Hutto, Daniel D. Professor of Philosophical Psychology

I am interested to supervise research topics relating to enactive, embodied, extended and scaffolded approaches to mind and cognition. Possible topics include:

creativity; embodied virtues; emergence; emotions; empathy; enactivist epistemology; engaging with fictions; enculturated minds; foundations of cognitive science; group minds/cognition; expertise; imagination; joint action; mental time travel; memory; moral cognition; narrative and theory of mind; narrative explanation; narrative and selfhood; phenomenal experience; philosophy of psychiatry; predictive processing; social cognition; theories of content.

Previous successful supervisions:

• PhD, Methods, Goals and Metaphysics in Contemporary Set Theory, Awarded June 2016
• PhD, Pretence: The Role of Representations and Intersubjectivity, Awarded Nov 2015
• PhD, Born Again: Natality, Normativity and Narrative in Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition, Awarded Sept 2013
• PhD, The Epistemology of Know How, Awarded April 2013
• PhD, Information-Theoretic Models of Social Interactions, Awarded Oct 2012
• PhD, Re-Thinking the Extended Mind, Awarded June 2010
• PhD, Kierkegaard and Indirect Communication, Awarded July 2006
• PhD, Subjectivity and Consciousness, Awarded Dec 2005
• MPhil, Pyrrhonism: Philosophy or Therapy?, Awarded Nov 2004

HDR Examinations

• PhD, A Horizontal Attitude: Gibsonian Psychology and an Ontology of Doing (Antwerp), May 2016
• PhD, A Direct Realist Understanding of Memory Errors (Macquarie), May 2016
• PhD, Social Expertise: A Development of Intersubjective Maximal Grip (Durham), May 2015
• PhD, A Pluralistic Folk Psychology (Reading), Feb 2015
• PhD, Making Sense of Biological Naturalism (Hertfordshire), April 2014
• MPhil, The Evolution of Folk Psychology as a Narrative Practice, (Macquarie), Feb 2014
• PhD, Robots that Say 'No': Acquisition of Linguistic Behaviour in Interaction Games with Humans (Hertfordshire), Dec 2013
• MPhil, Beyond Boundaries: From Extended to Biosemiotic Minds (King’s College London), Nov 2013
• PhD, Non-Transitive Phenomenal Indiscriminability: the Identity Problem and Ignorance Solution (Hertfordshire), May 2013
• PhD, A Treatise on Language Methods and Language Games in Autism (Sheffield Hallam), Oct 2012
• PhD, Being Consciousness (Antwerp), Jun 2011
• Phd by publication, Applications of the Thought of Wittgenstein in the Philosophy of Art and Mind (Sunderland), Jan 2011
• PhD, The Nature and Function of Spatio-Temporal Imagination (Nottingham), Feb 2010
• PhD, Imagination, Perception and Belief (Nottingham), Jun 2006
• DPhil, Philosophical Naturalization of Intentionality (Sussex), May 2004
• MPhil, A Teleological Metaphysics for Normative Realism (King’s College London), May 2005

I regularly speak at conferences and expert meetings - over 160 since 1998 - delivering keynotes, plenary lectures or presentations not only to other philosophers but also to anthropologists, clinical psychiatrists, educationalists, narratologists, neuroscientists and psychologists. 

Over the years, I have conducted promotion and tenure reviews for the following institutions: Bentley University; University of Central Florida; George Washington University; University of Keele; University of Las Vegas; University of Illinois; University of Memphis; Princeton University; Simon Fraser University; University of York (Toronto).

I am a member of  the following journal editorial  boards: Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences; Philosophical Writings; Review of Philosophy and Psychology; SATS: North European Journal of Philosophy; The Philosopher’s Magazine, UK.

I am a member of the advisory boards for the following Centres: Centre for Ecology, Culture and Communication, University of Portsmouth; Centre for Embodied, Embedded, Enactive and Ecological approaches to Cognitive Science, Goldsmiths, University of London

I am experienced in leading academic teams, having served as Head of Philosophy at Hertfordshire from 1999 to 2005 and as Discipline Leader for Philosophy at UOW since 2013. At UOW I have been leading the review and design of the Philosophy curriculum in line with UOW's progressive plans for curriculum transformation.

