Education

2011-2017 – University of Bristol – Ph.D. in Philosophy and History of Science

My thesis is titled ‘Folk Physics, Pre-Science, and Demarcations of Science’ and describes the relationship of the psychological phenomenon of folk physics (preeducational beliefs about the entities and phenomena studied by physics, e.g. objects, motion, solidity) and the concept, raised in the work of both Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn, of prescience, or those beliefs that precede and underlie science. Using this relationship, I established a novel split in 20th century philosophy of science between ‘developmental’ philosophy of science, as represented by Kuhn and Popper, and ‘non-development’, as represented by the logical positivists. I received my award in November 2017.

 

2009-2010 – University College Dublin – 2.1 Master of Arts in Philosophy

My thesis topic was “Could There Be Non-Human Persons?” in which I discussed both animals and hypothetical intelligent machines as possible persons, with a focus on an ability-centred concept of personhood. I also took modules in the work of Merleau-Ponty on the body, the philosophy of emotions, analytic approaches to Kant, religion and society in the work of Charles Taylor and Frankfurt School, anarchist thought on both the left and right sides of the political divide, and attended Richard Kearney’s seminar on the phenomenology of the Other.

 

2005-2009 – University College Dublin – 2.1 Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy

My undergraduate studies included the philosophy of Derrida, Heidegger and Husserl, Hume and Kant, Ancient philosophy from the Pre-Socratics to the Neoplatonists, Aristotelian and informal logic, existentialism, philosophy of science, theology, German Idealism, epistemology, gender theory, moral and ethical philosophy, critical social theory, hermeneutics and jurisprudence. My undergraduate dissertation was titled ‘Talking with the Patient: Ethically Justified Responses to Autonomous Refusal of Treatment’, and was an exploration of the issues surrounding religiously motivated refusal of medical treatment by adults, specifically members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses religion, and the morally justifiable options available to doctors in these circumstances.