Eva Gentner

I am an interdisciplinary researcher at the intersection of philosophy, psychedelic research, and cognitive sciences, currently undertaking a PhD in Psychology. With a background in the humanities, my work engages with several interrelated areas: psychedelic studies for mental health purposes, philosophical and scientific investigations into consciousness and cognition, the study of technological transformation and its societal implications, while understanding art as a medium of the human condition itself.

In my dissertation on Psychedelic Aesthetics, I apply aesthetic philosophy to the psychedelic experience, analysing its phenomenology to gain insights into human perception and judgement, and the ways these shape individual epistemological and ontological viewpoints. At the heart of my research lies the inquiry into the notions of beauty, the sublime, and love as they manifest in altered states of mind, and the ways in which these categories reveal the fluid and malleable nature of identity and meaning. I explore how a deeper understanding of aesthetic judgement can ground a more resilient and adaptive approach to life, particularly relevant in a period of paradigmatic, systemic, and potentially ontological change driven by the advancement of artificial intelligence. I argue that establishing everyday life as an aesthetic practice can hold profound implications for the pursuit of a life well-lived on an individual level, and for human flourishing more broadly. My research is supervised by Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes and Joel Krueger, and I am part of the Philosophy and Psychedelics Research Group.