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Current and previous PhD research

Rebecca Davis

  • Thick concepts and reasons for action
  • Supervisors: Mary Leng and Stephen Everson

Chelsea Demanche

  • Supervisor: Tom Stoneham

Jake Dorothy

  • A Phenomenological Analysis of Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
  • Supervisor: Matthew Ratcliffe

Thomas Dowling

  • An historical review and reconstruction of 'reification'
  • My project is in Critical Theory and investigates the possibility of 'Total Reification' through the method of immanent critique. I am looking particularly at the dysfunctionality of 'progressive politics' in the West and the extent to which capitalism is increasingly governing our social activity in the cultural sphere.
  • Supervisors: James Clarke, Owen Hulatt

Denise Goh

  • Post-truth as a Struggle for Recognition: a critical analysis of ideology, identity, and institutions in knowledge preservation

  • Supervisors: James Clarke, Owen Hulatt

Devon Howard

  • Supervisors: Hannah Carnegy-Arbuthnott, Alan Thomas 

Nasir Khan

  • Should physicalism postulate higher-orders of reality?

  • Supervisor: Paul Noordhof

Ivan Kyambadde

  • The Biomimicry of Sentience as a Path to AGI
  • Supervisor: Tom Stoneham

Gabriel Nemirovsky

  • Supervisors: Alan Thomas, Martin O'Neill

Jacob O'Sullivan

  • Supervisor: Mary Leng

Robin Pawlett-Howell

  • Phenomenology, Self-Respect, and Justice: Creating a Dialogue Between French Phenomenology and a Rawlsian Approach to Justice
  • Supervisors: Martin O'Neill, Matthew Ratcliffe

Angelos Sofocleous

  • The phenomenological experience of non-participant spectatorship in depression
  • My research focuses on the phenomenology of mental illnesses, particularly on the notion of non-participant spectatorship in depression. I look at various accounts of first-person depression experiences and explore how depression can be understood through disturbances in the intersubjective realm. This thesis explores how such experiences can be understood in intersubjective terms. I examine intersubjective disturbances that occur in depression experiences, and argue that we can understand such disturbances as losses of reciprocity and interaffectivity, which further give rise to one being 'differently attuned' to the world. As a result, the depressed individual feels alienated, isolated, and cut off from the world. Through exploring depression experiences intersubjectively, this thesis provides an account of what talk of being a spectator or describing the experience of depression in spectatorial terms is getting at.
  • Supervisors: Matthew Ratcliffe, Keith Allen

Isobel Standen

  • Defeasible Reasoning for Resilient Autonomous Systems
  • Supervisors: Alan Thomas, Radu Calinescu, Zoe Porter 

Daryl Tyrer

  • Supervisors: Tom Stoneham, Mary Leng

Kendra Wegscheidler

  • What is a Philosophical Novel? Exploring the Significant Philosophical Contributions Made By Literature
  • My focus is on the philosophy of literature. My research asks the question: what is a philosophical novel? More specifically I want to discover the conditions under which a novel can count as a serious and valuable work of literature and also make a significant contribution to philosophy.
  • Supervisor: Peter Lamarque

Jane Wilson

  • A theory of forgiveness
  • Both forgiveness and justice are required to facilitate positive interpersonal relationships, which are essential to our well-being. The paradox of forgiveness demonstrates that they result in incompatible consequences for wrongdoing; justice demands some sort of adverse consequence which is, at least in part, negated if we forgive.
  • Supervisor: Martin O'Neill

Sarah Wood

  • What it is like to have Dementia: A Phenomenological Study
  • Supervisor: Matthew Ratcliffe