A weekly seminar for Philosophy postgraduates to present their in-progress work, followed by a well-spirited trip to the pub for food and drinks.
Useful Info
The WIP provides a risk-free and supportive space for postgraduates to present their work and receive feedback from other graduates and faculty.
When: Every Thursday (5pm to 6:15pm)
Where: Room S1.50 (Social Sciences Building, First Floor)
What: 30-minute presentation, followed by Q&A.
Attendance optional but highly recommended. All postgraduates are welcome to present or attend -- whether MA, MPhil, PhD, Visitors, etc.
馃搮 Format
Presentation: 30 minutes
Open Discussion / Q&A: 30 minutes
Material: Anything, really -- assessed essay (for MAs), a supervision essay (for MPhils), or a thesis section (for PhDs), ...
Style: Flexible -- slides, handouts, or simply talking.
Audience: No prior reading or background knowledge expected. Visiting PhDs
should
can present.
馃 Should I present? ("I have nothing to present; I hate public speaking; etc.")
Are you a postgraduate? Then yes, you should present.
In other words, all graduates are encouraged to present at least once.
The WIP is a unique opportunity for graduates to develop their public speaking / writing skills, take risks, test out theses, and get constructive feedback from peers.*
Presentations need not (in fact, should not) be watertight or polished pieces at all. You are encouraged to present work at all stages of the writing process -- first drafts, substantial sets of notes, etc.
Simply signing up for a date is a great way to give yourself a deadline to work towards. (This is what most people do.)
Term 1
Wk 1 (09/10) | Tiago Rodrigues (MPhil)"Can you know the value of parenthood before having a child?"Wk 2 (16/10) | David Lopez Baeza (MPhil)"Internalism About Reasons and the Tutelage of Experience"Wk 3 (23/10) | Shaun Clamp (MPhil)"Testing the Limits of Feeling and Form: Reappraising Langer's Aesthetic Theory in Light of the Poetic Sublime"Wk 4 (30/10) | 陌smail Deniz Demirkan (PhD)"Incompleteness of the Philosopher King: G枚del and the Concept of Truth in Politics"Wk 5 (06/11) | Alicia Klemm Silva (MPhil)"Frege on Sense and Reference"Wk 6 (13/11) | n/a
>> NO WIP DUE TO READING WEEK <<
Wk 7 (20/11) | Ben Long (MPhil)"Knowledge Through Alchemy?"Wk 8 (27/11) | Dmitry Sereda (Visiting PhD)"No Surrender? Capital Flight, Tax Competition, and Egalitarian Taxation Reforms"Wk 9 (04/12) | Jos茅 Xarez (Visiting PhD)"Free-Will Scepticism, Desert, and the Justification of Punishment"Wk 10 (11/12) | Emily Boocock (PhD)
** CANCELLED **
Term 2
Wk 1 (15/01) | Juyong Kim (PhD)"Hegel's Intersubjective Logic: Hegel and the Possibility of a New Social Ontology?"Wk 2 (22/01) | Emma Clinton (MPhil)
** CANCELLED **
Wk 3 (29/01) | Harland Cossons (UG)"Gareth Evans on Proper Names: An Interpretation"Wk 4 (05/02) | Emily Boocock (PhD)
"Support and Legitimation of Extremist Acts"
Wk 5 (12/02) | Evgenia Sonnabend (Visiting PhD)"The Relation of Logic to Realphilosophie in G.W.F. Hegel"Wk 6 (19/02) | n/a
>> NO WIP DUE TO READING WEEK <<
Wk 7 (26/02) | Mirko Prokop (Visiting PhD)"Reading Grice with Merleau-Ponty: Intention and the Foundations of Creative Expression"Wk 8 (05/03) | Simon Courtenage (PhD)"How to Make a Self"Wk 9 (12/03) | Lumeng Liu (PhD)
** CANCELLED **
Wk 10 (19/03) | Tiago Rodrigues (MPhil)"Lib Epistemology: Can We Make Coherent Sense of Political Liberals?"
Wk 5 (28/05) | Tom Geeson (PhD)
** TBC **
Wk 6 (04/06) | Rozemin Keshvani (PhD)
** TBC **
Wk 7 (11/06) | Leo Deng (MA)
** TBC **
Wk 8 (18/06) | Oscar Jenkinson (MA)
** TBC **
Wk 9 (25/06) | Chris Hall (PhD)
** TBC **
Wk 10 (02/07) | Anpeng Liu (MA)
** TBC **
鉁嶏笍 Guidance for Presenters
What can I present?
Any kind of in-progress work (within reason). E.g. Drafts of assessed essays, thesis sections, writing samples, conference papers, project outline, ...
Recommended Length
Aim for 3,000 to 4,000 words. Anything closer to the 5,000-word mark will be hard to fit in the 30-minute presentation time.
Presentation Structure
Presenters have complete liberty with regards to how to structure their presentation: handout, slideshow, etc.
Worth noting a common pitfall: spending too much time on background/exposition and not having enough time to present your main thesis and argument.
A good rule of thumb: aim for 10 minutes of exposition, and 20 minutes for whatever parts you actually want feedback on.
Submission Deadline
Presenters should email title and abstract to the organisers by the Sunday before their presentation. E.g. If presenting Thurs Week 5, email us by then end of Sunday Week 4.
To mark the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Philosophy at 糖心TV, the Philosophy Department will hold a one-day conference (25th of April 2026) to celebrate the life and work of one of its Honorary Doctoral Graduates (and one of the pre-eminent philosophers of the 20th century), Gilbert Ryle. Ryle tends to be associated with a small set of well-known ideas — for example, resistance to Cartesian dualism or the distinction between knowledge-that and knowledge-how. And there has been a widespread tendency to pigeon-hole Ryle as a 鈥榩hilosophical behaviourist鈥�. The workshop aims to get beyond caricatures and to promote an appreciation of the depth and breadth of Ryle鈥檚 manifold contributions to philosophy, as well as their relevance to contemporary concerns, in philosophy and beyond.
