Nina Chua. Lavender (2011).
My research interests centre on our ordinary thinking about mentality. Immanuel Kant held that there are two fundamental aspects to our mind: a receptive capacity by means of which we are presented with the world; and an intellectual capacity by means of which we think about the world. And, according to Kant, these two aspects come together to allow us knowledge of the empirical world. How should we think about these capacities? And how do they relate? Thinking through Kant's writings on this topic – and thinking through those, such as P.F. Strawson, who drew on his writings – is a way to get clearer on our ordinary conception of the mind.
Two topics in this area have been a focus of my interest. First, perception. We take perceptual consciousness to be the means by which we're put directly in touch with the world. But how much of perception depends on our purely sensory capacities – the kind of capacities we share with other animals? And how much depends on our intellectual, conceptual capacities – the kinds of capacities which Kant thought we possess in virtue of being rational agents? My work here has attempted to outline a Kantian picture of perception which places the emphasis on our purely sensory capacities of apprehension whilst acknowledging the ways in which that access is shaped by our intellectual capabilities.
A second focus is our knowledge of others' minds. We ordinarily take ourselves to know much about one another's mental lives. And that knowledge plays an important role in many of our significant relationships. Yet it's not hard to get oneself into a position where such access to another's mind starts to look problematic. Part of my interest is in determining how much of our knowledge of others' minds rests on our sensory interaction with other people, and how much is a result of our engaging in conceptual and inferential activities.
I have a soft spot for a certain kind of twentieth-century English philosophy: J.L. Austin; Iris Murdoch; Anthony Kenny; P.F. Strawson; John McDowell. My ideal philosophy of mind course begins with chapter 1 of Richard Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature.
Two topics in this area have been a focus of my interest. First, perception. We take perceptual consciousness to be the means by which we're put directly in touch with the world. But how much of perception depends on our purely sensory capacities – the kind of capacities we share with other animals? And how much depends on our intellectual, conceptual capacities – the kinds of capacities which Kant thought we possess in virtue of being rational agents? My work here has attempted to outline a Kantian picture of perception which places the emphasis on our purely sensory capacities of apprehension whilst acknowledging the ways in which that access is shaped by our intellectual capabilities.
A second focus is our knowledge of others' minds. We ordinarily take ourselves to know much about one another's mental lives. And that knowledge plays an important role in many of our significant relationships. Yet it's not hard to get oneself into a position where such access to another's mind starts to look problematic. Part of my interest is in determining how much of our knowledge of others' minds rests on our sensory interaction with other people, and how much is a result of our engaging in conceptual and inferential activities.
I have a soft spot for a certain kind of twentieth-century English philosophy: J.L. Austin; Iris Murdoch; Anthony Kenny; P.F. Strawson; John McDowell. My ideal philosophy of mind course begins with chapter 1 of Richard Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature.