Lu Teng

Professor Teng works on three connected research projects. The first is about how to explain the power of perceptual experiences to justify beliefs about the external world. One important theory in philosophy claims that perceptual experiences have the justificatory power that imaginings and beliefs lack because the former have a distinctive kind of phenomenology—subjects of perceptual experiences feel as if they are assured of the truth of these experiences. She rejects this theory by presenting counterexamples from imaginings, as well as by questioning the claimed perceptual nature of such phenomenology.  The second project is about whether perceptual experiences can be causally influenced by beliefs, expectations, emotions, and other kinds of cognitive sate, and what implication this has for the discussion of perceptual justification in philosophy. She is particularly interested in the etiological role of imaginings in such cognitive influences and how the discussion of the justificatory power, or lack of it, of imaginings sheds light on that of perceptual justification. Regarding the latter issue, she thinks that a distinction between personal-level and subpersonal-level processes and states is useful for the epistemological discussion. The third project explores various issues from the second project in the context of episodic memories. She is interested in the relationship between episodic memories and imaginings, and whether the revealed constructions involved some episodic memories share a similar structure that the cognitive influences on perceptions have. She is also keen to examine how to account for memorial justification in philosophy in light of the discussion of the previous questions.