Postdoctoral Fellow | Society of Fellows, Dartmouth College
tiina [dot] rosenqvist [at] gmail [dot] com
Research
A central focus of my research is on how humans and other animals perceive, interact with, and interpret their environments, with an emphasis on visual perception and pain. I am particularly interested in the functions of perceptual systems and the subject-dependence of perceptual experience. I take an interdisciplinary approach to my work, integrating insights from various fields such as neuroscience, psychology, and visual ecology. I also take seriously the problem cases that often get overlooked in the philosophical literature. These include interpersonal and interspecies variation, illusions, and purported instances of top-down modulation of sensory experience. I seek to maximize the explanatory power of my views, build bridges between disciplines, and expound on the idea that minded organisms are embodied agents coupled closely to their environments. [LEARN MORE]
Another key aspect of my research focuses on pain and suffering, with an emphasis on testimonial exchanges surrounding pain. Chronic pain, normally defined as pain lasting for three months or longer, is a public health challenge, a leading cause of disability, and a source of considerable emotional distress for many people. Despite meaningful efforts to reduce the burden of pain and tackle the challenges in its treatment, many chronic pain patients continue to report dissatisfaction with the care they receive. A commonly reported issue is "credibility deficits" in clinical contexts: chronic pain patients often feel that their pain testimony is unfairly doubted or dismissed by doctors and other clinicians. My goal is to contribute to the improved quality of care for individuals with persistent pain using the tools and methods of philosophy. The project combines philosophy of science, social epistemology, phenomenology, medical ethics, and conceptual engineering to achieve this aim. [LEARN MORE]
Additionally, I have interests in metaphilosophy and cross-cultural philosophy.
Peer-Reviewed Publications
JOURNAL ARTICLES
SEEING WITH COLOR: PSYCHOPHYSICS AND THE FUNCTION OF COLOR VISION. Synthese 202, 20 (2023).
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-023-04226-y Use this link for view-only, full-text access: https://rdcu.be/dgk7j
BOOK CHAPTERS
THE PAIN SYSTEM IS NOT A BODILY DISTURBANCE DETECTOR. In: Cuevas-Badallo, A., Martín-Villuendas, M., Gefaell, J. (eds) Life and Mind: Theoretical and Applied Issues in Contemporary Philosophy of Biology and Cognitive Sciences. Springer, Cham (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-70847-3_5 / Accepted version.
COLOR AND COMPETENCE: A NEW VIEW OF COLOR PERCEPTION. In: Viejo, J.M., Sanjuán, M. (eds) Life and Mind. Interdisciplinary Evolution Research, vol 8. Springer, Cham. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30304-3_5 Use this link for view-only, full-text access: https://rdcu.be/df3Zl
PUBLIC / ACCESSIBLE PHILOSOPHY
PHILOSOPHY OF COLOR. 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology (2023).
https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2023/10/26/philosophy-of-color/
Works in Progress
[*] "Perceptual Competences and the Primary/Secondary Quality Distinction." ABSTRACT
[*] "Philosophy of Color: A Novel Typology." ABSTRACT
[*] "Pain, Color, and Agent-Centered Perception." ABSTRACT
[*] “Chronic pain, credibility, and clinical practice” ABSTRACT
[*] “Engineering the concept of pain for clinical practice” ABSTRACT
[*] “Agency, Chronic Pain, and Medical Gaslighting”
[*] “Chronic Pain and the Phenomenal World”
[*] “Pain and Cognitive Penetration: Insights from Neuroscience”
[*] "What Perceptual Agreement Does and Doesn't Show"
Recent and Upcoming Presentations (Selected)
"Chronic Pain, Credibility, and Clinical Practice"
— American Philosophical Association (APA) Central Division Meeting. 2025. Refereed.
"Engineering the Concept of Pain for Clinical Practice"
— Painreaders Workshop, Tampere University, Finland. 2024. Invited.
Comments on Tiia Annala & Jaana Parviainen's "Bodily knowledge of persistent pain: a phenomenological perspective of managing pain through movement in rehabilitation"
— Painreaders Workshop, Tampere University, Finland. 2024. Invited.
"Engineering the Concept of Pain for Clinical Practice"
— Dartmouth Early-Career Workshop on Philosophy of Pain, Hanover, NH, USA. 2024.
"Chronic Pain, Credibility, and Clinical Practice"
— Northwest Philosophy Conference (NPC), Portland, OR, USA. 2024. Refereed.
Comments on Callie McGrath’s “Color Physicalism and Hue-Resemblance: A Novel Objection”
— Northwest Philosophy Conference (NPC), Portland, OR, USA. 2024. Invited.
