Alberto Cavallarin

I am interested in the overlap between religious epistemology, social epistemology, and contemporary research on altered states of consciousness. Specifically, my research focuses on deep disagreements - i.e., disagreements involving irreconcilable core beliefs - and religious/mystical/anomalous experiences.

Some specific topics that I am working on:

- Hinge epistemology, i.e., a research field focusing on those things that we normally take for granted and that constitute the logical confines of our worldviews (such as "I have a body" and "there is an external world").

- The application of hinge epistemology to different contexts of inquiry (namely, religious and non-religious contexts).

- Perennialism, i.e., the idea that the reports of mystics throughout history share some features, independently of the mystic's cultural and religious background.

- The cognitive science of religion and the neuroscience of altered states of consciousness. 

- Deep religious disagreements

- What we can learn from the contributions of mystics - from Francis of Assisi to Simone Weil, from Gandhi to Terence McKenna - to peacebuilding.