What initially led you to pursue a career in philosophy?
In a nutshell: curiosity. I have been interested in philosophical questions from a very young age – like whether there is a god, why there is evil, or whether the world is even real. As a teenager, I was reading voraciously – Freud, Marx, Plato, Kant, de Beauvoir, the Frankfurt School, basically whatever the local library had to offer. This interest in philosophy has never seized, just changed in its specific focus, and there continue to be many areas of philosopy I would love to study more deeply.
While I was pretty certain that I wanted to study philosophy, I initially did not have a clear intention to pursue an academic career. In fact, the idea never occurred to me until I was encouraged to do so by my professors. I have always kept a “plan B” in mind, given the uncertainty and competitiveness of this career path. But at every major decision point (should I do a Phd, apply for postdoc positions, etc.), I found that I was not done with philosophy yet.
Last but not least, I moved around quite a bit—studying and working at universities in Germany, Sweden, the UK, the US, and now Denmark. I met the most amazing people along the way, interested in the same sort of weird questions that have always fascinated me. So philosophy has also become a kind of intellectual home for me.
Over the course of your academic career, which philosophical questions 18 have interested you the most, and why?
This has changed quite a lot over the years. I was initially drawn to critical theory and the philosophy of religion. Then I discovered logic and analytic philosophy, and fell in love with philosophy of language and philosophy of science. Centrally, I am interested in what we can know about the world and how that knowledge is shaped not just by logic and evidence, but also by language, history, and socio-political factors. My PhD focused on the role of values in science, using gender-specific medicine as a case study. Since then, I’ve been especially focused on how stereotypes and social biases impact scientific practices and results—particularly in medicine and psychiatry—and how we might address these problems.
What is the most significant change in philosophy that you have witnessed since you began working in the field?
I think there has been a significant increase in diversity: both in terms of the kind of people doing philosophy, and of the kind of philosophy they do. There is a greater range of topics and methods being taken seriously today than when I was a student. Of course, inequalities and discrimination persist, but I think the discipline has been moving in the right direction by becoming more inclusive. This is not just a matter of social justice, though that is crucial. It also makes for better philosophy by bringing more perspectives to the table, challenging old assumptions, and widening the set of questions pursued.
If you had to choose your greatest philosophical inspiration or hero, who would it be and why?
There are many philosophers who have been deeply influential to me, for example Ludwig Wittgenstein, Willard V. O. Quine, Thomas Kuhn, Helen Longino, or Miranda Fricker (to name just a few). But I am hesitant to pick philosophical “heroes”. Firstly, I don’t fully agree with any one thinker, and secondly, I think 19 the idea of philosophical heroism reinforces an unhelpful model of philosophy as the work of isolated geniuses. In contrast to this, I think of philosophy (and science) as a shared practice, where ideas are developed in dialogue and critical discussion.