About
Since 2024, I have been a postdoctoral researcher at the Chair of Philosophy of Language and Mind at the Collège de France (Paris).
My research investigates the structure of mental representation sharing and transmission in humans. This involves examining various phenomena related to communication, attitude attributions, interpretations of agreement and disagreement, joint attention, and inner speech.
I am also working on a project exploring the connections between language, behavior, society, and health. Further details will be shared in due course!
Before joining the Chair of Philosophy of Language and Mind, I coordinated the creation of research-based resources within the Conseil Scientifique de l'Éducation Nationale to improve mathematics education. This experience has intensified my interest in education and mathematical cognition. It also made me realize how central issues of mental representation sharing and communication are in mathematics education. I aim to continue contributing to education in future projects.
I obtained my PhD in December 2022 from the Institut Jean Nicod, École Normale Supérieure (Paris). One of the main questions I have sought to answer is how we can explain successful communication. I argue that communication does not involve the replication of thought from speaker to hearer, but rather a form of coordination of thoughts. My goal has been to characterize and explain interpersonal coordination so construed. Part of my current work involves continuing to publish the results of this project.
Publications
Shareability of Thought and Frege’s Constraint: A Reply to Onofri
Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy (2022)
Romain Bourdoncle
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Onofri [Onofri, A. 2018. ‘The Publicity of Thought.’ Philosophical Quarterly 68 (272): 521–541.] proposes an individuation criterion for thoughts that purports to satisfy both shareability (the notion that different thinkers, or a single thinker at different times, can and generally do think type-identical thoughts) and Frege's constraint (according to which two thoughts are different if it is possible for a rational subject to endorse one while rejecting the other). I argue that his proposal fails to satisfy Frege's constraint. Then I propose a modification to Onofri's proposal to fix the problem.
L'Opacité du contenu dans la communication
Klēsis Revue Philosophique (forthcoming)
Romain Bourdoncle & Michael Murez
Samethinking
PhD Dissertation, École Normale Supérieure (2022)
Romain Bourdoncle
details
Teaching
As instructor:
- Computer science and philosophy, fall 2021, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.
- Language and thought, fall 2019, Université PSL.
As teaching assistant:
- La dynamique cognitive, 2025, Collège de France (Course taught by Prof. Recanati).
- Introduction to the philosophy of mind & cognitive science, 2017-2019, École Normale Supérieure.
Contact
Feel free to reach out.
Collège de France
11 Pl. Marcelin Berthelot
75005 Paris, France
romain [dot] bourdoncle [at] college-de-france [dot] fr
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4056-3265
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