In my previous institution I led and motivated my colleagues to achieve excellence in long-term teaching and research initiatives. As Research Leader for Philosophy, I coordinated four successive research assessment exercises (RAEs/REF) yielding impressively stronger results for our unit each time.

I also had executive oversight of my previous department’s Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) Subject Review in 2001. Our provision was rated ‘excellent’ and awarded a perfect grade of 24 (out of 24). This was my previous University’s first and only perfect result; a better result than achieved by several longer established UK philosophy departments. The reviewers praised a number of the teaching innovations, including:

• Development of a common template for all course guides to ensure high standards and ease of monitoring and use. These guides receive regular praise for being, “without exception excellent” (UG EE 2003) and “impressively detailed” (PG EE 2003);
• Use of specially designed Assignment Appraisal Sheets to ensure a common format for more effective qualitative feedback across courses;
• Early reviewing of structural essay plans, providing formative student support;
• Holding of mid-year Progress Interviews to improve student achievement;
• Assessing of student’s transferable skills by group presentations - regarded as both a ‘valuable’ and ‘unique’ innovation in UK Philosophy (UG EE 2002).

Once in place these practices enable our philosophy unit to achieve:

• Student feedback results that were consistently better than those for both the University and the School of Humanities;
• Improved student performance, especially in the mid-bands (e.g. the lowering of fail rates, an significant increase in 2.1s and the dropping off of 3^rd class results);
• Consistently excellent external examiner’s reports (at both the undergraduate and Masters’ level)

Teaching and Learning Consultancy

• Panel Member for Validation of MA in Mind, Brain and Learning, Oxford Brookes, 2003
• Periodic Review Panel Member, Undergraduate Programmes, University of Kent, 2004
• Teaching, Learning and Assessment Methods, NUI Maynooth (Theology), Ireland.
• Consultant, Programme Specifications, University of Exeter, UK, 2004
• Curriculum Structure and Design, University College Dublin, Ireland, 2003
• Consultant, Course Design, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, 2003
• Teaching, Learning and Assessment Methods, NUI Maynooth, Ireland, 2003
• External Examiner Undergraduate/Postgraduate, University of Reading, 2003-2006
• External Examiner MA in Philosophy of Cognitive Science, University of Sussex, 2006-2011

University of Wollongong,

Northfields Avenue, Building 19, Room 2021

Wollongong

New South Wales

2522

Australia

Although an analytic philosopher by inclination and training, I adopt a broad and ecumenical approach to philosophical inquiry, willingly embracing justified insights from any school of thought. My recent research focuses primarily on issues in philosophy of mind, psychology and cognitive science. I am best known for promoting enactive and embodied cognition that are non-representational at root, and for my narrative practice hypothesis about folk psychology, which claims that engaging with narratives, understood as public artefacts, plays a critical role in underpinning distinctively human forms of cognition.

Radicalizing Enactivism (with E. Myin) The MIT Press: Bradford Books. 2013.

·       A Choice Outstanding Academic Title

·       Honourable mention - 2013 PROSE Awards

Critical acclaim:

• “One of the most original contributions … in recent philosophy of mind … No collection in modern philosophy of mind is complete without this ground breaking book” – Choice
• "opens the door to a full new program of research within the cognitive sciences.”—The Philosophical Quarterly
• “a thorough and rigorous criticism of classical and contemporary analytical theories of content”—Intellectica 
• "offers so much .. Anyone with even the slightest interest in theoretical cognitive science cannot … ignore the issues raised herein” ― Journal of Cognitive Computing
• "a great little book … its implications are profound" —Minds and Brains
• "a wonderful example how ‘research at the foundations' can be highly relevant 'at the surface’s many examples of daily practice” —InterAction
• "clarity of purpose makes Radicalizing Enactivism a uniquely effective anti-representationalist manifesto” – Language Sciences 

Folk Psychological Narratives The MIT Press: Bradford Books. 2008.

