Postgraduate students
Find out about the work being done by our Philosophy students at postgraduate level, including their thesis topics and supervisors.
Current students in Philosophy
Students are listed alphabetically under their respective programmes and degrees.
PhD candidates
- Snita Ahir-Knight
- Richard Aragao
- Timothy Irwin
- Jorge Morales-Delgado
- Elizabeth Olsen
- Eyyuphan Ozdemir
- Jonathan Pengelly
- Jordan Skrzynski
- Melissa Snater
Philosophy MA students
Philosophy PhD candidates
Snita Ahir-Knight
Thesis title
'Mental Disorder and Mental Health Interventions for Children and Youth: The Cases of Non-suicidal Self-harm and Unruly Behaviour. A Philosophical Inquiry'
Supervisors
About
Snita Ahir-Knight's dissertation is a contribution to the philosophy of mental disorder. Considering the cases of non-suicidal self-harm in youth, and unruly behaviour in children and youth, the thesis argues that behaviours and thoughts that are usually a passing phase and helpful for one’s development are not mental disorders; that managing life in the best way one can is not disordered; and, furthermore, that whether one has a mental disorder should not determine whether one is offered a mental health intervention.
While the dissertation will appeal to philosophers, it is hoped that youth, parents, teachers, clinicians, policy makers and similar will be interested in the contents. This is because important practical questions are asked that challenge common views, and guide policies and clinical practice to improve the welfare and service outcomes for children and youth.
Snita Ahir-Knight is a philosophy PhD student at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington. She received a Degree in Social Work with first-class honors from Oxford Brookes University and a Master’s degree in Philosophy from the University of London. She has a current and established career as a social worker and child and adolescent therapist.
Richard Aragao
Thesis title
'Ontology, Existence, and Context-Dependence'
Supervisors
Cei Maslen and Stuart Brock
About
It is canonically accepted that the mere utilisation of logical quantifiers according to traditional semantics involves ontological implications. Such implications are said to be connected to the entities of the domain of quantification of our theories, languages, and discourses taken as the value of the bound variables. However, this assumed relation between ontology and quantification has many problematic implications and it also can be said to sound, if deeply analysed, extremely counter-intuitive.
My main research objective is to provide an alternative view, which I name the context-dependent interpretation and which contrasts with the canonical interpretation of the logical quantifiers. According to my view, the concept of “existence”, contrary to what Willard Van Orman Quine asserts, is not univocal and it differs from context to context. Consequently, the quantifiers of the formal logic are not meant to capture—and are not capable of capturing—such a notion.
My aims are to show that: (a) Quine’s criterion of ontological commitment is a questionable semantic approach and is connected with Quine’s prejudices regarding metaphysics; (b) Some alternative views to Quine’s criterion of ontological commitment, especially the ontological deflationist and the fictionalist approach, have difficulties of their own, compromising its usefulness to be good solutions for the problem between quantification and ontology; and finally (c) the context-dependent interpretation of the concept of existence, as I intend to propose, is an intuitive and straightforward approach not based on metaphysical prejudices that takes into consideration how the concepts of “existence”, “being”, and “ontology” are used not only in natural and formal languages but also in ordinary, scientific, ontological, and even technical contexts.
Links
Timothy Irwin
Thesis title
'A Semantics for Accounting'
Supervisors
Ed Mares and Tony van Zijl (Accounting)
Jorge Morales-Delgado
Thesis title
'Inheritance Networks and the Phenomena of Floating Conclusions'
Supervisors
Elizabeth Olsen
Thesis title
'Teaching introductory logic'
Supervisors
Eyyuphan Ozdemir
Thesis title
'Reconsidering Epistemic Gap Arguments in terms of Acquaintance Knowledge and Phenomenal Concepts'
Supervisors
Justin Sytsma and Eugen Fischer (University of East Anglia, UK)
Jonathan Pengelly
Thesis title
'Protecting the Artificial Soul'
Supervisors
Jordan Skrzynski
Thesis title
'Optimism in Philosophy'
Supervisors
Cei Maslen and Ed Mares
Melissa Snater
Thesis title
'A theory of injustice: coming to terms with determinism'
Supervisor
Philosophy MA students
Billie Berry
Thesis title
'Autism Spectrum Disorders: The Personality-Psychopathology Relationship and Dimensional Classification'
Supervisor
Ed Mares and Simon Keller
Mikka Kaeser
Thesis title
TBA
Supervisor
Ambrose Maran Muthulingam
Thesis title
TBA
Supervisor
Esther Marshall
Thesis title
TBA
Supervisor
Eli McKeown
Thesis title
TBA
Supervisor
Dan Simpson Beck
Thesis title
TBA