Philosophy Graduate to begin Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in South Africa
In February I will begin a postdoctoral research fellowship at North-West University, South Africa. It will be for one year in the first instance, but extendible for up to three.
I am very excited (not least about visiting a sunny country)! I passed my viva in April on the topic of 'Human Organisms and the Survival of Death'. My supervisors were Drs Daniel Hill and Stephen McLeod. In my PhD I tried to answer the question 'is it possible for us to survive our deaths given animalism?' (the view that we are wholly material beings).
During my time at North-West University I will be working on a number of projects. First, I hope to expand my research on the role of the imagination and its relation to our knowledge of non-actual possibilities. Can our imaginings give us knowledge of non-actual possibilities and if so, how? This expands on some of my work in my thesis and in my paper 'Conceivability, possibility and the resurrection of material beings'. Second, I will be working on an account of human knowledge of God. I hope to expand my account of 'non-inferential perceptual awareness' of God that I put forward in my paper 'Acquaintance and the Sublime'.
My advice to current PhD students is: persevere and take up a hobby! Being a PhD student (and then being on the job market) takes perseverance, but don’t let it become all consuming. There’s much more to life than getting a PhD and an academic job.
By Thom Atkinson