Research
The UCD School of Philosophy is host to a large amount of research activity and projects, in many different areas of philosophy. Most importantly, it is equally active in both Contemporary European (‘Continental’) philosophy and in analytic philosophy, with a strong representation from ancient philosophy as well. All members are officially research-active, and all their teaching is informed by their most recent work.
Anybody thinking of applying to doctorate studies at UCD should read this page, as well as the Dublin Graduate Philosophy Programme page, as well as the staff page, which lists the specific interests and publications of individual members of staff.
The UCD president’s Report lists provides a complete list of philosophy publications for the last academic year.
The School hosts or is intimately involved with the following longer-term research organisations and projects:
- Discovering Canada's contributions to the origins of the international phenomenological movement in the Winthrop Bell papers funded by Canada's Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Project partner, Prof Dermot Moran
- Aporo is a research group dedicated to the core problems within the areas of epistemology, metaphysics and the philosophies of language, logic and mind. It is based inDublin, through a co-operation between the philosophy departments at Queens University Belfast (QUB), Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and University College Dublin (UCD).
- Judgement, Responsibility and the Life-world: The Phenomenological Critique of Formalism. Australian Research Council funded project 2010-2013. This international collaborative project investigates the role of responsibility and judgment in knowledge formation. Building on the work of the phenomenologists Edmund Husserl and Jan Patočka, the project will investigate the limits of formalist approaches to knowledge, arguing that such formalism depends on a problematic separation of knowledge-production from the life-world in which it is necessarily placed. The project will provide new insight into the work of Husserl and Patočka, while also bringing their concepts to bear on a range of contemporary questions concerning knowledge and its wider cultural and socio-political context. Principal Investigators: Dr Lubica Učník (Murdoch University); Professor Ivan Chvatík (Charles University Prague); and Professor Dermot Moran (UCD)
- Discovering the "We": The Phenomenology of Sociality. IRCHSS Collaborative Research Project 2012-2013. Building on the results of an earlier successful IRCHSS RDI Project ‘Phenomenology of Consciousness and Subjectivity’ (2008-2010), this project explicates and critically evaluates the phenomenological tradition’s understanding of sociality, i.e. the manner in which subjects act cooperatively and engage intersubjectively in social relations. Phenomenological accounts of social relations (in Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Max Scheler and Alfred Schutz) offer rich insights that challenge current predominantly analytic discussions of collective intentionality and social ontology. Particular attention will be given to the experience of others in empathy and the ability to execute collective intentions with others in the shared social life-world. Part of this grant includes the research projects of two fellows, Mahon O'Brien and Thomas Szanto. Principal Investigator: Dermot Moran
- The Plato Centre organises and directs a variety of activities in the area of the history of Platonism and contemporary philosophy in the Platonist tradition. Although based inTrinityCollege, the Centre draws its members from all the major universities in theDublinarea, including UCD. It combines several subject areas in addition to its core disciplines: philosophy and classics. [link]
- Naturalism and the Normative Space of Reasons. (Principal Investigator Jim O'Shea.) This ongoing research project investigates the question of whether and how it is possible to integrate our seemingly irreducible conception of ourselves as conscious, thinking, and rationally active beings within an exhaustively scientific naturalist conception of the nature of reality. This project involves several past and present funded events, for example:
- 4–8 June 2012, Dublin: major international conference entitled 'The Sellars Centenary Conference' funded by John McDowell's Mellon Foundation Distinguished Achievement Award as well as by UCD College of Human Sciences and Bord Failte, on topics central to the research theme. The distinguished list of philosophers speaking at the event is available here: http://www.sellarscentenary.com/#/speakers/4557992293.
- A UCD Seed Funded conference on 'Naturalism, Normativity, and the Space of Reasons', 28-29 March (website: http://www.ucd.ie/philosophy/normativityconference/index.html).
- Philosophy of Subjectivity and Consciousness. IRCHSS-funded research Project. The project will construct a considered, robust and reasoned defence of the phenomenological approach against theoretical challenges and criticisms that emerge from contemporary more naturalistic approaches of the mind, consciousness and subjectivity, criticisms that often dismiss phenomenological findings as ‘merely’ subjective, introspective (hence unreliable) and not amenable to objective assessment or lawful generalisation. An informed theoretical clarification of phenomenology will potentially have a significant impact in the human sciences where theoretical concepts clustered around subjectivity, consciousness, and embodied selfhood are regularly deployed. Principal Investigator: Dermot Moran
- The American Voice in philosophy. This project investigates, in the broadest possible terms, “philosophy in America” – its native traditions, its recurring themes, its diversifying styles. The emphasis on voice signifies our particular interest in American philosophy’s humanist strain; neglected figures such as Henry David Thoreau and George Santayana hold particular prominence. The project nonetheless opens to philosophy as dominantly practiced in the contemporary American university. Therefore, the work of Richard Rorty and Stanley Cavell – two American philosophers most recently concerned with bridging the analytic/continental divide – will emerge as central. Principal Investigator: Maria Baghramian
- The Consciousness and Embodiment project. This is the project behind the new MA in Consciousness and Embodiment, but it also hosted a recent workshop entitled Groupthink. Principal Investigator: Maria Baghramian.
- Prof. Dermot Moran is the President/Chairperson, Executive Committee, XXIII World Congress of Philosophy, Athens, Greece, 4-10 August 2013.
- The UCD School of Philosophy is delighted to announce the success of two post-doctoral research projects, funded by the IRCHSS: Dylan Trigg and Danielle Petherbridge.
- The UCD in-house journal, International Journal of Philosophical Studies (IJPS). The journal publishes academic articles of the highest quality from both analytic and continental traditions and provides a forum for publishing on a broader range of issues than is currently available in philosophical journals. IJPS also publishes annual special issues devoted to key thematic areas or to critical engagements with contemporary philosophers of note. Through its Discussion section, it provides a lively forum for exchange of ideas and encourages dialogue and mutual comprehension across all philosophical traditions.
- The UCD School also hosts Perspectives: International Postgraduate Journal of Philosophy. This is a peer-reviewed annual publication, featuring articles, book reviews and interviews encompassing a broad range of current issues in philosophy and its related disciplines. Perspectives reflects the broad range of interests amongst the UCD postgraduate philosophy community, publishing work from within both the analytic and continental traditions.
Research projects recently completed:
- Normativity: A Multidimensional Approach. Normativity: A Multidimensional Approach. Human thought, behaviour and social interaction are governed by norms, values and rules. To think, to speak and to act is to invoke, often only implicitly, a variety of complex cognitive and social norms and values; and yet the nature, scope and governance of norms of thought and action are not well understood. This research project, following a recent prominent trend in philosophy and cognate areas, examines the theoretical foundations of norms with a view to illuminating both the regulative and constitutive roles they play in our conceptual and practical lives. The project also examines how the norms which govern social interaction give rise to distinctive conceptions of social institutions.