Research Profile
Lieke Asma is a philosopher (MA & PhD) and psychologist (MSc). During her PhD project on free will and empirical science at the VU Amsterdam (2013-2018), she was drawn towards the philosophy of action, which has been her main field of research ever since. She realized that researchers’ implicit or explicit ideas about action are reflected in their thinking about free will, motivation, and the nature of psychological states, and play a substantial role in how experiments are set up and the results are interpreted. The problem she sees is that often a dualist perspective on action is adopted, because of which the intrinsically rational nature of actions and the fact that we, as actors, have a unique relationship with our actions are often insufficiently acknowledged. Her central aim is to argue for an alternative perspective on action, mainly inspired by G. E. M. Anscombe’s work, and to apply it to topics like free will and motivation. From 2018 until 2021, she conducted her research within the interdisciplinary project “Motivational and Volitional Processes of Human Integration: Philosophical and Psychological Approaches to Human Flourishing” at the HFPH, in collaboration with psychologists at the TUM. In 2021, she received an individual research grant from the DFG for the research project “Implicit Bias: What Are We Missing?”. In that project, which will run for three years, she applies her expertise in the philosophy of action to develop an alternative perspective on the nature of implicit bias. Lieke Asma finds it important to communicate her academic work to a wider audience. In November 2021, her (Dutch) book “My Intentions and I: Philosophy of Free Will” has been published by Boom uitgevers Amsterdam.
Curriculum Vitae
Employment
- 10-2021 – 09-2024
Postdoctoral Fellow at the Munich School of Philosophy. Project: Implicit Bias: What are we missing? - 04-2021 – 08-2021
Teacher in Psychology at Radboud University Nijmegen & ErasmusUniversity Rotterdam. - 04-2018 – 09-2021
Postdoctoral Fellow at the Munich School of Philosophy. Project: Motivational and Volitional Processes of Human Integration: Philosophical and Psychological Approaches to Human Flourishing. In collaboration with the Chair of Psychology at the TUM School of Management. - 02-2018 – 07-2018
Teacher in Psychology at Radboud University Nijmegen. - 02-2018 – 07-2018
Teacher in Philosophy at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. - 09-2013 – 02-2018
PhD student in Philosophy at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Dissertation title: Consciousness in Intentional Action. Research visit at Florida State University February-April 2016. - 08-2011 – 08-2013
Teacher in Psychology at Radboud University Nijmegen. - 09-2008 – 08-2011
Teacher in Psychology at University of Twente. - 08-2009 – 11-2010
Junior researcher at University of Twente. Project: Attitudes of Preschool Teachers towards Science and Technology.
Education
- 09-2009 – 08-2013
MA, Philosophy of Behavioural Science (cum laude) at Radboud University Nijmegen. - 09-2006 – 12-2008
MSc, Cognitive Psychology at University of Twente. - 09-2002 – 08-2007
BSc, Educational Psychology at University of Twente.
Grants & Prizes
- 2021-2024
DFG Individual Research Grant for three years. Topic: Implicit bias: What are we missing? € 296,494 - 2022
Mijn intenties en ik. Filosofie van de vrije wil was shortlisted for best Dutch philosophy book of 2021 (Socratesbeker) and for best Dutch philosophy book written by a woman in 2020 & 2021 (Hypatiaprijs) - 2020
Thyssen Stiftung, for a conference on free will € 3,355
Academic services
Reviewer for Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor de Wijsbegeerte, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Mind & Machine, Philosophical Explorations, Philosophical Forum, Synthese, Theory & Psychology.
- Member of organizing committee Conference by Women in Philosophy 2017, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
- Member of organizing committee Conference by Women in Philosophy 2016, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
- Organizer of workshop Free Will and Consciousness (2015), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
- Member of organizing committee OZSW Graduate Conference Theoretical Philosophy (2014), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.