Annette Baier Prize

Sponsored by Taylor and Francis

Awarded for an outstanding philosophical paper or book chapter published by an Australasian woman during the previous calendar year. Awarded during the Presidential Address at the annual conference each July.

More information, judging criteria & how to enter.     Nominate to be a Judge here.

2024 Winner

Michelle Liu

Monash University

'X-Phi and the challenge from ad hoc concepts'

This excellent essay draws on (and contributes to) work in the philosophy of language about ad hoc concepts in order, first, to probe the use of “what-it’s-like” concepts in experimental philosophy, and, second, to critique resulting claims made by experimental philosophers about lay versus expert conceptions of consciousness.  The essay is noteworthy for its clarity, rigour, and innovation.  The essay articulates a highly technical and complex discussion in ways that a general philosophical reader can understand.  It deftly brings diverse modes of philosophical inquiry into a single, focused argument that successfully challenges methodologies of current experimental philosophy. 

Synthese, 201, 166.

link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-023-04149-8

michelleyuanboliu.wixsite.com/mybl

research.monash.edu/en/persons/michelle-liu

x.com/michelleybliu

2024 Commendation

Bronwyn Finnigan

Australian National University

‘Fear is Anticipatory: A Buddhist Analysis’

Journal of Consciousness Studies, 30 (7-8): 112-138

https://doi.org/10.53765/20512201.30.7.112

2024 Shortlist

Belinda Eslick

University of Queensland

'Sexuation as a Frame for Human Becoming: Reading a “Plastic” Essence in Irigaray’s Philosophy'

In M. C. Rawlinson & J. Sares (Eds.), What Is Sexual Difference?: Thinking with Irigaray (pp. 124–142). Columbia University Press.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/rawl20272.11

Bronwyn Finnigan

Australian National University

‘Fear is Anticipatory: A Buddhist Analysis’

Journal of Consciousness Studies, 30 (7-8): 112-138

https://doi.org/10.53765/20512201.30.7.112

Justine Kingsbury

University of Waikato

'New Challenges to the Selected Effects Account of Biological Function'

Synthese, 202, 177.

https://rdcu.be/dx6LH

Michelle Liu

Monash University

'X-Phi and the challenge from ad hoc concepts'

Synthese, 201, 166.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-023-04149-8

Kristie Miller

University of Sydney

'Against Passage Illusionism'

Ergo an Open Access Journal of Philosophy, 9: 45. 

https://doi.org/10.3998/ergo.2914

Dalia Nassar

University of Sydney

'The Feeling of Freedom: Schelling on the Role of Freedom in Grasping Nature'

In Joe Saunders (Eds.), Freedom after Kant: From German Idealism to Ethics and the Self. New York: Bloomsbury.

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/freedom-after-kant-9781350187757/


Winner 2023


Anik Waldow 

University of Sydney

‘What is Humean Autonomy?’

In Daniel O'Brien (Eds.), Hume on the Self and Personal Identity, (pp. 177-200). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan/Springer, 2022.

link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-04275-1_8

The fundamental idea of this paper is that David Hume thinks humans are essentially social, in their identities and agency, so a Humean account of autonomy includes consideration of our links with each other. Autonomy does not necessitate reasoning purely as an individual. The author undertakes a close reading of Hume’s account of moral judgment and virtue in dialogue with recent work on relational autonomy in order to argue that there are resources in Hume’s work to explain how selves can resist domination even though they are sympathetically connected with others. The argument is that Hume’s account of the self as having autonomy can be spelt out in terms of the performative nature of ‘autonomous self-manifestation’, meaning that explicit self-analysis is not needed for autonomy or for a critical judgement of unjust ways of being treated. Critical reflection can be habitual or reflective, and a person can critically evaluate and reject dominant perspectives through considering agreeable and useful virtues from the perspective of the self. The paper opens up questions concerning how oppression can be resisted even when we are deeply concerned with the views of others. It is an original, persuasive and closely argued paper, and it is elegantly and clearly written.


2023 Shortlist


Stephanie Collins

Monash University

‘I, Volkswagen’

The Philosophical Quarterly, 72(2): 283–304, 2022

academic.oup.com/pq/article-abstract/72/2/283/6307942


'Abilities and Obligations: Lessons from Non-Agentive Groups'Erkenntnis, 2022
doi.org/10.1007/s10670-021-00507-5


Kate Phelan

Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology

‘Feminism as Epic Theory’

British Journal of Political Science, 52(3): 1226-1239, 2022
doi.org/10.1017/S0007123421000090


Krushil Watene

University of Auckland

‘Indigenous Philosophy and Intergenerational Justice’

Reimagining the Human-Environment Relationship. New York: United Nations University, 2022
collections.unu.edu/eserv/UNU:8829/UNUUNEP_Watene_RHER.pdf

2022 Winner

Melissa Merritt

University of New South Wales

'Kant and Stoic Affections'

Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 51(5), 329350, 2021

doi.org/10.1017/can.2021.34

"This beautifully written article on "Kant and Stoic Affections" leads us through key nuances of Kant's expositions of reason, passions, affects, and faculties of the mind to show us what readers have too-often missed: an account of the way we use 'the resources of reason' to turn the immediate assailments of affect into habitual passions. We find Kant returning to the Stoics' psychological monism as he writes his mature work on morals and anthropology. Applied to his claims about the passions and affects, what comes through clearly is a vision of the very point where affect and reason can meet -- and it is only when affects turn into unthinking passions that habitually flare, and do so even in the face of reason, that we have a problem."

