Francesca D'Alessandris

I work in aesthetics and the philosophy of fiction, with a focus on aesthetic cognitivism: whether, and how, art can be a genuine source of understanding. As a Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow in the Arts and Minds Lab at TU Berlin, I am currently investigating how engagement with fiction contributes to self-understanding, combining philosophical analysis with empirical research on the cognitive effects of art. My broader interests include value theory, the philosophy of emotion, aesthetic experience and predictive processing theory, and the theory of atmospheres. I also draw on the phenomenological and hermeneutic traditions, particularly Paul Ricœur.

Before Berlin, I was a Swiss Government Excellence Scholar in the Thumos group at the University of Geneva and a Visiting Researcher at the Institut Jean Nicod (ENS, Paris). I hold PhDs from EHESS / Fondazione San Carlo (Philosophy and Social Sciences) and from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Aesthetics and Educational Sciences). My monograph on narrative identity in Ricœur was published by ETS in 2023.