I am an Assistant Professor at the Munich Centre for Mathematical Philosophy, at LMU München. I was previously a Junior Fellow at FU Berlin, as part of the Human Abilities research group, and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Universität Leipzig, as part of the Humboldt Project on connections between analytic philosophy and German idealism.
Before moving to Germany, I lived and studied in the UK. I did a BA in Philosophy, Psychology and Physiology at the University of Oxford, and then an MPhil and PhD in Philosophy at UCL.
My primary research interests are in the philosophy of action. In my PhD I focused on the relationship between intentional agency, responsibility and causation, addressing a wide range of action-kinds, including the creation and change of abstract artworks. I am now further developing my work on this issue, alongside work on other aspects of intentional agency, such as our knowledge of what we are doing when doing something intentionally, and (beliefs about) our abilities to act or refrain from acting.
Other agency-related topics that I think, write and teach on include practical reason and rationality, the sense of agency, mental action, collective action and social practices. More broadly, I’m interested in moral psychology, philosophy of mind and social philosophy.
I’m keen to help improve practices in academic philosophy and support students and colleagues from groups that are under-represented in the field. I’m currently acting as a deputy women’s officer for the LMU Faculty of Philosophy, Philosophy of Science and Religious Studies — for information on the roles of LMU’s women’s officers and related services, see here.
Vanessa Carr 