Laura Maguire was born, bred, and buttered in Dublin, Ireland, where she received her BA with Honors from the School of Mental and Moral Science (ye olde world Philosophy) in Trinity College, Dublin. In 2005, she received her PhD in Philosophy from Stanford University. Her dissertation, Inferentialism with an Attitude: An Expressivist Theory of Objectivity, defended the priority of distinctively social discursive practices over the conceptually-contentful mental states of individuals. Her new research concerns the interplay between conscious rational deliberation and the body’s unconscious processing, the roles each plays in action, and the narratives we construct to explain our own actions. This research in the philosophy of mind is informed both by cognitive science, particularly the current trend toward embodiment theories of cognition, and by her own somatic practices. Some questions of interest are: what happens when we tune into and follow the body’s impulses without regard to so-called “rational” motives, or what Nietzsche calls, “surface phenomena of consciousness”? what are the implications of this for agency? and how might developing greater kinesthetic/proprioceptive awareness inform an epistemology of mind?
Sweet Hall
Second Floor, MC 3068
IHUM Fellow: Laura Maguire, PhD