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Philosophy Postgraduates

Mary Jean Walker

mary.walker@scmp.mq.edu.au (02) 9850 7664 Office: W6A 731

Degree: PhD
Thesis topic: Personal and practical identity
Supervisor: A/Prof Catriona Mackenzie,
Associate Supervisor: Prof Peter Menzies
Scholarship: Research Awards for Areas and Centres of Excellence (RAACE)

I am interested in personal identity because of the way it connects to both ethical and practical concerns and to metaphysics. My thesis looks at the debates about personal identity, mainly within the analytic tradition, that attempt to discover a criterion of personal identity understood as numerical identity. In the last twenty years this debate has led to discussion of what it is personal identity that matters to us, and led some to question whether numerical identity is really what is (or should be) under debate. Those in this debate have turned to look at discussions of identity in a slightly different sense, drawing on practical philosophy and discussions of autonomy, agency and self-conception. This has been developed into views of identity that focus on practical or moral aspects of our identities, and can perhaps be spoken about in terms of narrative. My thesis will look at the ways in which these differing discussions may link up, and in what way numerical identity may (or may not) interact with these other senses of identity.
I'm also interested in reasons and norms in whatever guise they appear in philosophy, normativity, and in the philosophy of addiction.

I am from Canberra and did my undergraduate arts degree, sporadically over the course of eight years, first at the ANU and then at Sydney University. I began my PhD at Macquarie in late 2005. I have two cats, a (beloved) Honda CB125 (1971 model), an extensive collection of trashy novels, and a Certificate II in Classical Voice.

Teaching and other work through Macquarie
Tutor for PHIL137 Critical Thinking
Tutor for PHIL131 Mind, Meaning, and Metaphysics
Research assistant for a research proposal in Neuroethics (2006)
Research assistant work assisting in the preparation of a manuscript for publication (2007)

Other roles at Macquarie
Secretary of the Platonic Society (2006-07)
(See http://au.geocities.com/platonicsociety/index.htm)

Co-editor of the COGITO Student Journal of Philosophy, produced with the Russellian Society of Sydney University and the Socratic Society of UNSW (2006-07)