of the subject's beliefs about what lies beyond the here-and-now. I engage with various treatments of induction, including those of Hume, Kant, Peirce, Wittgenstein, Ramsey and post-Ramseyan Bayesian epistemology. I also work on the material determination of the subject's beliefs, drawing on Marx and various standpoint traditions. Recently, I have begun to write on illness, medicine, and biomedical science as a result of my own illness.
Below, my papers are organised by topic. Some are in multiple categories. Clicking on the title will display abstract and links. A chronological list can be found on my PhilPeople page.
Problem of Induction
Bayesianism and the Inferential Solution
to Hume’s Problem, Philosophers' Imprint, 25(39): 1-15. 2025.
I examine Howson’s alluring suggestion that Bayesianism, by supplying a logic of inductive inference—conditionalisation—solves the problem of induction. I draw on his historical heritage, especially Hume, Peirce, and Ramsey, to reconstruct the interpretation of the problem of induction that his remarks intimate. Roughly, it is that of how to amend the system with which one meets the world, in the light of new particulars. Unfortunately, his claim that conditionalisation constitutes a solution to this problem, I argue, fails by his own lights, because it turns on the widely endorsed but nonetheless erroneous contention that a justification of conditionalisation qua rule of inference can be given independently from a justification of the priors. [journal] [manuscript]
Ideology and Standpoint Theory
The Epistemic Grounds for Lay Interference in the Conduct of Science, forthcoming in Philosophy of Science.
I present a heretofore untheorised form of lay science, called extitutional science, whereby lay scientists, by virtue of their collective experience, are able to detect errors committed by institutional scientists and attempt to have them corrected. I argue that the epistemic success of institutional science is enhanced to the extent that it takes up this extitutional criticism. Since this uptake does not occur spontaneously, extitutional interference in the conduct of institutional science is required. I make a proposal for how to secure this epistemically beneficial form of lay interference. [journal] [manuscript]
Ideology as Relativized A Priori, Political Philosophy, 2(1): 62-97. 2025, with Sabina Vaccarino Bremner.
We propose an account of the subject’s cognition and its relation to the world that allows for an articulation of the phenomenon of ideology. We argue that ideology is a form of what we call ‘a priori activity’: it transcendentally conditions the intelligibility of thought and practice. But we draw from strands of post-Kantian philosophy of science and social philosophy in repudiating Kant’s view that the a priori is necessary and fixed. Instead, we relativize the a priori: we argue that it is contingent, and therefore revisable. More precisely, it is conditioned materially, in that it is enmeshed with and shaped by material social practice. We conclude with some remarks about the possibility of agency over the relativized, materially conditioned a priori—that is, about the possibility of critique. [journal] [manuscript]
Philosophy of Illness and Medicine
The Epistemic Grounds for Lay Interference in the Conduct of Science, forthcoming in Philosophy of Science.
I present a heretofore untheorised form of lay science, called extitutional science, whereby lay scientists, by virtue of their collective experience, are able to detect errors committed by institutional scientists and attempt to have them corrected. I argue that the epistemic success of institutional science is enhanced to the extent that it takes up this extitutional criticism. Since this uptake does not occur spontaneously, extitutional interference in the conduct of institutional science is required. I make a proposal for how to secure this epistemically beneficial form of lay interference. [journal] [manuscript]
Bayesian Epistemology
Bayesianism and the Inferential Solution
to Hume’s Problem, Philosophers' Imprint, 25(39): 1-15. 2025.
I examine Howson’s alluring suggestion that Bayesianism, by supplying a logic of inductive inference—conditionalisation—solves the problem of induction. I draw on his historical heritage, especially Hume, Peirce, and Ramsey, to reconstruct the interpretation of the problem of induction that his remarks intimate. Roughly, it is that of how to amend the system with which one meets the world, in the light of new particulars. Unfortunately, his claim that conditionalisation constitutes a solution to this problem, I argue, fails by his own lights, because it turns on the widely endorsed but nonetheless erroneous contention that a justification of conditionalisation qua rule of inference can be given independently from a justification of the priors. [journal] [manuscript]
On Algebra Relativisation, Mind, 134(535): 792-798. 2025.
Katie Steele and H. Orri Stefánsson argue that, to reflect an agent’s limited awareness, the algebra of propositions on which that agent’s credences are defined should be relativised to their awareness state. I argue that this produces insurmountable difficulties. But the project of relativising the agent’s algebra to reflect their partial perspective need not be abandoned: the algebra can be relativised, not to the agent’s awareness state, but to what we might call their subjective modality. [journal] [manuscript]
The Nature of Awareness Growth, Philosophical Review, 133(1): 1-32. 2024.
Awareness growth—coming to entertain propositions of which one was previously unaware—is a crucial aspect of epistemic thriving. And yet, it is widely believed that orthodox Bayesianism cannot accommodate this phenomenon since that would require employing supposedly defective catchall propositions. Orthodox Bayesianism, it is concluded, must be amended. In this article, I show that this argument fails and that, on the contrary, the orthodox version of Bayesianism is particularly well suited to accommodate awareness growth. For it entails what I call the refinement view, which allows us to capture that awareness growth consists in the increase of one’s capacity of discernment. [journal] [manuscript]
Interpretation of Probability
Objectivity and the Method of Arbitrary Functions, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 73(3): 663-684. 2022.
There is widespread excitement in the literature about the method of arbitrary functions: many take it to show that it is from the dynamics of systems that the objectivity of probabilities emerge. In this paper, I differentiate three ways in which a probability function might be objective, and I argue that the method of arbitrary functions cannot help us show that dynamics objectivise probabilities in any of these senses. [journal] [manuscript]
Scientific Work
Research collaborations among people with Long COVID have resulted in scientific papers wherein we draw on our lived experience to contribute to scientific understanding of the disease. My philosophical theorising on this activity can be found in The Epistemic Grounds for Lay Interference in the Conduct of Science, listed above. The scientific papers I have co-authored are listed below. Negative results in long COVID clinical trials: choosing outcome measures for a heterogeneous disease, The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 26(1): 13-15. 2026, with Lara Goxhaj, Lisa McCorkell, Fen van Rhijn-Brouwer, Letícia Soares, and Julia Moore Vogel.Citing my work. My name is isomorphic to that of e.g. Simone de Beauvoir, Pierre-Simon de Laplace, and Nicolas de Condorcet. The convention is to include "de" in the name only when preceded by a first name or title. Thus we talk of Beauvoir's Second Sex, Laplace's demon, and Condorcet's jury theorem. Similarly, you might write "Canson is pessimistic about the philosophical value of the method of arbitrary functions." In a bibliography, you can reference my name as "Canson, C." or "Canson, C. de". Note that this convention is different from the Italian and German counterparts: we study the writings of Beauvoir, but of de Finetti and von Neumann.
Athena in Action workshop of June 2018