Overview
Availability
- Professor Deborah Brown is:
- Available for supervision
- Media expert
Fields of research
Qualifications
- Bachelor (Honours) of Arts, The University of Queensland
- Masters (Coursework), University of Toronto
- Doctor of Philosophy, University of Toronto
Research interests
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Early Modern Philosophy
Early Modern Philosophy covers the period of philosophical thought roughly from 1650-1800, and encompasses radical changes in philosophical and scientific thinking and their intersection. Research interests include early modern and medieval theories of mind, action, metaphysics and epistemology, as well as social and political thought. Key figures of the early modern period include Descartes, Hobbes, Malebranche, Hume and the Cambridge Platonists and of the later medieval period, Aquinas, Ockham, Scotus, Buridan and Suárez.
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Logic and the Philosophy of Science
Logic and the Philosophy of Science examines fundamental issues in formal and informal reasoning, the nature of scientific reasoning, and other issues concerned with scientific method, scientific knowledge, the rise of modern science, the nature of scientific entities and metaphysical concepts that underlie science. Research interests include the emergence of the notion of force and theories of inertia, causation, emergent properties, functions and mereology.
Works
Search Professor Deborah Brown’s works on UQ eSpace
2019
Other Outputs
Detailed list of studies identified in systematic review of published research examining the critical thinking of higher education students
Lodge, Jason, Pezaro, Charlotte, Brown, Deborah, Kent, Kirsty, Corbett, Brooklyn and Ellerton, Peter (2019). Detailed list of studies identified in systematic review of published research examining the critical thinking of higher education students. The University of Queensland. (Dataset) doi: 10.14264/uql.2019.964
2019
Book
Descartes and the ontology of everyday life
Brown, Deborah J. and Normore, Calvin G. (2019). Descartes and the ontology of everyday life. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/oso/9780198836810.001.0001
2019
Book Chapter
The metaphysics of Cartesian persons
Brown, Deborah (2019). The metaphysics of Cartesian persons. Mind, body, and morality: new perspectives on Descartes and Spinoza. (pp. 17-36) edited by Martina Reuter and Frans Svensson. New York, NY, United States: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781351202831-3
2018
Journal Article
Designing brains for pain: human to mollusc
Key, Brian and Brown, Deborah (2018). Designing brains for pain: human to mollusc. Frontiers in Physiology, 9 (AUG) 1027, 1027. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2018.01027
2018
Book Chapter
Animal souls and beast machines: Descartes’s mechanical biology
Brown, Deborah J. (2018). Animal souls and beast machines: Descartes’s mechanical biology. Animals: a history. (pp. 187-209) edited by Peter Adamson and G. Fay Edwards. New York, United States: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/oso/9780199375967.003.0013
2017
Book Chapter
Power and passion in Hobbes, Descartes and Spinoza
Brown, Deborah (2017). Power and passion in Hobbes, Descartes and Spinoza. The Routledge companion to seventeenth century philosophy. (pp. 334-353) edited by Dan Kaufman. New York, NY, United States: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781315771960-12
2016
Book Chapter
Passion
Brown, Deborah (2016). Passion. The Cambridge Descartes lexicon. (pp. 563-569) edited by Lawrence Nolan. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511894695.192
2016
Book Chapter
Being, formal versus objective
Brown, Deborah (2016). Being, formal versus objective. The Cambridge Descartes lexicon. (pp. 60-65) edited by Lawrence Nolan. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511894695.027
2015
Journal Article
Animal automatism and machine intelligence
Brown, Deborah (2015). Animal automatism and machine intelligence. Res Philosophica, 92 (1), 93-115. doi: 10.11612/resphil.2015.92.1.2
2014
Book Chapter
The Sixth Meditation: Descartes and the embodied self
Brown, Deborah (2014). The Sixth Meditation: Descartes and the embodied self. The Cambridge Companion to Descartes' Meditations. (pp. 240-257) edited by David Cunning. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CCO9781139088220.013
2014
Book Chapter
On bits and pieces in the history of philosophy
Normore, Calvin G. and Brown, Deborah J. (2014). On bits and pieces in the history of philosophy. Composition as identity. (pp. 24-43) edited by Cotnoir, A. J. and Baxter, Donald L. M.. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
2013
Book Chapter
Understanding interaction revisited
Brown, Deborah (2013). Understanding interaction revisited. Debates in modern philosophy: essential readings and contemporary responses. (pp. 54-63) edited by Stewart Duncan and Antonia LoLordo. New York, NY, United States: Routledge.
