PhD IN PHILOSOPHY
University of Minho
School of Arts and Humanities
Department of Philosophy
About
Throughout the research, the PhD candidate receives personalized support from one or more supervisors and is integrated into the activities of one of the School's two research centers, the Center for Ethics, Politics and Society or the Center for Humanistic Studies. At the end of the three-year period, the PhD candidate must have written a thesis that, once successfully defended in public, will confer the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
The PhD in Philosophy has a faculty composed of specialists with a strong presence in the national and international university system. There is also the possibility of co-supervision by professors/researchers of recognized merit from outside the University of Minho.
Access
https://www.elach.uminho.pt/pt/estudar/Paginas/Doutoramentos-em-regime-tutorial.aspx
This information does not exempt the consultation of the Academic Regulations of the University of Minho and other official documents.
Prerequisites:
a) Hold a master's degree in Philosophy or related areas;
b) Or hold a bachelor's degree in Philosophy or another area, provided that the candidate has a curriculum recognized by the Scientific Council that qualifies him/her to undertake a Doctorate in Philosophy;
c) Or hold a foreign higher academic degree considered appropriate, provided that the candidate has a curriculum recognized by the Scientific Council that qualifies him/her to undertake a Doctorate in Philosophy;
Cumulatively with a) and/or b) or c):
(i) Carry out a research project, including the indication of the sources to be used and the timeline, with a favourable opinion from a staff member from the study cycle who may be appointed by the Scientific Council of the Svhool as supervisor (see the profiles of the staff on this website to find the most suitable one depending on the topic of the thesis);
(ii) Present a CV that attests to sufficient maturity to undertake the PhD in Philosophy;
(iii) If necessary, conduct an interview with a view to clarifying aspects that the course director considers relevant in relation to questions (i) and (ii).
STAFF
João Cardoso Rosas
Full Professor
Areas of interest: Contemporary theories of justice, especially Rawls; liberal authors of the mid-20th century, especially Popper; analysis of political ideologies; philosophy of human rights; conceptions of the public interest and public philosophy.
Vítor Moura
Associate Professor
Areas of interest: Aesthetics and philosophy of art; aesthetics of music; aesthetics of architecture; image theory; aesthetics of the moving image; aesthetics of theatre; contemporary philosophy.
Bernhard Sylla
Associate Professor / PhD Director
Areas of interest: Philosophy of language; phenomenology (especially Heidegger); philosophy of technology (including Anthropocene Studies); philosophy of the digital; philosophy of trauma.
Manuel Curado
Assistant Professor
Areas of interest: Ancient philosophy; philosophy of literature; philosophy of mind and consciousness; Luso-Brazilian philosophical thought.
Pedro Martins
Assistant Professor
Areas of interest: Contemporary theories of justice (in particular issues related to merit) and democracy (in particular issues related to right-wing and left-wing populisms); contemporary republicanism and the history of republican ideas; ideologies and political thought/doctrines (especially from the right-wing spectrum: conservatisms, authoritarianisms, fascisms and right-wing populisms); political philosophy and the history of political philosophy/political ideas in Portugal.
Alexandra Abranches
Assistant Professor
Areas of interest: History of Western philosophy from the Renaissance to the end of the 18th century, more specifically a) topics of metaphysics, moral philosophy or ethics, political philosophy and b) revision of the canon, women philosophers of the Modern Age. Contemporary philosophy: pragmatism, moral psychology, virtue ethics, moral emotions, feminist philosophy, gender and identity issues.
João Ribeiro Mendes
Assistant Professor
Areas of interest: Philosophy of technology - engineering tradition: E. Kapp, F. Dessauer, G. Simondon, H. Petroski, P. Haff, etc.; humanities tradition: M. Heidegger, G. Anders, J. David García Bacca, etc.; philosophy of science - classic: G. Bachelard, K. Popper, T. Kuhn, I. Lakatos, L. Laudan, etc.; neo-experimentalist: I. Hacking, N. Cartwright, P. Galison, A. Franklin, R. Giere, R. Harré, etc.; philosophy of nature - problem of the Anthropocene.
Roberto Merrill
Assistant Professor
Areas of interest: The legitimacy of political power (state neutrality, public reason, political perfectionism, reasonable pluralism); issues of social justice (pre-distributive justice, owners' democracy, liberal socialism, unconditional basic income, state as employer of last resort); questions of metaethics (in particular in the fields of ontology and epistemology), normative ethics (in particular contractualist theories) and applied ethics (relations between art and morality, citizens' conferences, the ethics of love, paternalism, access to health care); some themes in the field of metaphysics, in particular questions about personal identity, the meaning of life and the philosophy of time.
Daniele Santoro
FCT Tenure Researcher
Areas of interest: The idea of public interest; whistleblowing and state secrecy; epistemic issues related to justice, democracy and public policy; normative foundations of constitutional rights; moral psychology of justice and inequality; theories of responsibility and causality in Philosophy of Law; inference in law.
António Baião
Guest Professor
Areas of interest: Anarchisms; contemporary political philosophy; post-structuralist approaches to power as government (especially governmentalities and counter-conducts); political resistance; history of political ideas (especially the philosophical discourse of modernity); post-foundational ontology; philosophy of the subject.
Jorge Mateus
Guest Professor
Areas of interest: Ethics of Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies; Neuroethics; Biopolitics and Human Enhancement; Transhumanism; conceptions of Human Nature; Theories of Well-Being and Human Flourishing.
Giuseppe Ballacci
FCT Tenure Researcher
Areas of interest: Democratic theory, with a particular focus on questions of political representation and populism (both contemporary and historical); questions related to political rhetoric, political judgment, emotions and politics; history of political thought, especially Renaissance, early modern (Machiavelli, Hobbes, etc.) and twentieth-century (Arendt, Shklar, Strauss, Schmitt, Kelsen, Bobbio, Rorty, etc.).
Manuel Sá Valente
FCT Tenure Researcher
Areas of interest: Contemporary theories of justice; social and distributive justice; egalitarianism; intergenerational justice; age-group justice; longevity justice; applied ethics (with a focus on ageing and mortality); temporal dimensions of justice and political philosophy; questions of justice relating to retirement, taxation, unconditional basic income, work, leisure, and free time.
Nicola Piras
CEEC Researcher
Areas of interest: Philosophy of food; food justice; food ethics; food aesthetics; food ontology (including formal implementations); animal ethics; analytic metaphysics; social ontology; conceptual engineering; environmental and climate ethics and philosophy.
Giorgio Airoldi
CEEC Researcher
Areas of interest: Philosophy of Science; Philosophy of Biology (especially evolution and formal evolutionary models, adaptationism, biological ontologies); Animal Sentience and Animal Ethics; Philosophy of medicine (especially metaphysics of medicine, epistemology of medicine, public health policies); Philosophy of Mind (especially 4E cognition and evolution of cognition).
Nunzio Ali
CEEC Researcher
Research interests: Contemporary theories of justice; power and domination; distributive justice; economic inequality and related social issues; Critical Theory; human rights; and climate justice.
Tiago Sousa
Guest Professor
Areas of Interest: Aesthetics and philosophy of art; musical aesthetics (issues related to value theory, ontology, expression, performance, appreciation and judgment); Kantian aesthetics; critical thinking and argumentation theory; public philosophy; logic; metaphilosophy (especially the relationship between philosophy and other fields); metaphysics (particularly personal identity and the problem of free will); epistemology (especially issues concerning non-propositional knowledge, testimony, Bayesian reasoning, and contemporary challenges related to misinformation); existentialism (particularly questions regarding the meaning of life); philosophy of religion; history of philosophy.