"Pain, Color, and Agent-Centered Perception"
— International Society for the Philosophy of the Sciences of the Mind (ISPSM) Webconference. 2024. Refereed.
"Pain and Color Perception: A Unified, Agent-centered Account"
— Canadian Philosophical Association (ACPA) Annual Conference, Montréal, Canada. 2024. Refereed.
"Seeing with Color: Psychophysics and the Function of Color Vision"
— phiVis: Philosophy of Vision Science Workshop, Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS), St. Pete Beach, FL, USA. 2024. Invited.
"Pain, Color, and Agent-Centered Perception"
— Color and Pain Workshop, Dartmouth, NH, USA. 2024. Invited.
"Pain and Color Perception: A Unified, Agent-centered Account"
— Midsouth Philosophy Conference, Memphis, TS, USA. 2024. Refereed.
"PHILSKILLS: A Skill-based Approach to Teaching Philosophy"
— Midsouth Philosophy Conference, Memphis, TS, USA. 2024. Refereed.
Comments on Rachel Rudolph's "Engineering Conceptual Prototypes"
— Midsouth Philosophy Conference, Memphis, TS, USA. 2024. Invited.
"Perceptual Competences and the Primary/Secondary Quality Distinction"
— Kinds of Concsciousness Webconference, University of Connecticut, USA. 2024. Refereed.
"Perceptual Competences and the Primary/Secondary Quality Distinction"
— International Society for the Philosophy of the Sciences of the Mind (ISPSM) Webconference. 2023. Refereed.
"Pain, Its Function, and Why it Matters"
— Dartmouth Cognitive Science Program Weekly Speaker Series, Hanover, NH, USA. 2023. Invited.
"Perceptual Competences and the Primary/Secondary Quality Distinction"
— Society for Philosophy and Psychology (SPP) Annual Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. 2023. Refereed.
"Pain is not a Bodily Disturbance Detector"
— Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology (SSPP) Annual Conference, Louisville, KY, USA. 2023. Refereed.
"Pain is not a Bodily Disturbance Detector"
— Philosophy of Biology and Cognitive Sciences (PBCS) XI, University of Salamanca-ECyT, Spain. 2022. Refereed.
“Seeing with Color: Insights from Psychophysics”
— The 3rd Context, Cognition and Communication Conference: Varieties of Meaning and Content, University of Warsaw, Poland. 2022. Refereed.
“Seeing with Color: Insights from Psychophysics”
— The 3rd Joint Conference of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology (SPP) and the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology (ESPP), University of Milan, Italy. 2022. Refereed.
“Seeing with Color: Insights from Psychophysics”
— Language, Culture and Mind 9: Sensory Experience and Communication, University of Almería, Spain. 2022. Refereed.
Comments on Christopher Masciari's "Contingent Perceptual Experience"
— Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology (SSPP) Annual Conference, Mobile, AL, USA. 2022. Invited.
"What (on Earth) Are Color Visual Systems Doing?"
— Virtual Vision Futures, York University, Canada (delivered virtually). 2021. Refereed.
"Color Illusions and the "Competence-Embeddedness" of Color Perception"
— Philosophy of Biology and Cognitive Sciences (PBCS) X, Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain (delivered virtually). 2021. Refereed.
“Philosophy of Color: Lessons from Neuroscience?”
— 6th Annual Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (SCAN) Retreat, University of Pennsylvania, USA. 2020.
Invited.
Dissertation Summary
The mainstream view in contemporary analytic philosophy is that perception is primarily in the business of representing the mind-independent world as it is. My dissertation explores an alternative conception: that the goal of perception is to guide successful action and that perceptions do not need to track mind-independent properties to play this action-guiding role. I focus on two types of perception: color perception and pain perception. I start with the former and advocate a pragmatist, empirically-guided approach which begins by inquiring into the function of color vision. After arguing that none of the extant philosophical views of color are satisfactory, I answer the function question by focusing on systematic color perceptual phenomena investigated by psychophysicists. I argue that the human color visual system is an enhancement system: that is, its job is to help us better discriminate, track, and recognize meaningful objects, properties, and relations. I then build on this idea using the notion of ‘competence-embeddedness.’ I propose that color vision is embedded in a network of competences: the aim of color vision is to help organisms manifest these competences, and color experiences are correct when they result from competence-enhancing processing. The framework is explanatorily robust. For example, it allows me to conceptualize many textbook color illusions as special cases of successful color perception where the demands of the relevant competences clash. Finally, I use the notion of ‘competence-embeddedness’ to develop a new account of pain. I argue that the pain system is not a bodily disturbance detector, but a sophisticated, context-responsive security system whose primary goal is to help organisms manifest important behavioral and cognitive competences.