Hi, I'm Jes. I'm a writer and PhD Candidate in Philosophy at UC Berkeley. For AY 2022-2023, I will be an Exchange Scholar at Harvard University.
My philosophical interests lie broadly in embodiment, self-knowledge, philosophy of psychology, and social epistemology. Currently, I am writing a dissertation about the conceptual, epistemic, and ethical dimensions of gut feelings. Although gut feelings are common to our lives, they are philosophically and epistemically problematic kind. I defend gut feelings against conceptual, epistemic, and ethical challenges. First, my conception of gut feelings gives primacy to our bodily feelings as non-neutral revelatory appraisals. Second, I attempt to address how and when gut feelings are epistemically justified. Can we gain “knowledge” from our gut feelings, and if so, what is the nature of this knowledge? Drawing from literature on skilled action and social cognition, I express optimism about the inferential self-knowledge we can gain from our gut feelings. Lastly, I explore the ethical dimensions of gut feelings. Evidence suggests that what might appear to a subject as an “inner knowing” is liable to reflect our implicit biases and prejudices. I conclude by arguing that being a responsible epistemic agent requires a commitment to hypothesizing about the life experiences, biases, instincts, and beliefs that inform our gut feelings.
My philosophical interest in embodiment and interoception has its roots in a number of somatic practices. To this end, I teach meditation. Additionally, I am training to become a Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner to enrich my meditation teaching and to better understand the nature of interoception and healing for traumatized individuals.
My philosophical interests lie broadly in embodiment, self-knowledge, philosophy of psychology, and social epistemology. Currently, I am writing a dissertation about the conceptual, epistemic, and ethical dimensions of gut feelings. Although gut feelings are common to our lives, they are philosophically and epistemically problematic kind. I defend gut feelings against conceptual, epistemic, and ethical challenges. First, my conception of gut feelings gives primacy to our bodily feelings as non-neutral revelatory appraisals. Second, I attempt to address how and when gut feelings are epistemically justified. Can we gain “knowledge” from our gut feelings, and if so, what is the nature of this knowledge? Drawing from literature on skilled action and social cognition, I express optimism about the inferential self-knowledge we can gain from our gut feelings. Lastly, I explore the ethical dimensions of gut feelings. Evidence suggests that what might appear to a subject as an “inner knowing” is liable to reflect our implicit biases and prejudices. I conclude by arguing that being a responsible epistemic agent requires a commitment to hypothesizing about the life experiences, biases, instincts, and beliefs that inform our gut feelings.
My philosophical interest in embodiment and interoception has its roots in a number of somatic practices. To this end, I teach meditation. Additionally, I am training to become a Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner to enrich my meditation teaching and to better understand the nature of interoception and healing for traumatized individuals.