Critical acclaim:

• “an instant classic in this important and relatively young field of study” – Metapsychology
• "changes the terms of this debate” – Times Literary Supplement
• "opens up new lines of empirical research … should be read by all psychologists and philosophers interested in a theory of mind” – Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

A new new, co-authored book with Erik Myin for The MIT Press, Evolving Enactivism appeared in Spring 2017. 

Critical acclaim:

• “a crucial book that promises to leave a mark on future cognitive science … a seminal work” – New Ideas in Psychology
• “a compelling vision of psychological evolution, with which anyone thinking about the emergence of the different varieties of mentality must reckon.” —Helen Steward, Professor of Philosophy of Mind and Action, University of Leeds
• “a secure path for satisfactorily naturalizing every human cognitive capacity, leaving nothing to metaphysical mystery or scientific inscrutability” -  Choice
• “a well-motivated and powerful answer to the sorts of explanatory stalemates and difficulties that cognitive science has struggled but so far failed to solve” - Manuscrito
• “One of the most important books in cognitive science … an open-minded dialogue that cannot be ignored!” – Amazon

Current research projects

Until 2015, I was a node leader in the Marie Curie ‘Towards an Embodied Science of Intersubjectivity’ initial training network (2011-2015). I have also been an active collaborator in the 'Agency, Normativity and Identity' project (2012-2015) funded by the Spanish Ministry of Innovation and Research.

In other upcoming projects I aim to explore how we can, and why we must, understand the foundations of sciences of the of mind in enactive, embodied terms. Along with Glenda Satne, I am also continuing to investigate the question of contentful thought arises and how it is scaffolded by socio-cultural practices.

With an eye on non-academic impact, I am also working on a new book, commissioned by Bloomsbury. It targets a general audience and spells out why clarifying issues in the philosophy of psychology matters crucially to our understanding of and ability to make good decisions about: education; animal welfare; psychopathology; therapy and sports science.

I am interested to supervise research topics relating to enactive, embodied, extended and scaffolded approaches to mind and cognition. Possible topics include:

creativity; embodied virtues; emergence; emotions; empathy; enactivist epistemology; engaging with fictions; enculturated minds; foundations of cognitive science; group minds/cognition; expertise; imagination; joint action; mental time travel; memory; moral cognition; narrative and theory of mind; narrative explanation; narrative and selfhood; phenomenal experience; philosophy of psychiatry; predictive processing; social cognition; theories of content.

Previous successful supervisions:

• PhD, Methods, Goals and Metaphysics in Contemporary Set Theory, Awarded June 2016
• PhD, Pretence: The Role of Representations and Intersubjectivity, Awarded Nov 2015
• PhD, Born Again: Natality, Normativity and Narrative in Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition, Awarded Sept 2013
• PhD, The Epistemology of Know How, Awarded April 2013
• PhD, Information-Theoretic Models of Social Interactions, Awarded Oct 2012
• PhD, Re-Thinking the Extended Mind, Awarded June 2010
• PhD, Kierkegaard and Indirect Communication, Awarded July 2006
• PhD, Subjectivity and Consciousness, Awarded Dec 2005
• MPhil, Pyrrhonism: Philosophy or Therapy?, Awarded Nov 2004

HDR Examinations

• PhD, A Horizontal Attitude: Gibsonian Psychology and an Ontology of Doing (Antwerp), May 2016
• PhD, A Direct Realist Understanding of Memory Errors (Macquarie), May 2016
• PhD, Social Expertise: A Development of Intersubjective Maximal Grip (Durham), May 2015
• PhD, A Pluralistic Folk Psychology (Reading), Feb 2015
• PhD, Making Sense of Biological Naturalism (Hertfordshire), April 2014
• MPhil, The Evolution of Folk Psychology as a Narrative Practice, (Macquarie), Feb 2014
• PhD, Robots that Say 'No': Acquisition of Linguistic Behaviour in Interaction Games with Humans (Hertfordshire), Dec 2013
• MPhil, Beyond Boundaries: From Extended to Biosemiotic Minds (King’s College London), Nov 2013
• PhD, Non-Transitive Phenomenal Indiscriminability: the Identity Problem and Ignorance Solution (Hertfordshire), May 2013
• PhD, A Treatise on Language Methods and Language Games in Autism (Sheffield Hallam), Oct 2012
• PhD, Being Consciousness (Antwerp), Jun 2011
• Phd by publication, Applications of the Thought of Wittgenstein in the Philosophy of Art and Mind (Sunderland), Jan 2011
• PhD, The Nature and Function of Spatio-Temporal Imagination (Nottingham), Feb 2010
• PhD, Imagination, Perception and Belief (Nottingham), Jun 2006
• DPhil, Philosophical Naturalization of Intentionality (Sussex), May 2004
• MPhil, A Teleological Metaphysics for Normative Realism (King’s College London), May 2005

