Thor Grünbaum

Short presentation

Joint appointment:

Section for Philosophy and Department of Psychology

Head of the Cognition, Intention, and Action Group (CoInAct)

Head of Study: BSc in Cognitive Data Science

My research interests:

• philosophy of action/mind (planning, intentions, control, practical knowledge, consciousness)
• philosophy of psychological science (measures, explanation, underdetermination, methodology)
• cognitive science (sense of agency, prospective memory, action control, consciousness).

Selected Publications (for a full list)

Philosophy of action and mind:

• Grünbaum, T. (forthcoming). Intentions, Planning, and Prospective Memory. In A. Sant’Anna & C. F. Craver (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Memory. Oxford University Press. [request preprint]
• Junker, F. T., & Grünbaum, T. (2024). Is the wandering mind a planning mind? Mind & Language, 39(5), 706-725. [oa publisher]
• Grünbaum, T. (2024). Responsibility for Forgetting To Do. Erkenntnis, 89(2), 755-776. [pdf / publisher]
• Lange, V., & Grünbaum, T. (2024). Transparency and the mindfulness opacity hypothesis. The Philosophical Quarterly, 74 (3), 822-843. [pdf / publisher]
• Grünbaum, T., & Kyllingsbæk, S. (2020). Is Remembering to do a Special Kind of Memory? Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 11(issue 2), 385-404. [pdf / publisher]
• Grünbaum, T. (2013). Seeing what I am doing. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 86(2), 295-318. [pdf / publisher]

Philosophy of psychology/cognitive neuroscience:

• Grünbaum, T. & Søgaard, A. (2025). Large-Language-Models and Linguistic Understanding. In Palmer Olsen, H., Livingston Slosser, J., Addo Ravn, S., Eddebo, J., & Hultin Rosenberg, J. (2025). Artificial Intelligence, Humans and the Law (1st ed., pp 25-44). London: Routledge. [pdf / publisher]
• Junker, F.T., Bruineberg, J., & Grünbaum, T. (2024). Predictive Minds Can Be Humean Minds. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science: https://doi.org/10.1086/733413. [oa publisher]
• Lange, V. & Grünbaum, T. (2023). Measurement scepticism, construct validation, and methodology of well-being theorising. Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy, 10(33). [oa publisher]
• Grünbaum, T. (2021). The Two Visual Systems Hypothesis and Contrastive Underdetermination. Synthese, 198, 4045-4068. [pdf / publisher]
• Grünbaum, T. (2017). The Perception-Action Model: Counting Computational Mechanisms. Mind & Language, 32(4), 416-445. [pdf / publisher]
• Grünbaum, T. (2015). The feeling of agency hypothesis: a critique. Synthese, 192(10), 3313-3337. [pdf / publisher]

Experimental and theoretical work in cognitive psychology/neuroscience:

Selecting intentions, actions, and visual attention

• Kyllingsbæk, S., Larsen, L. B., Pedersen, J. K., Sangoi, L., & Grünbaum, T. (2025). Biased Competition between Action Representations. Neuropsychologia, vol. 213, 109149. [oa publisher]
• Oren, F., Kyllingsbæk, S., Dupont, D., & Grünbaum, T. (2024). Testing biased competition between attention shifts: The new multiple cue paradigm.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 50(7), 655–682. [oa publisher]
• Grünbaum, T., Oren, F., & Kyllingsbæk, S. (2021). A new cognitive model of long-term memory for intentions. Cognition, 215, 104817. [pdf / publisher]
• Christiansen, J. H., Christensen, J. H., Grünbaum, T., & Kyllingsbæk, S. (2014). A Common Representation of Spatial Features Drives Action and Perception: Grasping and Judging Object Features within Trials. PLOS ONE, 9(5), 1-14. [e94744]. [oa publisher]

Sense of agency, sensation of movement, and consciousness

• Grünbaum, T., & Christensen, M. S. (2024). The functional role of conscious sensation of movement. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 164, 105813. [oa publisher]
• Grünbaum, T. & Christensen, M.S. (2020). Measures of Agency. Neuroscience of Consciousness, 6(1): niaa019. [oa publisher]
• Christensen, M. S., & Grünbaum, T. (2018). Sense of agency for movements. Consciousness and Cognition, 65, 27-47. [pdf / publisher]
• Overgaard, M., & Grünbaum, T. (2012). Cognitive and non-cognitive conceptions of consciousness. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16(3), 137. [publisher]

Selected Public Outreach

For selected opinion pieces, popular science, interviews, and podcasts, see here: https://psychology.ku.dk/coinact/outreach/.

Major Research Grants

• Carlsberg Foundation Semper Ardens 2023-2028: "Selection in Cognition" (DKK 19,004,613. PIs: Søren Kyllingsbæk and Thor Grünbaum)
• DFF 2023-2027: "Theory Crisis in Cognitive Neuroscience" (DKK 2,879,301. PI: Thor Grünbaum)
• DFF 2020-2024: "The functional role of perception of movements" (DKK 6,191,343. PIs: Mark Schram Christensen and Thor Grünbaum)
• DFF 2016-2022: "Intention, Selection, and Agency" (DKK 5,670,757. PIs: Thor Grünbaum and Søren Kyllingsbæk)
• DFF 2012-2015: “Phenomenal Consciousness and Cognitive Motor Control” (DKK 6,254,816. PIs: Morten Overgaard and Thor Grünbaum)
• DFF 2010-2014: “Intentional action, attention to objects, and working memory” (DKK 7,783,200. PIs: Søren Kyllingsbæk and Thor Grünbaum)

Service to profession

• Executive secretary, European Society for Philosophy and Psychology (2023-)
• Associate Editor of Philosophical Explorations (2015-)
• Referee for public and private research foundations: European Research Council, The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, The Welcome Foundation
• Ad hoc reviewer: Mind, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Philosophical Studies, Synthese, Philosophical Quarterly, Mind & Language, Philosophical Psychology
• President of Danish Society for Philosophy and Psychology (2009-)

Teaching and supervision

I teach and supervise in most areas of theoretical philosophy: philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of language. Students are more than welcome to contact me if they want to know more or to discuss ideas or questions about their thesis.

I also teach and supervise in our cognitive science programme, BSc Cognitive Data Science.

CV

PhD in Philosophy, 2006, University of Copenhagen

Employment

• 2006-2007: Postdoctoral research fellow, Clare Hall College, University of Cambridge (postdoctoral supervisor: Jane Heal) (12 months)
• 2007-2009: Postdoctoral research fellow, Danish National Research Foundation: Center for Subjectivity Research & Philosophy Section, MEF, University of Copenhagen
• 2009 to 2013: Assistant Professor, Philosophy Section, Department of Media, Cognition, and Communication (MEF), University of Copenhagen
• 2012-2013: Postdoctoral research fellow, Center for the Study of the Senses (CenSes), Institute of Philosophy, School of Advanced Study, University of London.
• 2013 to present: Associate Professor, Section for Philosophy, University of Copenhagen
• 2022 to present: Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen
• 2025 to present: Professor of Philosophy of Psychology, Section for Philosophy & Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen