About me

John Dorsch

After my BA (Hons) and MA (Research) at the Centrum für Integrativen Neurowissenschaften at Universität Tübingen, I completed my PhD in Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. I also hold an undergraduate degree in Computer Science and worked for many years in IT as technician and programmer. Now I am a postdoctoral researcher in Philosophy of Mind and Cognition at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) München in the interdisciplinary research lab Cognition, Values, and Behaviour. My research focuses on issues in the philosophy of cognitive science, as well as issues in the ethics of AI. I have published on metacognition, embodiment, the phenomenology of reasoning, and on the foundations of epistemic agency, as well as some vulnerabilities this agency has in the digital age.

Areas of interest:
4E-Cognition, Metacognition, Epistemic Agency, AI ethics, Human-AI interaction

I am working on:

Human-AI Interaction.

I am working on a two-year project exploring the relationship between trust and confidence in human-AI interactions funded by the Bayerisches Forschungsinstitut für Digitale Transformation. 

Metacognition
I investigate the role that embodied expressions of confidence play in bridging the gap between the origins of evaluative and metarepresentational metacognition.

AI Ethics
I am developing an account of how best to conceptualize the threat that AI-generated content exerts on our epistemic agency and autonomy.

I have worked on:

In my PhD dissertation, I developed an account of strongly embodied metacognition and argued it solved various issues facing theories on the origin of self-knowledge.

Publications

Embodied Metacognition: How We Feel Our Hearts to Know Our Minds”(forthcoming).

“Are Noetic Feelings Embodied? The Case for Embodied Metacognition” (forthcoming). Philosophical Psychology. 

“Hijacking Epistemic Agency: How Emerging Technologies Threaten our Wellbeing as Knowers”. (2022). Proceedings of the AAAI and ACM on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, and Society 5. https://doi.org/10.1145/3514094.3539537 

“Descartes on the Passions of the Soul and Internal Emotions: Two Challenges for Interoception Research in Emotions.” joint publication with Helena De Preester. (2021). Danish Yearbook of Philosophy, 54(1), 65-92. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/24689300-bja10021 

“On Experiencing Meaning: Irreducible Cognitive Phenomenology and Sinewave Speech.” (2017). Phenomenology and Mind 12: 218-227. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.13128/Phe_Mi-21120.

“Irreducible Cognitive Phenomenology and the ‘Aha!’ Experience.” (2016). Phenomenology and Mind 10: 108-121. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.13128/Phe_Mi-20095.