I regularly speak at conferences and expert meetings - over 160 since 1998 - delivering keynotes, plenary lectures or presentations not only to other philosophers but also to anthropologists, clinical psychiatrists, educationalists, narratologists, neuroscientists and psychologists. 

Over the years, I have conducted promotion and tenure reviews for the following institutions: Bentley University; University of Central Florida; George Washington University; University of Keele; University of Las Vegas; University of Illinois; University of Memphis; Princeton University; Simon Fraser University; University of York (Toronto).

I am a member of  the following journal editorial  boards: Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences; Philosophical Writings; Review of Philosophy and Psychology; SATS: North European Journal of Philosophy; The Philosopher’s Magazine, UK.

I am a member of the advisory boards for the following Centres: Centre for Ecology, Culture and Communication, University of Portsmouth; Centre for Embodied, Embedded, Enactive and Ecological approaches to Cognitive Science, Goldsmiths, University of London

I am experienced in leading academic teams, having served as Head of Philosophy at Hertfordshire from 1999 to 2005 and as Discipline Leader for Philosophy at UOW since 2013. At UOW I have been leading the review and design of the Philosophy curriculum in line with UOW's progressive plans for curriculum transformation.

In my previous institution I led and motivated my colleagues to achieve excellence in long-term teaching and research initiatives. As Research Leader for Philosophy, I coordinated four successive research assessment exercises (RAEs/REF) yielding impressively stronger results for our unit each time.

I also had executive oversight of my previous department’s Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) Subject Review in 2001. Our provision was rated ‘excellent’ and awarded a perfect grade of 24 (out of 24). This was my previous University’s first and only perfect result; a better result than achieved by several longer established UK philosophy departments. The reviewers praised a number of the teaching innovations, including:

• Development of a common template for all course guides to ensure high standards and ease of monitoring and use. These guides receive regular praise for being, “without exception excellent” (UG EE 2003) and “impressively detailed” (PG EE 2003);
• Use of specially designed Assignment Appraisal Sheets to ensure a common format for more effective qualitative feedback across courses;
• Early reviewing of structural essay plans, providing formative student support;
• Holding of mid-year Progress Interviews to improve student achievement;
• Assessing of student’s transferable skills by group presentations - regarded as both a ‘valuable’ and ‘unique’ innovation in UK Philosophy (UG EE 2002).

Once in place these practices enable our philosophy unit to achieve:

• Student feedback results that were consistently better than those for both the University and the School of Humanities;
• Improved student performance, especially in the mid-bands (e.g. the lowering of fail rates, an significant increase in 2.1s and the dropping off of 3^rd class results);
• Consistently excellent external examiner’s reports (at both the undergraduate and Masters’ level)

Teaching and Learning Consultancy

• Panel Member for Validation of MA in Mind, Brain and Learning, Oxford Brookes, 2003
• Periodic Review Panel Member, Undergraduate Programmes, University of Kent, 2004
• Teaching, Learning and Assessment Methods, NUI Maynooth (Theology), Ireland.
• Consultant, Programme Specifications, University of Exeter, UK, 2004
• Curriculum Structure and Design, University College Dublin, Ireland, 2003
• Consultant, Course Design, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, 2003
• Teaching, Learning and Assessment Methods, NUI Maynooth, Ireland, 2003
• External Examiner Undergraduate/Postgraduate, University of Reading, 2003-2006
• External Examiner MA in Philosophy of Cognitive Science, University of Sussex, 2006-2011

University of Wollongong,

Northfields Avenue, Building 19, Room 2021

Wollongong

New South Wales

2522

Australia