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Pär Sundström

I am head of subject for philosophy. Min research focuses on different questions in the philosophy of mind. I teach teacher candidates, and students in philosophy and cognitive science.

Research qualifications: Docent

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A, Humanisthuset, HUM.J.111 Umeå Universitet, 901 87 Umeå

CV (Pdf)

My research focuses on consciousness, perception, colours (and other secondary qualities), concepts (or thinking abilities) and their acquisition, and cognitive development more generally. Here are some themes:


- I think the qualities encountered in perception and sensation ("Galilean qualities" as I like to call them) are not parts of consciousness and that that is important for our understanding of consciousness ("Colour and consciousness" 2007; "A somewhat eliminativist proposal about phenomenal consciousness" 2008; "Two types of qualia theory" 2014).

- I have traced some (unobvious) ways in which cognition is or may be independent of perception ("Lessons for Mary" 2004; "On imagism about phenomenal thought" 2011). But I think that there are some (also unobvious) ways in which cognition depends or can be based on perception ("Hume's missing shade of blue" (in Swedish] 2008; "Are sensory concepts learned by 'abstraction' from experience?" 2018).

- Much of my work hovers around the mind-body problem. I find this problem really hard, and I have yet to come down on either side of the dualism-physicalism divide. I somewhat incline to the latter, but I think physicalism is not easily defended, and not best defended by the "phenomenal concept strategy", or by any close relative of it ("Review of Papineau" 2006; "Is the mystery an illusion?" 2008; "How physicalist can—and cannot—explain the seeming 'absurdity' of physicalism" 2017).

- I think there is important truth in a classic, "descriptivist" idea that we can think about (many) things only "via their properties" (work in progress).

- There are many, very different "transparency-of-experience" theses, and it is important to keep them apart ("Two types of qualia theory" 2014; "What is the transparency of experience and what follows from it?"(in Swedish 2015), "Visual experience" 2020).

- I'm interested in arguments that assume some form of "common-factor view" about perception and concludes that what we experience, or directly experience, in perception is a narrow range of properties and nothing particular. I'm undecided about whether one should accept the premises and therefore the conclusions of these arguments, or reject the conclusions and therefore some premise. ("On representationalism, common-factorism, and whether consciousness is here and now" 2018; "Visual experience" 2020).

- Every third day I believe that all colours are visually complex ("Lessons for Mary" 2004; "Are colours visually complex?" 2013).

Svensk filosofi 2022
Sundström, Pär
The Oxford Handbook of the philosophy of consciousness, Oxford University Press 2020 : 39-65
Sundström, Pär
Philosophical Studies, Springer 2019, Vol. 176, (10) : 2539-2550
Sundström, Pär
Erkenntnis, Springer 2019, Vol. 84, (5) : 1159-1178
Sundström, Pär
Philosophy and phenomenological research, Blackwell Publishing 2018, Vol. 97, (3) : 681-703
Sundström, Pär
Filosofisk Tidskrift, Bokforlaget Thales 2015, Vol. 36, (3)
Sundström, Pär
Harvard Review of Philosophy, Harward review of philosophy 2014, Vol. 20 : 107-131
Sundström, Pär
Johanssonian Investigations: Essays in Honour of Ingvar Johansson on His Seventieth Birthday, Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag 2013 : 627-639
Sundström, Pär
Philosophical Review, Vol. 120, (1) : 43-95
Sundström, Pär
Philosophy Compass, Blackwell Publishing 2011, Vol. 6, (4) : 267-281
Sundström, Pär
Reduction and Elimination in Philosophy and the Sciences: Papers of the 31st International Wittgenstein Symposium, The Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society: Kirchberg am Wechsel 2008 : 340-342
Sundström, Pär
Filosofisk tidskrift, (3) : 18-33
Sundström, Pär
Synthese, Springer Netherlands 2008, Vol. 163, (2) : 133-143
Sundström, Pär
Hommage à Wlodek: philosophical papers dedicated to Wlodek Rabinowicz
Sundström, Pär
Philosophical Studies, Vol. 136 : 123-165
Sundström, Pär
Västerbottens-Kuriren, Västerbottens-Kuriren AB 2007, (2007-08-11)
Sundström, Pär
Sveriges television 2005
Sundström, Pär
Erfahrung und Analyse : Akten des 27. Internationalen Wittgenstein-Symposiums, 8. bis 14. August 2004, Kirchberg am Wechsel (Österreich) = Experience and Analysis: Papers of the 27th International Wittgenstein Symposium, Wien: The Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society 2004 : 367-9
Sundström, Pär
Umeå Preprints in Philosophy, 2002:1
Lindström, Sten; Sundström, Pär
Physicalism, Consciousness and Modality: Essays in the Philosophy of Mind, Department of Philosophy and Linguistics, Umeå 2002 : 65-94
Sundström, Pär

Research projects

1 January 2020 until 31 December 2022