Amanda Loeffelholz

Areas of interest: Philosophy of Cognitive Science (especially Philosophy of Psychiatry), Bioethics, Ethics

 

I'm a PhD candidate in Philosophy and Cognitive Science. I primarily work on issues in the philosophy of cognitive science and in biomedical ethics, though I also have research interests in ethics, epistemology, and social metaphysics.

 

I'm especially interested in questions about which mental phenomena are clinically significant for psychiatry and psychology, and in related normative questions concerning psychiatric taxonomy. I also work on justificatory and evaluative standards for assessing and implementing appropriate clinical interventions for those phenomena. I am particularly interested in cases where requested interventions are invasive or highly consequential, especially when they raise complex questions about first-person authority over the introspectively derived grounds for those requests and about mental competence to consent.

 

More generally, I am interested in how social conditions such as oppression and systemic injustice affect cognition, and in the harms and injustices that can result.

 

I've been the instructor of record for courses in ethics, medical ethics, philosophy of religion, and an introductory course covering topics in metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of mind.