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Kevin Reuter

Senior Lecturer

Philosophy and Logic unit
Mail
kevin.reuter@gu.se
Visiting address
Renströmsgatan 6
41255 Göteborg
Postal address
Box 200
40530 Göteborg

About Kevin Reuter

Background

SNSF Eccellenza Professor at the University of Zurich (2019-2024), Lecturer in theoretical philosophy at the University of Bern (2015-2019), Postdoc at the University of Bochum (2012-2015), and PhD (2012, University of London) on introspection. BA and MA in physics from the Technical University of Munich.

Research

My research is situated at the intersection of philosophy of mind, language, and science, as well as experimental philosophy, with broader interests in epistemology and conceptual engineering. I am involved in several research projects that combine philosophical analysis with empirical and corpus-linguistic methods.

One major line of my research examines how evaluative meaning is embedded in everyday concepts. I focus on dual character concepts—terms like “artist” or “scientist” that combine factual and normative dimensions—and thick concepts, such as “irrational” or “honest”, which carry both descriptive content and evaluative force. My work aims to clarify the structure of these concepts and how they guide social judgment. In collaborative studies, we introduced the “polarity effect”, which reveals systematic differences between positive and negative evaluative terms in how they express approval or disapproval.

A second strand of my work challenges standard accounts of pain and emotion attribution. I defend a bodily view of pain, argue that people distinguish between felt and unfelt pain, and examine the moral and normative dimensions of emotion concepts.

Third, I work in the growing field of conceptual engineering. My recent work investigates the ambiguity of “true” in empirical discourse and proposes a pluralistic framework to improve public reasoning. I have also proposed ways to reframe discussions around conspiracy theories by introducing more neutral conceptual alternatives.

A fourth project focuses on the role of salience and similarity in concept representation and reasoning. This work aims to integrate philosophical theory with empirical tools from psychology and linguistics, with applications ranging from health and pain to truth and conspiracy theory.

Teaching

During autumn semester 2025, I teach the undergraduate epistemology module and philosophy of language modules at the Master’s level.

Please get in touch via kevin.reuter@gu.se.