Research

Broadly, I am interested how minds shape worlds and how worlds shape minds. In practice, this broad interest gets me to explore connections between cognition, oppression, imagination, language, arts, and more. I like to do these explorations with other people and across disciplines.

For each of the research projects below, I highlight a couple of recent representative works. Preprints for all my published, forthcoming, and unpublishable papers are available on PhilPapers.

Cognition and Oppression

My current primary research project is on objects and spaces where cognition meets oppression. Cognitive scientists argue that the way we think and act depend on the world around us. Social theorists argue that the world around us cannot be separated from oppressive systems such as racism, sexism, and ableism. While cognitive scientists typically talk about the sunny side of extending our cognition beyond our brains, there is also a dark side to these cognitive extensions in an unjust world. While social theorists typically attend to the dynamic interactions between the psychological and the social that constitute oppressive systems, the feedback loop must further include how the material shapes the psychological.

Experimental Philosophy

I sometimes use empirical tools such as linguistic corpora and psychological experiments. My earlier works are on social aesthetic cognition. My recent works are on controversies about terms like ‘racist’, which condemn attitudes in relation to oppression.

Imagination

I am also interested in the role of imagination in people’s value-laden lives. My earlier works are on imagination’s uses in engagements with representational works. My recent works are on imagination’s uses in engagements with everyday artifacts.