PhD Philosophy

The Department of Philosophy seeks to maintain the highest standard in research excellence while pursuing fruitful civic engagements, collaborative relationships and opportunities for knowledge exchange and research impact.

Overview

In the last REF we were particularly praised by the Philosophy sub-panel for the ‘large number of monographs assessed to be world-leading across many areas of philosophy’. This reflects our commitment to combining the highest research standards across a wide range of philosophical areas with the friendliness allowed by being a relatively small department where everyone knows everyone else.

Our work encompasses a wide range of philosophical topics and traditions grouped in three principal areas:

Members of the Metaphysics, Language and Mind group have research interests spanning general metaphysics, the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of logic. The topics staff currently work on include consciousness, space and time, modality, nominalism, the self, philosophy of action, linguistic idealism, and the nature of the proposition.

The Religion, Ethics and Practical Philosophy group carries forward a strong Liverpool tradition of producing world class, practical philosophy research that draws on expertise in many traditions. The philosophical interests of this group are diverse, encompassing ethics, philosophy of religion, environmental philosophy, political philosophy, feminism and women in philosophy, Indian philosophy and history of philosophy, but share a focus on practical import.

Aesthetics, Art and Literature is a distinctly interdisciplinary group that takes advantage of the fact that Liverpool has the highest density of art galleries and museums outside London. As well as working on more traditional topics in aesthetics and philosophy of literature, it enables researchers from different academic disciplines to exchange ideas and methods, to collaborate across traditional boundaries, and to work closely with other institutions and the community on issues of intellectual and cultural importance. The research interests of this group include: aesthetics and art theory, philosophy and literature, history of art, creativity, engaging with museum collections, archiving, and science fiction.