I’m interested in general issues in philosophy of mind and epistemology such as how we come to know our own minds, the nature of rationality and the metaphysics of mental states, I approach these issues in a broadly pragmatist spirit and with an eye towards how our minds are embedded in agential and social contexts.
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First, I argue that prominent accounts of self-knowledge don’t have the resources to explain both uncertainty about the mind and its resolution. I suggest that we can come to know our minds by observing and interpreting ourselves using socially available frames. However, I am also critical of a wave of empirically informed philosophy of mind suggesting that self-knowledge isn’t possible at all. In the future, I want to apply this to the topic of masculinity and explore whether norms of masculinity make it harder for men to acquire self-knowledge (see ‘emotional illiteracy’).
The second area of my work is in the epistemology of inquiry. I think insufficient attention has been paid to the fact that inquiries are intentional actions. From this fact, I argue, it follows that it is irrational to inquire when you don’t have reason to believe that you will be successful in your inquiry. If we ignore this norm, we are overthinking.
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One field where this norm comes to fruition is in the study of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Many people think that OCD is irrational, but when you look at it properly, it turns out to be quite hard to say what exactly is irrational about OCD. In some of my published work, I propose that the irrationality of OCD, if there is any at all, is to be found in the inquiry-behaviour caused by it.
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My research on OCD has been picked up by philosophers, psychiatrists and psychologists and I want to further expand this interdisciplinary line of research. Generally, I care about an informed attitude towards the concept of rationality in psychopathology.
The amazing © Bill Waterson's Calvin on overthinking.
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Earlier on in my career, I was working on political disagreement. I was (and still am) interested in how, given the presence of drastically different political standpoints, we can engage in respectful and empathetic disagreement with each other.
Even earlier on, I wanted to become an economist and did some quantitative research (here) on the impact of political protests and whether protective tariffs are really as bad as orthodox theory says. Having had ample opportunity to explore how decision-making is looked at in economics, I think my philosophical work can be seen as a variation of the theme that human action is much more complex than maximizing expected utility.