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- Levels 6 and 7
- 25B Wally's Walk
- Macquarie University NSW 2109
- T: +61 (2) 9850 6410
Centre for Agency, Values and Ethics
CAVE fosters research into legal and medical ethical issues
Learn more about CAVEA vibrant and innovative research culture
Our department houses an exciting team of researchers who consistently produce high-level publications in a wide range of areas central to philosophy, as well as interdisciplinary research.
A distinctive strength of our research at Macquarie is a focus on human agency, mind and self. We also have long-standing research strengths in:
- ethics
- European philosophy
- metaphysics
- philosophical psychology
- philosophy of mind and cognitive science
- social philosophy.
More recently, we have developed specialisations in:
- clinical ethics
- philosophy of biology
- philosophy of race
- neuroethics
- moral cognition.
The department also houses the Macquarie Research Centre for Agency, Values and Ethics.
Areas of specialisation
Mind, Knowledge and Nature
This stream conducts research in the philosophy of mind and cognition, the philosophy of biology and science, pragmatism, epistemology and metaphysics. We examine questions about what it means to have a mind, the relationships between evolution and culture, and the nature of races. Our research includes:
- embodied and extended cognition
- neural plasticity and scaffolded learning
- developmental and molecular biology
- human nature
- predictive processing in the Brain
- animal cognition and learning
- language, race and pragmatism.
Social Philosophy and Modern European Philosophy
We study the relationship between society and individuals from a variety of philosophical perspectives. This stream engages with the rich historical and contemporary European philosophical traditions and their reception in English-speaking world, including topics such as:
- existential phenomenology and hermeneutics
- social political philosophy
- continental aesthetics
- post-structuralism.
Ethics and Applied Ethics
Research in ethics investigates issues from the theoretical to the applied. We examine questions such as what it means to be an autonomous person and when are people morally responsible for their actions. Our applied research includes questions of right and wrong in clinical practice and biomedical research. Our research includes:
- moral responsibility
- human dignity
- parenting
- kantian ethics
- human dignity
- ethics and regulation of innovative surgery and surgical research.
Postdoctoral research
The Department of Philosophy at Macquarie provides an excellent environment in which to undertake postdoctoral research. Opportunities for funding of postdoctoral research are available from two main sources: the Macquarie University Research Fellowship Scheme, and the Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award.
For more information about research with the Department of Philosophy, please contact us.
Contributing to the philosophical discussion
Department members from the Social Philosophy/Continental Philosophy stream play key editorial roles for the internationally renowned journal, Critical Horizons.