I am an assistant professor of philosophy at Toronto Metropolitan University. My primary research interests are in Kant and early modern philosophy, especially Late Scholasticism and rationalism. I also have secondary interests in aesthetics and philosophical approaches to film.

Born and raised in Bangkok, Thailand, I moved to Germany to pursue my undergraduate studies. I received a BA in philosophy from the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and a PhD in philosophy from the University of Chicago.

The main theme of my current research is Kant’s conception of the highest form of human cognition, which he calls ‘comprehension’ or ‘cognition from principles’. This epistemic ideal consists in a kind of holistic explanatory understanding that finds its antecedents in Aristotelian epistēmē and Scholastic scientia. For Kant, as I read him, comprehension is the telos of human cognitive activity as well as the kind of cognition that the Critical philosophy aims to achieve. My work emphasizes the centrality of comprehension for an adequate appreciation of Kant’s philosophical project as a whole, while also seeking to situate his conception of comprehension within its historical context.

A related theme of my research is the role of non-discursive representations (e.g., schemata, ideas of reason, reflective judgments) in Kant’s theory of cognition. I understand these as representations that resist classification in terms of the generality and particularity characteristic of discursive concepts and intuitions. My current work in progress focuses on 'cognition by analogy' as a species of non-discursive representation.

I also have interests in aesthetics, the relationship between aesthetics and art historiography, and philosophical approaches to cinema. One of my smaller projects looks at Kant's influence on filmmaker and theorist Éric Rohmer (who describes his own films as transcendental idealist).

In my free time, I make photographs (both analog and digital). You can have a look at some of my work here.

I prefer my name to be pronounced as written, in accordance with English phonology: 'Pirachula' as [pih-RAH-chu-la] or [pih-ra-CHOO-la] and 'Chulanon' as [CHOO-la-non]. The original pronunciation, if you're curious, is [pʰīːrátɕù'lāː tɕùlāː'nōn] (Help:IPA/Thai).

You can email me at pirachula@torontomu.ca.

Photo Credit: Reza Hadisi