Welcome to my website. I am currently a McDonnell Postdoctoral Fellow at Washington University in St. Louis. I received my PhD in philosophy from the University of California, Irvine in 2024.

My work focuses on mental representation and perception (especially vision). I focus on these issues in both early modern and present-day contexts. I am also interested in these issues as they arise in medieval philosophy.

The two historical figures I have been most interested in for the last several years are George Berkeley (the focus of my dissertation) and the medieval natural philosopher Ibn al-Haytham. I am also a big fan of Locke, Reid, Kant, and Helmholtz, among others.

Within present-day philosophy of mind and philosophy of neuroscience, I am interested in what it takes for the brain to produce representational vehicles that are usable by organisms for the guidance of thought or action. I am also interested in what it takes to assign a semantics to these vehicles: can we do so by appeal to biological functions alone? Do we need a stronger kind of normativity? What would it take for the content carried by one of these vehicles to be a creature’s reason for action?

For more, check out my research page.

You can download my CV here.

You can contact me at: sommerse [at] wustl [dot] edu

(The cat? His name is Ptolemy. He enjoys headbutting people, knocking things to the floor, shouting, and waking me at 4am for a fresh drink of water. His older brother Malcolm (who is also a cat) is not pictured here but must be mentioned for the sake of fairness).