I am Professor of Cognitive Anthropology in the Department of Philosophy at Leipzig University. In addition, I am PI at the Humboldt Science Center for Child Development, and an alumna of the Junge Akademie. I currently also serve on the editorial board of the journals Philosophical Psychology and Philosophisches Jahrbuch. During the summer term 2023 I was a Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities “Human Abilities” in Berlin.
Before coming to Leipzig, I was Junior Professor of Neurophilosophy in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Magdeburg. Prior to that, I was a Fellow in the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at the London School of Economics and Deputy Director of the Forum for European Philosophy. I obtained my PhD from the Humboldt-University in Berlin.
Broadly speaking, my research interests are in philosophy of mind, philosophy of cognitive science and social epistemology. In particular, I am interested in self-consciousness, social cognition, the distinction between conceptual and nonconceptual forms of representation, the relation between personal and subpersonal level explanations, and the nature and origins of normativity. More recently, I have become interested in the role of the emotions for our abilities for self-understanding and our engagement with the world. Part of my research consists in exploring what a developmental perspective on these and related topics can reveal. Moreover, I am curious about the relation between humans and non-human animals (both with respect to the cognitive abilities of non-human animals and with respect to animal ethics). My research is guided by the belief that there can be mutually beneficial relations between philosophy and empirical research.
Contact: kristina.musholt at uni-leipzig.de
Kristina Musholt 