Research
My main research interests are in the philosophy of mind and metaphysics.
My most recent academic work, with the SNSF-funded project The Subject of Experiences, focused on the metaphysics of subjects of experiences. The project, led by Martine Nida-Rümelin, was structured around five research questions:
1. To which ontological category do subjects belong, e.g., are they substances, bundles of experiences, etc.?
2. Are the entities which are subjects essentially subjects?
3. What is the nature of embodiment, i.e., what is it, metaphysically speaking, for a subject to be embodied?
4. What is the nature of the subject's first-person perspective?
5. What is the metaphysical relation between the subject of experiences and the unity of experiences?
A more detailed outline of the project can be found here. I discussed the project with Aaron Rabinowitz on his podcast Embrace the Void.
I previously worked on another SNSF-funded project, Phenomenal Consciousness and Self-Awareness (2017-2019, also led by Prof. Nida-Rümelin) where I also worked on the nature of the subject and on our awareness of ourselves and our own conscious experiences.
Before that I worked on the Academy of Finland-funded The Epistemology of Metaphysics (2015-2017, led by Dr. Tuomas Tahko), focusing on grounding, ontological dependence, the unity of facts and conceivability as a guide to possibility.
My doctoral dissertation, Phenomenology, The Philosophy of Mind and Subjectivity (Durham 2010, supervised by Prof. Matthew Ratcliffe & the late Prof. EJ Lowe) examined relations between Husserlian transcendental phenomenology and contemporary philosophy of mind with regard to a number of topics, including how subjects live through their experiences, our sense of the world as objective, and the relation between the transcendental and empirical subjects.
I am a member of EXRE (University of Fribourg) and GEM (Collège de France).
For an accessible introduction to some of my ideas on metaphysics, see my exchange with Naomi Thompson on LetterWiki, on the topic of carving reality at the joints. I also discuss metaphysics more generally on Embrace the Void, and I discuss my monograph on substance on Condensed Matter.
To hear me discuss physicalism and conceivability arguments, head over to Thoughts.
