Ranier Abengana
Topic: The Future of Work and the Crisis of Critique: Resistance as a Condition of Possibility
Supervisor: Professor Brian O’Connor
PhD Students
Natalia Burakowska
Topic: The Phenomenology of Dementia: An Embodied-Cognitive Account
Supervisor: Associate Professor Danielle Petherbridge
Gent Cakaj
Topic: The Final End of Pure Reason: On the Religious Implications of Kant’s Critical Philosophy
Supervisor: Professor Jim O’Shea
Maria Agnese Casellato
Topic: Linguistic Reference: Descriptive, Externalism and a Middle Course
Supervisor: Professor Maria Baghramian
Natalija Cera
Topic: Understanding Belonging in the Condition of Migration
Using contemporary critical philosophical research methods, such as critical phenomenology and hermeneutics, my project examines the neglected question: What implicit assumptions about belonging are built into our regular understanding of the term ‘migrant’?
Supervisor: Dr Lisa Foran
Antonio Pio De Mattia
Topic: Unveiling Truth and Co-responsibility in Discourse: A Critical Examination of Habermas-Apel’s Transcendental-Pragmatic Method
This research critically scrutinises the seminal contributions of Jürgen Habermas to the articulation of a communicative form of philosophical discourse.
Supervisor: Associate Professor Joseph Cohen
Armando D'Ippolito
Topic: Plato’s Doctrine of Light: Between Mythos and Episteme
Supervisor: Dr Tim Crowley
Lucas Dijker
Topic: The Authority of Knowledge: How to Reconcile Expertise with Democracy?
We are increasingly relying on scientific experts, so how should experts be incorporated into democratic decision-making procedures?
Supervisor: Professor Maria Baghramian
Max K. Feenan
Topic: Moments in Time: Geschichte and Geschichtlichkeit in the Thought of Friedrich Schelling and of Martin Heidegger
An investigation of the conceptualization of History and Historicity as theorised by Schelling and Heidegger.
Supervisor: Associate Professor Joseph Cohen
Grace Feeney
Topic: My own body defies exploration”: Finding the Female Body in and Between Phenomenology and Psychoanalytic Theory
Supervisor: Dr Lisa Foran
Samuel Ferns
Topic: Freedom, Knowledge & Power: Reflexive Stage in the Grammars of Critical Social Theory
Supervisor: Associate Professor Danielle Petherbridge
Evie Filea
Topic: The Phenomenological Implications & Influences of Edward Bond’s Theory of Theatre
Supervisor: Dr Lisa Foran
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Sophie Foley
Topic: Health and Pathology as Tools of Social Critique
This thesis deals with the topic of health and pathology, questioning what it means to live a good or healthy life under present social conditions.
Supervisor: Professor Brian O’Connor
Misha Goudsmit
Topic: Narratives as Frames for Understanding: How Stories Regulate and Communicate Perspectives
Supervisor: Dr Tatjana von Solodkoff
Alessandro Guardascione
Topic: Values & Selfhood in Psychopathology: A Phenomenological Account
Supervisor: Associate Professor Danielle Petherbridge
David Haack
Topic: Phenomenology of Temperature
Supervisor: Associate Professor Tim Mooney
Jo-El James
Topic: Critical Pedagogy in the Age of Hyperobjects Education for Generations Witnessing the Aftermath of the Anthropocene
Supervisors: Associate Professor Tim Mooney & Dr Åine Mahon
Miho Kaneko
Topic: Can a Kind Essentialist Account of Instantiation Explain the Authorial Creation of Fictional Characters?
Supervisor: Dr Tatjana von Solodkoff
Denise Kelly
Topic: On Being (an Outsider): A Phenomenological Exploration of Social Phobia and Agoraphobia
Supervisor: Associate Professor Danielle Petherbridge
Haikyung Kwon
Topic: Negative Dialectic as a Model for ‘Concrete Thinking’ – Adorno’s Formal Dialectic in Relation to Hegel
The aim of my thesis is to comparatively analyse Adorno and Hegel’s conceptions of the individual self and to offer a complementary reading of their ideas.
Supervisor: Professor Brian O’Connor
Thomas Lewis
Topic: The Eternal Return and the Philosophy of the Future: Reading Nietzsche after Auschwitz with Sarah Kofmann
Supervisor: Associate Professor Joseph Cohen
Leung Yik Long
Topic: From Suffering to Critique: Negative Dialectics
Supervisor: Professor Brian O’Connor
Pepa Mellema
Topic: The Semantics & Pragmatics of Pejoratives
Supervisor: Dr Elmar Unnsteinsson
Nathan Mulder
Topic: The Screen Specter: Phenomenology, Image Consciousness, and the Digital Screen
Supervisor: Associate Professor Joseph Cohen
Aisling Phipps
Topic: Who am I? A Phenomenology of Identity Disturbance in Borderline Personality Disorder
Supervisor: Associate Professor Ruth Boeker
Rachel Russell
Topic: Timelessness: Metaphysics & Perception in a Timeless World
I aim to (1) provide a framework through which to judge whether ‘timeless’ metaphysical theories are timeless in any meaningful way, and (2) to determine the most pragmatically favourable standpoint to adopt were one to accept a theory that proposes genuine timelessness.
Supervisor: Associate Professor Daniel Deasy
Clémence Saintemarie
Topic: The Aesthetic is Political: A Critical Phenomenology of Social In/Visibility: Perception, Representation, the Imaginary
Supervisor: Professor Maeve Cooke
Petros Satrazanis
Topic: Analysis of Kostas Axelos on the Planetary thought as a Path to Metaphilosophy
Supervisor: Associate Professor Joseph Cohen
Fanqi Sun
Thesis Title: Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Life
Supervisor: Joseph Cohen
Roxane Pret Théodore
Topic: Rethinking Political Organisation from a Feminist Standpoint Politicizing an Ethics of Care and Vulnerability
Supervisor: Associate Professor Danielle Petherbridge
Philipp Wagenhals
Topic: Critique and Experimentalism: Philosophy and Social Criticism After Adorno and Dewey
Supervisor: Professor Maeve Cooke
Danqi Wang
Topic: The Non-Persistence and Re-Instantiation of Persons: Fission and the Transient Selves
Supervisor: Associate Professor Ruth Boeker
Shengwei Xu
Topic: Adorno and Sartre on Freedom and Praxis: A Study of Transcendence and Revolution
Supervisor: Associate Professor Joseph Cohen
MLitt Students
Marta Dmuchowska
Topic: Why Recover C. B. Martin's Two-Sided Account of Properties?
Supervisor: Dr Tatjana von Solodkoff
UCD School of Philosophy
Room D501 (5th Floor), John Henry Newman Building, UCD Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland T: +353 1 716 8186 | E: philosophy@ucd.ie | Location Map(opens in a new window)UCD Philosophy is ranked among the Top 100 Departments of Philosophy worldwide (QS World University Rankings 2017, 2018, 2021, 2023–2025)