Past Team Members

Mark-Oliver Casper
PhD Bochum 2017

MA HU Berlin
BA Phil HU Berlin

In his thesis, Oliver addressed the problem of scaling-up for enactive theories of cognition by combining them with a social-pragmatist account of belief (2015-2017). He is now a postdoc at the University of Kassel.

Selected Publications

1. •Casper, M.-O. (2018) Social Enactivism. On Situating High-Level Cognitive States and Processes. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter.
   

2. •Casper, M.-O., Nyakatura, J.A., Pawel, A., Reimer, C., Schubert, T., Lauschke, M. (2018): The Movement-Image Compatibility Effect: Embodiment Theory Interpretations of Motor Resonance with Digitized Photographs, Drawings, and Paintings, in: Frontiers in Psychology – Perception Science, Vol. 9: 991, doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00991
   

3. •Casper, M.-O. (2017). Long Term Epistemic Actions, in: AVANT. Trends in Interdisciplinary Studies, Vol. VIII, 1, pp. 119-130.
   

4. •Casper, M.-O. (2017): Metaplastizität. In: Bredekamp, H., Freedberg, D., Lauschke, M., Marienberg, S., Trabant, J. (Eds.): Image, Word, Action, Bd. 1: 23 Manifeste zu Bildakt und Verkörperung. Berlin/NewYork: De Gruyter, pp. 115-121.
   

Judith Martens

PhD Philosophy, Bochum

MA Phil Nijmegen, The Netherlands
MA Pych Nijmegen, The Netherlands

In her dissertation, Judith investigates „Control and Coordination in Joint Action“ in the context of a critical discussion of Bratman‘s seminal account and with a focus on the role of automaticity and skillful action. She is now a postdoc at the University of Vienna in Hans Bernhard Schmid‘s group.

Selected Publications

1. •Martens, J. (2018) Exploring the relation between Sense of Other and Sense of Us: Core Agency Cognition, Emergent Coordination, and the Sense of Agency. Journal of Social Philosophy 49 (1): 38-60.
   

2. •Martens, J., Schlicht, T. (2018) Individualism vs. Interactionism in Social Cognition. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences
   

3. •Schlicht, T., Martens, J. (2017) Soziale Wahrnehmung. In: Bedeutung und Gefährdung der Sinne im digitalen Zeitalter. Wittener Kolloquium für Humanismus, Medizin und Philosophie Bd. 5. Hrsg. von J. Weinzierl, P. Heusser. Königshausen & Neumann.
   

Luke Roelofs

PhD Philosophy Toronto 2015

BA Philosophy/Psychology Oxford 2009

Luke works on a variety of topics in philosophy of mind. His current project, ‘Reason, Empathy, and the Minds of Others’, lies at the intersections of social cognition, philosophy of imagination, and meta-ethics, exploring the meta-ethical implications of treating empathy as a form of imaginative simulation. He moved to NYU and holds a postdoc position in David Chalmers‘ group.

Selected Publications

1. •Roelofs, L. (Forthcoming) Combining minds. How to think about Composite Subjectivity. Oxford University Press.
   

2. •Roelofs, L. (Forthcoming) Why Imagining  Requires Content: a Reply to a Reply to an Objection to Radical Enactive Cognition, in: Thought: A Journal of Philosophy.
   

3. •Roelofs, L. (2018) Seeing the Invisible: How to Perceive, Infer, and Imagine Other Minds,
   in: Erkenntnis 83 (2): 205-229. 
   

4. •Roelofs, L. (2016) The Unity of Consciousness, Within and Between Subjects, in: Philosophical Studies 173(12): 3199-3221.
   

Joulia Smortchkova

PhD Institut Jean Nicod, Paris

Joulia works in social cognition with a special focus on social perception, the perception of others' mental states, such as intentions and emotions, and its relation to mindreading. In her work, she draws on empirical data from infants' cognition to understand how our abilities to relate to others develop. She is also interested in the architecture of the mind, meta-cognition and conceptual change, explanation and natural kinds in psychology. Since 2017, she is working as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oxford in Nick Shea‘s ERC project on Metacognition of concepts.

Selected publications 

1. •Smortchkova, J. (2017). Seeing emotions without mindreading them, in: Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 16(3): 525-543
   

2. •Smortchkova, J. (2017). Encapsulated social perception of emotional expressions, in: Consciousness and Cognition 47: 38-47.
   

3. •Smortchkova, J. (forthcoming). Seeing goal-directedness: A case for Social Perception, in: British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
   

Alfredo Vernazzani

PhD 2018 Bochum, Germany

MA Phil HU Berlin, Germany

BA Phil Napoli, Italy

Alfredo just obtained a PhD with a thesis on the concept of psychoneural isomorphism between visual objects and their neural correlates. The concept was introduced by the Gestalt psychologists mainly to serve as heuristic principle in the search for the neural correlates of the mind. He argues that it does not play a relevant heuristic role, and that better prospects for a cross-disciplinary integration in the study of the neural bases of the mind can be attained thanks to a mechanistic approach to the neural correlates of visual object perception.  

His primary research interests are conscious visual object perception, cross-disciplinary integration in cognitive science, mechanistic explanation in vision science, and visual aesthetics. In his new project he articulates a multiple-models framework for the study of visual objects inspired by the works of Elgin and Goodman, vindicating the role of artworks and philosophy in the scientific study of visual experience. He is now a postdoc in Albert Newen‘s group in Bochum.

Selected publications

1. •Vernazzani, A. (2017) The Structure of Sensorimotor Explanation, in Synthese
   

2. •Vernazzani, A. (2015) Manipulating the Contents of Consciousness, in Noelle et al. (Eds.) Proceedings of the 37th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society
   

3. •Vernazzani, A. (2016) Fenomenologia naturalizzata nello studio dell’esperienza cosciente. Rivista di Filosofia 107(1).
   

Giulia Weißmann

BA Phil RUB

(2017-2018)

As a Research Assistant, Giulia supported the Editions for Suhrkamp and Oxford University Press as well as for the Special Issue of Philosophical Eplorations. She was also responsible for keeping the websites up to date and did a great job. She moved on to Berlin and then to Pittsburgh to pursue a PhD in Ancient Philosophy.

Nike Zohm
BA Phil RUB

Project: MA Cog Sci & MA Phil

(2010-2018)

As a Research Assistant, Nike was responsible for workshop organization, supported teaching at all fronts. She is working on her MA degrees in Philosophy and in Cognitive Science.