Research Students

Thesis

How to do Things with Signals? A Study on the Origins and Evolution of Illocutionary Acts

Supervisors

Dr Ronald Planer and Associate Professor Glenda Satne

Thesis abstract

Communication has been studied from different perspectives and with varying emphases. Most theories on the origins of language examine how its semiotics, semantics, and syntax could have emerged. Other studies investigate the pragmatic role of language and its social origins. Within this pragmatic approach, most theories emphasize the role of context while overlooking the specific communicative acts performed. Whether a communicative interaction constitutes a threat rather than an offer depends not only on the information carried by a signal and the context in which it is produced, but also on the type of act being performed. A wide range of such actions exists in communication, commonly referred to as illocutionary acts.

The general objective of my project is to study how illocutionary acts are born, interact between them, develop, evolve and shape society. The project aims to investigate how different illocutionary acts can emerge and shape contexts that vary from one animal’s species, society or culture to another.

The approach of the research project is interdisciplinary, drawing on insights and methods from philosophy, linguistics, archeology, anthropology, biology, cognitive science and other disciplines

Email: md466@uow.mail.edu.au
X: @MarcoDegano
Bluesky: @markydegg96.bsky.social

Thesis

Towards a Multidimensional Account of Skills. Challenges and Open Questions 

Supervisors

Associate Professor Glenda Satne, Associate Professor Michael Kirchhoff, and Senior Professor Daniel Hutto.

Thesis Abstract

Philosophical work on the nature and cognitive basis of skill teems with disparate rival accounts, which often aim to provide an encompassing account of the phenomenon – or, at least, of specific facets of it.

This project seeks to clarify the merits and shortcomings of these various accounts, and to disentangle different (and often competing) threads in philosophical offerings about the nature and cognitive basis of skills. At the same time, it aims to improve our understanding of the nature and functioning of skills by examining prominent strategies in the philosophy of skill, evaluating and clarifying the explanatory prospects of various approaches.

The overarching objective of this project is to work towards a multi-dimensional account of skilled action, i.e. of skilled action as constituted of different, inter-related factors and components. This objective is to be achieved through a series of more focused investigations with the following aims:

1. Evaluating the prospects and tenability of intellectualism in relation to skill learning.
2. Evaluating the prospects and tenability of anti-intellectualism in relation to intentions.
3. Evaluating whether the phenomenology of skilled action can provide or generally contribute to its explanation.
4. Evaluating the prospects and tenability of multi-dimensional accounts of skill – namely, examining the internal coherence and explanatory promise of their cognitive architectures.
5. Focusing on social, cultural practices and norms, clarifying what is the role such factors can play in skilled actions.

Email: lsg887@uowmail.edu.au
X: @lilygrainger

Thesis

The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave: The relationship between nature and bodies in Milton's Paradise Lost (1674)

Supervisors

Dr Julian Lamb, Dr Sophie Frazer and Dr Anthony Hooper

Thesis abstract

The thesis explores the complicated relationship between bodies and the natural environment as presented by Milton in Paradise Lost. Drawing on contemporary discourses of ecofeminist studies, queer theory and philosophical understandings of the relationship between the individual and their surrounding environment, an original interpretation of the text can be yielded: blurring the distinct boundaries of body and nature. Milton's tendency to blur distinctions can be extended to the gender binaries of masculine and feminine. Milton produces a text where seemingly oppositional distinct categories of masculinity and femininity, nature and culture, are actually considered simultaneously resembling the more modern understandings of the individual's place amongst these categories. The thesis investigates how masculinity and femininity of the body are explored by the dual-gendered representative symbol of the serpent, the masculine-centred enclosed Garden of Eden, the feminised grotesque spaces beyond the boundaries of Eden, including Chaos and Hell, and the feminine presentation of Mother Nature as well as exploring how these relate to Adam and Eve, the characterisation of a patriarchal God, Satan and his inverted trinity of Sin and Death. Milton explores unsettled boundaries throughout his text primarily between the relationship of nature and the body and calls into question preconceived notions about gender through his queering of Eve and the environment. The thesis will consider the influence of contemporary scientific discourse on Milton’s text, while also arguing that retrospective understandings of Paradise Lost through modern literary and philosophical theorising can reveal nuances of Milton’s understanding of this relationship.

Email: ls018@uowmail.edu.au
X: @l_o

Thesis

Title to be confirmed

Supervisors

Senior Professor Daniel Hutto and Associate Professor Michael Kirchhoff

Thesis abstract 

I work at the intersection of philosophy of mind and cognitive science, with interests across both continental and analytical traditions. My research examines cognitive systems as relationally and dynamically organized, rejecting brain-centric and individualist models. Drawing on radical embodiment and extensive enactivism, my PhD critiques how computational and information-processing frameworks shape our understanding of mindedness.

Email: bc845@uowmail.edu.au

Thesis 

Keeping It Personal. A Modest Integrationist Approach to Philosophy of Psychiatry

Supervisors

Senior Professor Daniel Hutto, Professor Shaun Gallagher, and Dr Sophie Frazer

Thesis abstract

My main research interests revolve around the necessity to develop an appropriate philosophy of person, within the field philosophy of psychiatry. The research takes its first steps from the observation that many prominent philosophical approaches to psychiatry – including mainstream accounts – do not make room in their theoretical elaboration for a conception of the person that reflects the everyday, concrete situation of the individual suffering from a mental condition.

My research project pursues a clarificatory aim in inquiring different ways in which the person has and, most importantly, has not been treated in philosophy of psychiatry. This clarificatory aim applies both to existing philosophical frameworks for psychiatry, and to specific case studies to show the consequences and the relevance of a partial understanding of the person in the study and application of psychiatry. Together and in parallel with this clarificatory purpose, my research offers some more positive characterisations of the personal, without however aiming at developing a closed, clear-cut notion of the person. This positive component of my research is rooted in the real, everyday life situation of the person as the main fundamental criterion to assess the appropriateness and relevance of any characterisation of the personal, when theorising about psychiatry.

Thesis

Disconnected bodies: The experience of social impairment in depression

Supervisors

Dr Bernardo Ainbinder, Associate Professor Glenda Satne, and Senior Professor Daniel Hutto

Email: cfm085@uowmail.edu.au

Thesis

Criminally Folk? – an assessment of the Folk Psychological commitments in the Australian Legal System

Supervisors

Senior Professor Daniel Hutto and Associate Professor Michael Kirchhoff 

Thesis abstract

The purpose of the proposed study is to identify and critique the folk psychological commitments – both explicit and implicit – within the framework of the Australian legal system. The proposed study will involve a review of multidisciplinary literature, legal cases and relevant statutory instruments in order to ascertain some of the central folk psychological commitments in existing law. The primary focus will be on the commitments in the Australian criminal and criminal-adjacent legal fields; and the critique and assessment of the folk psychological commitments therein will centre around 4E theories of cognition, with a focus on Enactivism. The proposed study will make analytical and theoretical contributions that will be useful to scholars of jurisprudence and philosophy of cognition, as well as legal practitioners and jurists.