2013
Book Chapter
Descartes and content skepticism
Brown, Deborah (2013). Descartes and content skepticism. Descartes' Meditations: a critical guide. (pp. 25-42) edited by Karen Detlefsen. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CBO9781139030731.005
2012
Journal Article
Cartesian functional analysis
Brown, Deborah J. (2012). Cartesian functional analysis. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 90 (1), 75-92. doi: 10.1080/00048402.2011.566274
2012
Conference Publication
Hume and the nominalist tradition
Brown, Deborah (2012). Hume and the nominalist tradition. Abingdon, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis. doi: 10.1080/00455091.2012.972125
2012
Book Chapter
Agency and attention in Malebranche's Theory of Cognition
Brown, Deborah (2012). Agency and attention in Malebranche's Theory of Cognition. Emotion and cognitive life in medieval and early modern philosophy. (pp. 217-233) edited by Martin Pickavé and Lisa Shapiro. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199579914.003.0012
2011
Journal Article
The duck's leg: Descartes's intermediate distinction
Brown, Deborah (2011). The duck's leg: Descartes's intermediate distinction. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 35 (1), 26-45. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4975.2011.00215.x
2010
Journal Article
Cartesian reflections: essays on Descartes’s philosophy
Brown, Deborah J. (2010). Cartesian reflections: essays on Descartes’s philosophy. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 88 (4), 731-734. doi: 10.1080/00048402.2010.481676
2008
Book Chapter
Descartes on True and False Ideas
Brown, Deborah J. (2008). Descartes on True and False Ideas. A Companion to Descartes. (pp. 196-215) edited by Janet Broughton and John Carriero. Carlton VIC, Australia: Blackwell Publishing. doi: 10.1002/9780470696439.ch12
2008
Journal Article
Gary Steiner. Descartes as a moral thinker: Christianity, technology, nihilism. JHP Book Series. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2004
Brown, Deborah (2008). Gary Steiner. Descartes as a moral thinker: Christianity, technology, nihilism. JHP Book Series. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2004. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 46 (1), 173-175. doi: 10.5840/ipq200747162
Funding
Current funding
Past funding
Supervision
Availability
- Professor Deborah Brown is:
- Available for supervision
Before you email them, read our advice on how to contact a supervisor.
Supervision history
Current supervision
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Doctor Philosophy
Hume's Scepticism, Ancient Scepticism and the Nature of Sceptical Assent
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Aurelia Armstrong
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Doctor Philosophy
Scepticism of other minds in the animal pain debate
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Brian Key
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Doctor Philosophy
Education to improve Collaborative Complex Decision Making in Intensive Care
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Peter Ellerton
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Master Philosophy
Giving Our Girls A Voice: Using Dialogic Teaching to improve gender equity in classrooms.
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Robyn Gillies
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Doctor Philosophy
Creating curious classrooms through student questions
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Peter Ellerton
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Doctor Philosophy
Teaching for Thinking: Collaboration and Critical Thinking
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Peter Ellerton
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Doctor Philosophy
The Role of Intuition in English and Literature Classrooms
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Peter Ellerton
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Doctor Philosophy
Human freedom: spinoza, descartes and kant
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Aurelia Armstrong
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Doctor Philosophy
What vaccine hesitancy can teach us about fostering public trust in healthcare artificial intelligence (AI)
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Peter Ellerton
Completed supervision
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2023
Doctor Philosophy
Thomas Hobbes; Equality and Recognition: A reinterpretation
Principal Advisor
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2021
Master Philosophy
Is there a Need for a New, an Environmental, Metaphysic? Val Plumwood's Environmental Philosophy Radically Naturalised
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Associate Professor Gilbert Burgh, Dr Peter Evans
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2014
Doctor Philosophy
Hume and Human Error
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Associate Professor William Grey
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2014
Doctor Philosophy
On The Nature of Persons; Persons as Constituted Events
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Dominic Hyde
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2013
Doctor Philosophy
Human Emotionality: Ontogenesis, Metaphysics and Expression
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Associate Professor William Grey
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2012
Master Philosophy
Amending and Defending Constitution
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Dominic Hyde
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2005
Doctor Philosophy
SCEPTICISM, CONTEXTUALISM AND NATURAL DOUBT
Principal Advisor
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2023
Doctor Philosophy
Writing as a 21st century skill: A dialogic approach to literacy pedagogy
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Robyn Gillies
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2019
Doctor Philosophy
Teaching for thinking: explaining pedagogical expertise in the development of the skills, values and virtues of inquiry
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Associate Professor Gilbert Burgh
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2019
Doctor Philosophy
Context-indexed Counterfactuals and Non-vacuous Counterpossibles
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Associate Professor Joel Katzav
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2016
Doctor Philosophy
Emotion in Agency : The Problematic Influence of the Split Self and a Spinozist Corrective
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Aurelia Armstrong
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2012
Doctor Philosophy
Spinoza's relational ontology and ethics of desire
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Aurelia Armstrong
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2007
Doctor Philosophy
IRIS - Integrated Referential Intensional Semantics
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Dominic Hyde
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Doctor Philosophy
A Naturalistic Epistemology of Logic
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Dominic Hyde
Media
Enquiries
Contact Professor Deborah Brown directly for media enquiries about:
- Metaphysics
- Philosophy - early modern
- Philosophy of mind and language
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