Ella Whiteley

I am a Fellow in Philosophy at the LSE's Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method.

My research interests lie primarily in the ethical and political dimensions of epistemology, cognitive science, and language. A key focus of mine that unites these areas is the philosophy of salience. For me, salience is not about (mental, linguistic, etc.,) content, but rather the structuring and presentation of content, so that some is more prominent than others. I analyse the normative dimensions of salience. My research is grounded in the conviction that mere patterns of salience can cause or constitute discrimination, a harm or an epistemic flaw. For instance, one can, I suggest, mislead someone about a topic by making the wrong thing salient in language, or harm a social group by having the wrong thing about them salient in one’s attention. My work thus draws out the subtlest ways our cognition, language, and social institutions can ‘go wrong’, politically, ethically, and epistemically. This is one reason that salience is a fascinating area; it intersects with a range of topics, from political philosophy to epistemology.

Another core research interest is the philosophy of work. Since joining the 'Invisible Labour Project' in Cambridge University in 2019 (a project set up by Paulina Sliwa, Arathi Sriprakash, and Tyler Denmead), I have become particularly interested in the topic of hidden work. Questions I examine include: which of our activities don’t get counted or valued as ‘work’?; which ideological narratives function to obscure how those activities count as ‘labour'?; do certain of these narratives affect particular social groups more than others?

Other interests of mine lie in the philosophies of biology and aesthetics.