Assistant Professor of Philosophy, NYU Shanghai
Email: lt77@nyu.edu
Office: Room 1219, 1555 Century Ave, Shanghai
Perception, Imagining and Mental Imagery, Memory, Cognitive Penetration, Rationality and justification of beliefs
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.
2016 Ph.D., Philosophy, Cornell University
2013 M.A., Philosophy, Cornell University
2009 B.A., Philosophy, Wuhan University
2016 – present Assistant Professor of Philosophy, NYU Shanghai
2016 – 2017 Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Philosophical Psychology, University of Antwerp
2020.1 – 2022.12 Shanghai Eastern Junior Scholar
2018.9 – 2020.8 Shanghai Pujiang Junior Scholar
- Teng, L. (forthcoming) “Cognitive Penetration: Inference or Fabrication?” Australasian Journal of Philosophy
- Teng, L. (2018) “Is Phenomenal Force Sufficient for Immediate Perceptual Justification?” Synthese 195 (2): 637-656.
- Teng, L. (2016) “Cognitive Penetration, Imagining, and the Downgrade Thesis”, Philosophical Topics 44 (2): 405-426.