I’m a philosopher working on the nature of phenomenal consciousness, with focus on inner awareness (“for-me-ness”), acquaintance, Russellian monism, and related topics.
I work as a Research Fellow in the Department of Analytic Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague (Czech Republic). Additionally, I serve as an External Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies at Charles University, Faculty of Philosophy.
I work as the principal investigator of the Monism and the Subjectivity Challenge research project, funded by the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR).
In 2022/23, I was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the NYU Center for Mind, Brain and Consciousness with Prof. David Chalmers as my research advisor.
From 2019 to 2021, I worked at the University of Hertfordshire (Hatfield, UK) as the main investigator of The Consciousness & Matter Project with Dr. Sam Coleman as my research advisor.
I received my PhD from Charles University in Prague, in December 2016. The title of my thesis was “Consciousness in Nature. A Russellian Approach” and my PhD advisor was Prof. James Hill, PhD.
Recent:
It was great to be able to discuss AI and consciousness with Anna from the Glitchatorio podcast. You can listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify.
A paper I’ve co-written with Tomáš Marvan, entitled “Neurophenomenal structuralism as a general theory of consciousness?”, has now been published (open-access), in Philosophy and the Mind Sciences. Read the abstract and the paper here. (October 2025)
Very pleased that my research project Monism and the Subjectivity Challenge has received funding from the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR). This three-year (2025-27) project aims to investigate how various monistic theories of consciousness can make sense of the subjective, or “for me” dimension of phenomenal consciousness. The research team includes Prof. James Hill (Charles University), Doc. Tomáš Marvan (Czech Academy of Sciences), and doctoral student Mgr. Milan Zeman (Charles University). More information to follow. (January 2025)
I’m happy to be a co-organizer of the upcoming Conscious AI? Functionalism and its Alternatives workshop, with Anil Seth and Kathinka Evers as our keynote speakers. Here is the Call for Papers with the deadline for submissions of abstracts at the end of February 2025.
It was nice to debate the philosophical significance of technologies, such as virtual reality and AI, as part of the ArtCafé show on Czech Radio’s Vltava station. I tried to explain how these technologies allow us to approach traditional philosophical questions about reality or ‘other minds’ in new, interesting ways. You can listen to the recording here.
What does Neo in the Matrix movie learn after swallowing the red pill? This is one of the questions I asked Prof. David Chalmers (NYU) in an extensive interview, recently published in Filosofický časopis (2024/1), the leading Czech philosophy journal. The interview was my attempt to introduce the main areas of Prof. Chalmers’ work, including consciousness, AI, virtual reality, scrutability and a priority, to the Czech philosophical public.
I contributed an article (in Czech) about my research fellowship an NYU and my family’s life in New York City to the Fulbright Reality Czech blog. And here is a rough English translation (thank you, DeepL).
What Is Consciousness and How We Know It (video) – This is a super-short talk aimed at non-experts, in which I introduce my current research. It was part of the 6-Minute Challenge event, organized by the New York Chapter of the Czechoslovak Society of Arts & Sciences (SVU).
My paper “Inner Awareness as a Mark of the Mental” is now out in Phenomenology and Mind (22, 2022) in a special issue, entitled Mind, Language, and The First-Person Perspective.
I took part in the “Vědomí ve fyzickém světě: ‘Těžký problém’, či iluze?” (“Consciousness in the Physical World: a ‘Hard Problem’, or an Illusion?” public debate (in Czech) with Tomáš Hříbek and Juraj Hvorecký. Watch the debate on YouTube here.
An article (in Czech) on Vědavýzkum.cz about my recent research project, entitled The Consciousness & Matter Project.
Jakub Mihálik 