There is a significant research focus on the growing field of the philosophy of nature and the environment in the School of Philosophy at UEA. Environmental concerns are among the most topical and pressing ones of our time. At the School of Philosophy, research in this area examines the philosophical underpinnings of such concerns and investigates important questions that the impact of human life on nature raises within philosophy.

The research interests of staff members centre around the following broad themes:

  • conceptions of nature and the environment and of our place as human beings in the natural world;
  • ethical, social and political dimensions of the relationship between humans and their natural environment;
  • aesthetics of nature;
  • questions in the philosophy of science and technology relating to the study and use of the natural world.

We welcome applications from post-graduate students wishing to work in these areas.

Members of the School of Philosophy working in this area

Dr Thomas Greaves works primarily in the field of phenomenology of nature and environmental philosophy. He is particularly concerned with the ways that basic emotions such as wonder affect our engagement with the natural world. One of his key interests here is the relationship between environmental aesthetics and environmental ethics. Another important dimension of this work concerns the history of concepts such as nature, environment and animality. Some of Tom's recent work has been on magic, emotion and practical life in Sartre and Collingwood, and the ecological conditions of value. He also works on many themes in the Continental tradition, with a particular focus on Heidegger and phenomenology. Tom is part of the interdisciplinary environmental studies research group at UEA.. (See Publications and Academia.edu page)

Prof Catherine Rowett has a long-standing interest in classical texts that discuss the status of the natural world, creation, and the relation between human and non-human animals. In her work in this area she has focused particularly on the meta-ethical basis of animal rights, and the idea that the division of nature into ethically significant divisions is a work of imagination, not of scientific discovery. Ancient texts in the Western tradition (from the Presocratics to late antiquity) on animal minds, vegetarianism, transmigration of souls and the scala naturae are a key focus of her research and she welcomes research proposals for original PhD work of a philosophical nature in all these areas. (See Publications and Academia.edu page: published as Catherine Osborne until 2011)

Dr Rupert Read's main work now is in environmental philosophy. He is writing a book provisionally entitled ‘The end of liberalism and the dawn of a permanent culture', which proposes the overthrow of the political philosophy of liberalism and its replacement by a new eco-communitarian philosophy suitable for sustaining an indefinite human presence on Earth. (See Publications and Academia.edu page)