Research interests

I am interested in creating better theoretical frameworks for empirical  psychologists and neuroscientists to work with. More specifically, I hope  to help these fields moving beyond the lingering mechanical assumptions and frameworks of  traditional cognitive science. I am very sympathetic to enactive and embodied approaches to cognition and the ambition of looking at cognitive processes as temporal, dynamic and physically, socially and historically situated, and of grounding higher cognition in more basic sensori-motor functions. However, these ambitions fall short of actual positive theories and needs to be rooted in empirical detail to more directly provide new paradigms for scientific research.

Within philosophy my work will normally be categorized as pertaining to philosophy of mind and cognitive science, but often it also touches on issues of scientific methodology, epistemology, linguistics and social science. Omnipresent in my work is the oddly appendixed field of history of philosophy and I can proudly label most of my ideas as having a high percentage of recycled material.

Then there is my pocket feminism - which is kind of separate and yet not  from my cognitive, psychological and philosophical interests. Click here for some issues I find pressing for women and the societies that harbor them click,  and here for my latest rant 'Beyond Bitches and Caregivers'.

Research topics - Cognitive science:   

  • Embodied/enactive approaches to cognition & problems of traditional assumptions of computational cognitive science.
  • Social perception, motor resonance and action initiation (see also Dissertation abstract.)
    • Critique of default mirroring and simulation during social perception.  
    • The imitation bias of many popular experimental protocols in the study of motor resonance. 
    • Social perception under observation versus interaction stance. e.i. level of personal motivational and emotional engagement.
    • Object affordances and social affordances. Towards a more complex and integrated understanding of motor resonance in social and linguistic interaction. 
    • Link studies of motor resonance during social perception to general theories of action initiation and control.
    • Ideo-motor action & the role of mental and perceptual imagery and intention in action selection and initiation. 
    • The role of action and action preparation in cognitive processes beyond action control.
  • The role of memory and temporality in basic conscious processes.
  • Grounding of language skills in more basic action control processes and primary forms of interaction and social experience.

Research topics - Philosophy

  • Main philosophical figures of interest and specialization - see next section. 
  • Psychology of theory construction - Methodological and epistemological issues of how our favorite rational and psychological ways of thinking often gets projected on the object of inquiry -  be it of physical, biological or psychological order - and then treated as an empirical finding rather than the assumption it is.
  • Understanding the assumptions of determinism and physicalism - and their psychological foundation and functionality.
  • Questions regarding the epistemological difficulty of understanding a temporal and dynamical world in flux - and the possible desirability, impossibility and impracticality of such an understanding.
  • Problems with the traditional free will and determinism dichotomy. 
  • Reductionism versus admitting to complexity - the moral and normative consequences.

Major figures of philosophical inspiration: 

Ignoring the massive blind heritage, here are some of my favorite  thinkers:

  • Bergson - My main man. I read Matiere et Memoire with both arms over my head, albeit sometimes with an additional grimase of 'why on earth would he contrary to his own wonderful insights jump right in to the same categorical thinking!'.
  • Merleau-Ponty - a student of Bergson, but without the religion and with the social and cultural dimension. does not get much better than that.
  • Nietzsche - so there is no doubt which dead philosopher I would prefer to dine with - of course Wittgenstein wouldn't be a bad candidate either...
  • Kant. Well, he set the whole thing up.  
  • James - shares the zeitgeist and so many bergsonian ideas. Wrote The Principles need one say more. 
  • Susan Langer because of her insistence of thinking across categories and for reminding us of the centrality of the conative element of mind.
  • Plus psychologists like Vygotski and Laplanche who helped me understand the social in the subject. 

The list only very arbitrarily ends here. For a somewhat more coherent story of my main ideas, inspirations and favorite enemies, please click here.