At Liverpool, we work in the philosophy of mind, meaning, life and death across various philosophical traditions, while querying how speculative thinking about the future helps us uncover new horizons of meaning that are still unchartered.
Our work in the philosophy of mind explores new answers to the mind-body problem and examines the nature of perception, consciousness, and the self. We investigate what developments in science and technology can tell us about cognition and subjective experience, and, more generally, what it means to have a mind.
Our work in philosophical conceptions of meaning, includes a focus on philosophy of death, of human enhancement, and radical life extension. We study classic philosophers and writers, who all struggled with the problem of finding meaning in a mortal world, while we use their work to think through future scenarios. We are also interested in religious approaches to the meaning of life, and their ethical and metaphysical presuppositions.
The Department has strong links with Olaf Stapledon Centre for Speculative Futures, which adds a keen interest in science fiction as a method for thinking about speculative futures into our work. Olaf Stapledon, who produced some of the great classics of science fiction literature such as Last and First Men and Sirius, worked at Liverpool for much of his professional life. The University of Liverpool Library houses the Science Fiction Foundation Collection of science fiction works, as well as the Olaf Stapledon Collection.
Members
Barry Dainton, Laura Gow, Simon Hailwood, Michael Hauskeller, Christopher Bartley, Rebecca Davnall, Katherine Furman, Daniel Hill, Jannine Jobling, Robin McKenna, Thomas Schramme
PhD researchers
Daniel Baldwin, Michalina Bevoor, Georgina Brighouse, Stephen Kearns, Xiaoran Lu, Hannah Moss, Megan Rawson, Liam Shore, Paul Taylor, Graham Veale, Rossella Vingelli, Neil Williams, Jeanna Witton, Huitong Zhou
Activities
Philosophy of Plants Reading Group; The Forwood-Bequest Lecture
Associated research centre
Olaf Stapledon Research Centre
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