Head of Department
Qualifications: MA, PhD (UKZN)
Position: Departmental Chairperson and Associate Professor
Email: ooyowe@uwc.ac.za
He has published on personal identity, the relation between community and self, and the debate about how best to ground human rights. Currently, he is exploring the connections between narrative self-understanding in Western philosophy and traditional African normative conception of self. His other interest is in the relation between (African) philosophy and development on the continent.
Position: Departmental Chairperson and Associate Professor
Email: ooyowe@uwc.ac.za
Biography
Associate Professor Oritsegbubemi Oyowe is the Chairperson of, and an Associate Professor in, the Department. He teaches Introductory Philosophy, Political Philosophy and African Philosophy. He is an erstwhile NRF Y-rated researcher (2017-2022), and his research interests are in metaphysics and ethics - in particular, issues around the nature of the self and personal identity as well as the practical questions that arise at the point where these metaphysical intersect with ethical issues, especially about human dignity, autonomy, rights and obligations. He is interested in engaging these issues from both Western and African philosophical perspectives.He has published on personal identity, the relation between community and self, and the debate about how best to ground human rights. Currently, he is exploring the connections between narrative self-understanding in Western philosophy and traditional African normative conception of self. His other interest is in the relation between (African) philosophy and development on the continent.
Academic Staff
Qualification: MA (Rhodes), PhD (UCT)
Position: Professor
Email: sbeck@uwc.ac.za
Position: Professor
Email: sbeck@uwc.ac.za
Biography
Professor Simon Beck teaches Introductory Philosophy, Theory of Knowledge, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Mind and History of Philosophy. He is an NRF-rated researcher, and his research interests are in metaphysics and the philosophy of mind, especially around persistence and personal identity. He has published extensively on philosophical methodology and the personal identity debate and has recently been working on the intersection between personal identity, thought experiments, and narrative.Qualification: MA, PhD (UCT)
Position: Lecturer
Email: jlerm@uwc.ac.za
Position: Lecturer
Email: jlerm@uwc.ac.za
Biography
Dr Jessica Lerm is a Lecturer in the Department. She teaches Introductory Moral and Political Philosophy, Metaethics and Philosophy of Psychology and Mind. Her main area of research is in metaethics, particularly in the emerging field of second-personal accounts of morality. She is also researching the ethics of privilege and epistemic injustice.Qualification: MA (UWC)
Position: Associate Lecturer
Email:kseakgwa@uwc.ac.za
Position: Associate Lecturer
Email:kseakgwa@uwc.ac.za
Biography
Kyle Seakgwa is an Associate Lecturer in the Department, and he teaches Critical Thinking, Metaphysics and Race Theory. His research interests are at the interface between philosophy and cognitive science, especially in investigating the process of reasoning in philosophy.Qualification: MA (UWC)
Position: Associate Lecturer
Email:knaidoo@uwc.ac.za
Position: Associate Lecturer
Email:knaidoo@uwc.ac.za
Biography
Kiasha Naidoo is an Associate Lecturer in the Department, and a PhD candidate at Stellenbosch University. She teaches on subjectivity in the history of philosophy, and parts of both race, culture, identity, and epistemology. Kiasha’s research interests are in social and political philosophy, phenomenology and existentialism, critical theory, and Black Consciousness Movement philosophy.Qualification: MA (UWC)
Position: Associate Lecturer
Email:mcollison@uwc.ac.za
Position: Associate Lecturer
Email:mcollison@uwc.ac.za
Biography
Miles Collison is an Associate Lecturer in the Department, and he teaches Metaethics, as well as Philosophy of Race. His research interests are moral philosophy, anti-natalism, and investigating the cause of why there seems to be a lack of minority representation in the field of philosophy.Administrative Staff
Position: Administrative officer
