I'm a university lecturer at Leiden University. My main research project is to develop a new concept of 'relativity' and defend its application to a range of phenomena, such as the nature of time and consciousness. I also have an active interest in the philosophy of perception, part-whole structures, social construction, and philosophical methodology.

More information about Martin Lipman

Research

Central philosophical motivation. Much of my philosophical work stems from the strong sense that our overarching worldviews demote too much of what we seem to experience to ways things merely appear to us. I believe this eats into the foundation of our scientific methods and observations, and unjustifiedly destabilizes our common sense picture of the world. We need a framework according to which common beliefs and experiences are largely reflective of how things are. This, I believe, requires that experiences can be of how things are only relative to specific standpoints and not others, without this implying that things cannot genuinely be that way out there in the world. See my work on fragmentalism and standpoints for further details.

Other research interests. Besides this work, I contribute to a few other topics. One of them is philosophical methodology, where I criticize a widely used methodology that equates reality with what is fundamental. Another line of research is perception, where I defend that we stand in a direct perceptual relation to the mind-independent world around us. A third line of research is mereology, where I defend classical mereology, in particular the view that co-located objects (if there are such things), share no parts.

Outreach. For the purpose of outreach, I enjoy talking about such topics as: objectivity, forms of relativism, realism and anti-realism, perception, the importance of commonsense and ordinary experience, social construction, mereology, and anything else loosely associated with my work.

Curriculum Vitae

I have been at Leiden University since 2018.

I am a member of the Young Academy Leiden and associate editor for the journal Inquiry.

I completed my PhD in 2015, at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, under the supervision of Aaron Cotnoir and the late Katherine Hawley.

Grants and awards

The NWO-funded research project, 'A Fragmented World', 2016–2020.