Nikolai Shurakov

Nikolai Shurakov is a Junior Research Fellow (0.5 FTE) at the University of Tartu's Institute of Philosophy and Semiotics within the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. He specializes in experimental philosophy of language and epistemology, focusing on context sensitivity in knowledge and lying judgments. His career includes a Master's (2020) and ongoing PhD research on 'Knowing Indexicals' under supervisors Alexander Davies and Alexander Wiegmann.

Education:

• Bachelor’s in Philosophy, Saint Petersburg State University (Russia)
• MA in Humanities (Philosophy), University of Tartu (2018–2020)

Research Interests: Nikolai’s work examines how contextual factors influence epistemic ascriptions and lie judgments, with recent projects exploring AI alignment with human moral reasoning (e.g., GPT-4’s lie detection). He investigates intersections between language use, ethics, and social contexts, particularly in slurs and effability.

Publications: Recent work bridges experimental philosophy with AI ethics, analyzing cross-cultural judgments about lying and AI’s moral reasoning. Key themes include contextualism in epistemology and socio-political dimensions of language.

Awards:

• 2024 Yale Center Fellowship
• 2023 Utrecht & DAAD Grants

Teaching & Service: Teaches logic and philosophy of language courses. Served as thesis evaluator and organizer for conferences on philosophy of religion and legal semantics.

Current Project: Leads a funded investigation (€268k) on metacontexts stabilizing legal text interpretation (Estonia’s Road Conditions Ordinance).