Contact
James Matharu is a postdoctoral research fellow on the “Learning Nature(s)” project, led by Francesca Mezzenzana. He studied philosophy and anthropology at the London School of Economics, before completing the BPhil and DPhil in philosophy at New College, Oxford.
His doctoral thesis argued that objectivity and subjectivity are mutually dependent; and that this has deep implications for how we adjudicate conflicts over what the world is and is not, over what does and does not truly matter, and over what is and is not the “right” way to do or grow or change.
James’ present work investigates the conditions for objectivity of different kinds and of identity claims in particular (claims about the “sameness” or “difference” of individuals or qualities). He is especially interested in identity claims which complicate boundaries between different spatial and temporal locations, between animate and inanimate, sentient and non-sentient. In connection to this, he is working on issues of methodology in developmental and comparative psychology, in ethnography, and in philosophies of mind and meaning.
RCC Research Project: Learning Nature(s): A Cross-Cultural Investigation of Children and Nature(s)