Jonathan S. Phillips

Jonathan S. Phillips is an Assistant Professor in the Program in Cognitive Science at Dartmouth College, with affiliations in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and the Department of Philosophy. He directs the PhilLab, which explores cognition through interdisciplinary methods integrating philosophy, psychology, linguistics, and computer science.

• Education:
  • B.A., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
  • Ph.D., Yale University (Philosophy/Psychology)

Research focuses on modal cognition, including how humans represent possibilities (possible worlds), moral judgment, causal reasoning, and theory of mind. The lab investigates how these representations influence language and decision-making, with empirical work spanning fMRI studies, computational modeling, and developmental psychology.

Recent publications examine modal decomposition, counterfactual neural substrates, and moral constraints on possibility representation. Collaborators include scholars from Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and MIT. The lab has trained graduate students in Cognitive Science and Psychology, with alumni pursuing computational, moral, and developmental research.