Research

I am interested in multiple core aspects of the philosophy of mind, taking into account research findings and questions from neuroscience, psychology, medicine, and healthcare.

My research focuses on mental phenomena related to human suffering which appears to me as one of the most enigmatic, but also fascinating research subjects. I have intensively worked on diverse philosophical questions related to acute and chronic pain – encompassing the phenomenal character, neural implementation, causal embeddedness, and biological function of these phenomena. For example, I am interested in tools to systematically model the phenomenal experiences of people living with pain and how they can be accounted for within a naturalistic framework. Furthermore, I use core concepts of situated cognition to address the question of how biological, psychological, and social factors interact in chronic illnesses and can be targeted in  clinical contexts to reduce human suffering.

Another research area of mine is the philosophy of social understanding, especially the plurality of epistemic strategies we use in interaction with others. Furthermore,I use expertimental approaches to study the folk concept of pain.