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Stanford
Department of Philosophy
School of Humanities and Sciences

Mariel Goddu

Cohort
2024

I’m a philosopher of mind, cognitive science, and biology who leverages 10 years of experience in cognitive science research to bring scientific insights to philosophical questions. My work approaches cognition and metaphysics of mind through the perspectives of evolutionary biology, learning, and development. You can find my CV here, PhilPeople here, & Bluesky here.

On April 24-25, 2026, I’m co-organizing an interdisciplinary workshop on “intuitive physics” and causal understanding at the University of Cambridge. Click here to find out more!

Here are some questions that concern me:

  1. If minds evolved for action (most people agree, for various reasons, that they did), what are the implications for our theories of the basic structure and content of cognition and experience?
  2. What is a “first-person perspective”? When we try to understand perspective as a phenomenon of nature, are human perspectives a reliable starting point?
  3. What would an evolutionarily grounded perspective on “intuitive physics” –– (a popular concept in cognitive development, computational cognitive science, & machine learning) –– look like, if we think of its evolved “function” as sustaining and managing bidirectional, temporally-extended interactions with the environment?
  4. How might we best update our outdated, anthropocentric cognitive ontology and connect philosophy of mind and cognitive science to more mature life sciences, such as evolutionary biology?
  5. How should considerations about biological autonomy and autopoiesis inform our understanding of A”I”?

Before coming to Stanford in 2024, I was an Alexander von Humboldt fellow at Barbara Vetter and Dominik Perler’s Centre for Advanced Study in the Humanities: “Human Abilities” in Berlin (2022-2024). Before that, I was a cognitive scientist for ten years. My primary focus was cognitive developmental psychology, but I also worked on projects in adult cognitive psychology, comparative psychology, psychophysics, and computational cognitive science. I earned my BA in Psychology from Yale University in 2013, where I then worked as the research coordinator of Frank Keil’s Cognition & Development Lab from 2013-2015. I completed my PhD in developmental psychology at UC Berkeley in Alison Gopnik’s Cognitive Development & Learning Lab from 2015-2020. My dissertation examined the development of causal generalization, extrapolation, and innovative problem-solving in children aged 1-5 (you can read a précis here). From 2020-2022, I was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University in Tomer Ullman’s Computation, Cognition, & Development lab, where I studied play behavior.

While I have fully switched to Philosophy, I continue to consult on select empirical research projects on causal & modal reasoning –– phenomena I take to be central to understanding the role of mind in action (and in the natural world, more generally). Right now, the empirical collaboration I’m most excited about is a cross-species study on the evolution of causal reasoning with Jan Engelmann’s Social Origins Lab at UC Berkeley. The project is based on a theoretical framework I developed for understanding causal reasoning in humans and other animals.

I am passionate about interdisciplinary bridge-building, and I’m always eager for opportunities to connect philosophers and scientists. I’ve co-organized interdisciplinary workshops on The Science & Philosophy of Modal Thought (w/ Jonathan Phillips at Human Abilities, Berlin; 2022) and Intuitive Physics Across Species and Development (w/ Marta Halina, Christoph Völter & Daniel Haun at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, 2024). A sequel to that workshop, The Unfolding World: Causal & Physical Cognition in Humans and other Animals (co-organized w/ Marta Halina) will be held at the University of Cambridge on 24-25 April, 2026.

During summer 2025, I was a visiting research fellow with Beate Krickel in the Chair for Philosophy of Cognition at Technische Universität Berlin. 

 

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Recent publications:

Goddu, M. K., Engelmann, J. M., & Halina, M. (in press). Comparative research provides unique support for 'core perception'. Brain and Behavioral Sciences. (commentary)

Krickel, B., & Goddu, M. K. (2026). Cognitive ontology in terms of cognitive homology: The role of brain, behavior, and environment for individuating cognitive categories. In Piccinini, G. (Ed.) Neurocognitive foundations of mind. Routledge. (chapter)

Dorsch, J., Goddu, M. K., Nave, K., Vierkant, T., Coeckelbergh, M., Gürtler, P., Urban, P., Spang, F., & Moll, M. (2025). Against “AI welfare”: Why care practices should prioritize living beings over AI. AI Magazine. (paper)

Goddu, M. K. (2025). Disanalogies between causal learning in animals vs. machines: Comment on “Disentangled representations for causal cognition” by F. Torresan & M. Baltieri. Physics of Life Reviews. (commentary)

Goddu, M. K. (2025) Causal understanding is not a point of view, it’s a point of do. Aeon. (essay)

Zettersten, M., Foushee, R., & Goddu, M. K. (2025). “Helpless" infants are active, goal-directed agents: Reply to Cusack et al. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. (commentary)

Goddu, M. K.*, Noë, A.*, & Thompson, E.* (2024). LLMs don’t know anything: reply to Yildirim and Paul. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. (commentary)

Goddu, M. K., & Gopnik, A. (2024). The development of human causal learning and reasoning. Nature Reviews Psychology, 1-21. (paper)