Honours

An Honours degree allows you to develop research skills and to acquire expertise in a particular area of Philosophy. Completing an Honours degree in Philosophy involves researching and writing an Honours thesis under the supervision of an academic staff member, as well as completing two research oriented 400-level subjects.

If you are interested in pursuing Honours in Philosophy, please get in touch with a potential supervisor and discuss the application process.

MA / PhD

We offer supervision in a variety of research areas for MA and PhD students. Please contact a potential supervisor before preparing an application. Applications can be submitted here.

Supervisors and Topic Areas

Patrick McGivern is available to supervise projects in Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Cognition and Philosophy of Medicine, in particular on topics such as:

    • The role of modeling, idealisation and approximation in science
    • Concepts of agency, activity and cognition in simple systems
    • Concepts of emergence, reduction, and other inter-theoretic relations
    • The use of stem-cell models in science and medicine
    • The role of thought experiments in science
    • The epistemic value of fiction and falsehoods
    • Concepts of health and disease
    • Philosophy of psychiatry
    • Philosophical methodology, in particular involving integrated approaches to philosophy and science

David Neil is available to supervise projects in Ethics (theoretical and applied) and Political Philosophy on topics such as:

    • Moral psychology
    • Collective responsibility
    • Bioethics
    • Ethical issues raised by new technologies (particularly information technologies)
    • Human rights
    • Exploitation
    • Distributive justice
    • Commodification

 

Marilyn Stendera is available to supervise projects on topics such as:

  • Philosophy of mind and cognition, esp. embodied, enactive and ecological approaches
  • The relationship between human and non-human minds
  • How and why we experience time the way we do, and what different philosophical traditions say about this
  • Phenomenology (including critical phenomenology)
  • History of philosophy, esp. ancient phil, early modern phil, Kant, Nietzsche
  • Philosophy of art, esp. film, games/gaming, music, pop culture, horror
  • Feminist philosophy
  • Philosophy of love and sex
  • Philosophy of death

Recent Thesis Topics

    • The Halls Have Eyes: How the Groups We Make Motivate and Constrain Us (PhD 2024)
    • Addiction – Out of the Brain and into the World (Hons 2023)
    • Exploring the Possibility of Cerebral Organoid Consciousness (Hons 2023)
    • The Irrationality of Irrationality: Challenging the stigma of mental disorders and how phenomenology can promote healing (Hons 2023)
    • Big Data as a Technology of Power (PhD 2022)
    • Let me explain: the dynamical alternative (PhD 2021)
    • Examining endometriosis through the lens of epistemic injustice (Hons 2021)
    • Aggression as a Viable Target of Moral Enhancement (Hons 2021)
    • Lost in Translation: Reductionism in Theory and in Practice in the Biological Sciences (Hons 2021)
    • Having Gender in Mind (PhD 2020)
    • Thinking with things: An embodied enactive account of mind–technology interaction (PhD 2020)
    • Is Health a Secondary Property? (Hons 2020)
    • Rethinking Copyright: Intellectual Property and Second-Personal Communication (PhD 2019)
    • Health as a Practical Concept (Hons 2019)
    • Harm in Practice: An analysis of competing theories of harm as applied to practical problems in bioethics and law (Hons 2016)