Research Projects

Performance Based Research Fund rankings

In 2003 the Otago Philosophy Department scored 6.6. This made it the highest scoring department in any discipline in any university in New Zealand. In 2007 we increased our score to 7.5, thus retaining our status as New Zealand's number one research department.

Research projects ongoing in the department

• Peter Anstey is currrently working with Alberto Vanzo, Richard Serjeantson, Juan Manuel Gomez, and Kirsten Walsh on a Marsden-funded project (2009–2011) entitled 'Experimental Philosophy and the Origins of Empiricism'.
• Colin Cheyne is exploring the nature of our thinking about abstract objects.
• Heather Dyke has recently published two books: Metaphysics and the Representational Fallacy (New York: Routledge, 2007) and an anthology, From Truth to Reality: New Essays in Logic and Metaphysics (New York: Routledge, 2008) Click here for more information.
• Andrew Moore is currently working on projects in ethical theory.
• James Maclaurin is currently editing a book entitled A New Science of Religion with Greg Dawes. This is part of a project looking at ways of unifying recent advances in the scientific study of religion. He is also working with Heather Dyke on philosophical methodology. Click here for more information.
• Alan Musgrave is writing a book on Scientific Realism and Platonism which asks: must a scientific realist also be a platonic realist? In 2009 his collection of talks entitled Secular Sermons was published by Otago University Press.
• Charles Pigden, having recently published Hume Motivation and Virtue, is editing Hume, Is and Ought based on (but not limited to) papers read at Otago’s 2003 conference, "Hume, Motivation, 'Is' and 'Ought'". Click here for more information.
• Josh Parsons is currently working on a variety of papers in analytic metaphysics, including a paper on the concept of location in space-time theories, and a paper in some neglected options in the semantics of tense. A complete list can be found here.

Philosophy Staff Active in two Research Clusters

Analytic Philosophy

Early Modern Thought

Recent Books from the members of the department

Charles Pigden (ed), Hume on Motivation and Virtue (2009); Hume on Is and Ought (2010);

Gregory W. Dawes, Theism and Explanation (2009);

James Maclaurin, What is Biodiversity? (2008);

Heather Dyke, Metaphysics and the Representational Fallacy (2007);

Peter Anstey (ed), John Locke: Critical Assessments, 4 vols (2006);

Heather Dyke (ed), From Truth to Reality: New Essays in Logic and Metaphysics (2008);

Colin Cheyne (ed) Rationality and Reality: Conversations with Alan Musgrave (2006);

Peter Anstey (ed), The Science of Nature in the Seventeenth Century: Patterns of Change in Early Modern Philosophy (2005);

Colin Cheyne (ed), Pavel Tichy's Collected Papers in Logic and Philosophy (2004);

Peter Anstey (ed), The Philosophy of John Locke: New Perspectives (2003);

Andrew Moore, Review of the Current Processes for Ethical Review of Health and Disabillity Research in New Zealand (2003);

Heather Dyke (ed), Time and Ethics: Essays at the Intersection (2003);

Colin Cheyne, Knowledge, Cause and Abstract Objects (2001);

Peter Anstey, The Philosophy of Robert Boyle (2000);

Charles Pigden (ed), Russell on Ethics (1999);

Alan Musgrave, Essays on Realism and Rationalism (1999); Secular Sermons (2009)

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