2022 Shortlist


Rachael Brown 

Australian National University 

'Is Cultural Evolution Always Fast?' 'Challenging the idea that cognitive gadgets would be capable of rapid and adaptive evolution'

Synthese, 199, 8965–8989, 2021

doi.org/10.1007/s11229-021-03190-9


Heather Dyke

University of Otago

Weak Neo-Whorfianism and the Philosophy of Time

Mind & Language, 1–14, 2021

doi.org/10.1111/mila.12339

2021 Winner



Jessica Whyte 

University of New South Wales

‘Calculation and Conflict’

South Atlantic Quarterly, 119(1): 31-51, 2020

read.dukeupress.edu/south-atlantic-quarterly

“Calculation and Conflict” makes a ground-breaking contribution to the philosophy of political economy with its illuminating analysis of the calculation debate of the early twentieth century. The paper recounts the fateful moments when Otto Neurath’s arguments for planned economies oriented towards wellbeing and guided by popular deliberation lost the debate to Ludwig von Mises’s case for associating market freedoms with human freedoms, the progress of civilization, and the prospect of world peace. The paper’s incisive look at the original arguments from the period is of enormous relevance today for the understanding it provides of the reasoning behind neo-liberalism and how its rise involved the defeat or marginalization of some very persuasive alternatives.

2021 Shortlist

Melissa Merritt 

University of New South Wales

‘Nature, Corruption, and Freedom: Stoic ethics in Kant's Religion’

European Journal of Philosophy, 29: 3-24, 2020

doi.org/10.1111/ejop.12553

Glenda Lucila Satne

University of Wollongong

‘Practical Knowledge and Shared Agency: Pluralizing the Anscombean view’.

Inquiry, 2020

tandfonline.com

2020 Winner


Talia Morag  

University of Wollongong

'Comparison or Seeing-As? The Holocaust and Factory Farming'

Morality in a Realistic Spirit : Essays for Cora Diamond, Andrew Gleeson and Craig Taylor (eds.). London: Routledge, 2019

routledge.com/Morality-in-a-Realistic-Spirit-Essays-for-Cora-Diamond

If we attend to the singularity of seeing-as experiences, noticing how they make us feel and how they can isolate us, we may be able to talk about them in a way that invites others to share them or at least acknowledge our experience of them. This seeing-as is different than making a comparison; the latter uses concepts to make an argument, while the former is imagistic and expresses a singular experience. In this chapter, Talia Morag analyses J.M. Coetzee’s fictional character Elizabeth Costello’s profoundly isolating experience of seeing our treatment of non-human animals as connected to imagery of the Holocaust. The essay is a beautiful example of the insight philosophers can provide into crucial if painful aspects of the human experience when they extend their methods beyond conventional conceptual analysis.

2020 Commendations


Helen Ngo  

Deakin University

‘Get Over It’? Racialised Temporalities and Bodily Orientations in Time'

Journal of Intercultural Studies, 40(2), 239-253, 2019

doi.org

Anne Schwenkenbecher  

Murdoch University

'Collective Moral Obligations: "We-Reasoning" and the Perspective of the Deliberating Agent'

The Monist, 102(2): 151-171, 2019

academic.oup.com

2020 Shortlist


Laura Davy  

Australian National University

'Between an Ethic of Care and an Ethic of Autonomy: Negotiating Relational Autonomy, Disability and Dependency'

Angelaki - Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, 24,101-114, 2019

tandfonline.com


Holly Lawford-Smith 

University of Melbourne

‘Democratic Authority to Geoengineer’

Critical Review of Social and Political Philosophy, 2019

tandfonline.com

Hannah Tierney 

Cornell University / University of Sydney 

'Quality of Reasons and Degrees of Moral Responsibility'

Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 97(4), 661-672, 2019

tandfonline.com

2019 Winner

Louise Richardson-Self  

University of Tasmania

'Offending White Men: Racial Vilification, Misrecognition, and Epistemic Injustice'

Feminist Philosophy Quarterly, 4(4), 2019

sites.google.com/site/louiserichardsonself

ABC Radio interview.

In "Offending White Men" the author very skillfully and convincingly draws on recent scholarship on epistemic injustice to address an important issue in contemporary Australian politics and society, namely recent challenges to the Racial Discrimination Act by white complainants. The paper is an excellent example of engaged philosophy - philosophy that takes as its starting point a specific social problem and uses the resources of philosophical theory to analyse and respond to that problem.

2019 Commendation


Holly Lawford-Smith  

University of Melbourne

'What's Wrong with Collective Punishment?'

Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 3/CXVIII

hollylawford-smith.org

2019 Shortlist

\

Bronwyn Finnigan  

Australian National University

'Is Consciousness Reflexively Self-Aware? A Buddhist Analysis'

Ratio, 31: 389-401, 2018

bronwynfinnigan.com


Kristie Miller  

The University of Sydney

'The New Growing Block Theory vs Presentism'

Inquiry, 61(3): 223-251, 2018

kristiemiller.net


Catherine Mills  

Monash University

'Seeing, Feeling, Doing: Mandatory Ultrasound Laws, Empathy and Abortion'

Journal of Practical Ethics. 6(2): 1-31, 2018

monash.edu/en/persons/catherine-mills

2018 Winner


Jennifer Windt  

Monash University

'Predictive brains, dreaming selves, sleeping bodies: how the analysis of dream movement can inform a theory of self-and world-simulation in dreams'

Synthese, 195.6: 2577-2625, 2018

This paper is exceptionally clear and systematic. Building on an impressive body of prior work, Windt does a great job of walking the inexperienced reader through the steps of both established scholarly debates in analytic philosophy of mind, and a wealth of empirical data on dreaming. The manifold and subtle ways in which the paper manages to explore the testability of various well-known philosophical positions as empirical hypotheses greatly impressed the judges. The paper is also notable for arguing powerfully against a view of the relationship between mind, brain and body that is currently widely held by philosophers (‘cranial envatment’), and advancing an interesting positive thesis of its own: that the way we imagine our body to be shapes our phenomenal states, and thus while we’re dreaming our actual bodily sensations might give rise to dream images that unfold through their own logic and then inform further dream ‘perceptions’ in a rich feedback loop. One judge also noted potentially rich connections between this discussion and work by Lacan and Merleau-Ponty. 

2018 Commendations


Talia Morag  

Deakin University

'The Tracking Dogma in the Philosophy of Emotion'

Argumenta 2, 2, 343-363, 2017


Helen Ngo 

Deakin University

'Simulating the Lived Experience of Racism and Islamophobia: On ‘Embodied Empathy’ and Political Tourism'

Australian Feminist Law Journal, 43:1, 107-123, DOI: 10.1080/13200968.2017.1321090, 2017

2018 Annette Baier Prize - Shortlist

Luara Ferracioli  

University of Sydney

'Citizenship for Children: By soil, By Blood, or By Paternalism?' Philos Stud, 2017

doi.org/10.1007/s11098-017-0985-3


Bronwyn Finnigan  

Australian National University

'The Nature of a Buddhist Path'

A Mirror is for Reflection: Understanding Buddhist Ethics J.H.Davis (ed.) Oxford University Press, 33-52, 2017

2017 Winner


Miriam Bankovsky 

La Trobe University

'Excusing Economic Envy: On Injustice and Impotence'

Journal of Applied Philosophy, 35(2), 2016

https://doi.org/10.1111/japp.12194

Bankovsky’s paper provides a highly original analysis of an idea that has been with us since the Ancient Greeks – that envy is irrational, and as such, does not provide justification for economic redistribution. Bankovsky challenges this orthodoxy by recovering the overlooked concept from John Rawls of ‘excusable envy’, which she argues shows that envy can be rational, and does provide grounds for economic redistribution. Bankovsky’s analysis is both detailed and ambitious; it has the potential to re-orient philosophical analysis of economic envy, from the language of individual shame to that of collective social justice. In this, she links conceptual argumentation with contemporary political concerns, in an article that the committee judged to be of a high standard of scholarship, clarity and overall merit. Her article is a commendable achievement.

2017 Short List

Tracy Llanera 

Macquarie University

'Rethinking nihilism: Rorty vs Taylor, Dreyfus and Kelly'

Philosophy and Social Criticism, 42.9 (2016), 937-950., 2016


Talia Morag 

Deakin University

'Emotions as judgments or as modes of “seeing-as”: The explanatory challenges toward a causal account for emotional episodes'Emotion, Imagination, and the Limits of Reason, London: Routledge, 21-57, 2016

Dalia Nassar 

University of Sydney

'Analogical reflection as a source for the science of life: Kant and the possibility of the biological sciences'Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 58, 57-66, 2016

Anik Waldow

Anik Waldow 

University of Sydney

'Natural history and the formation of the human being: Kant on active forces'Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 56, 67-76, 2016

2016 Winner

Monima Chadha 

Monash University

'Time-Series of Ephemeral Impressions: The Abhidharma-Buddhist View of Conscious Experience'Phenomenology and Cognitive Sciences, 14(3): 543–560, 2015

This paper defends the Buddhist Abhidharma theory of experience from phenomenological and metaphysical challenges due to the doctrine of momentariness, the view that ‘seemingly rich conscious experiences are made fully available in a moment’. (544) It is a very thorough paper, responding to recent criticisms by Dan Zahavi and others, and elegantly weaving together history of philosophy in the Buddhist tradition, contemporary analytic philosophy, empirical neuroscience and the phenomenology of Husserl to craft an intricate united view. The piece is incredibly rich, and correspondingly complex, due to the worlds of knowledge navigated. It carefully treads the line between textual fidelity to particular traditions and conceptual engagement across traditions.

2016 Short List


Joanne Faulkner  

University of New South Wales

‘Our Own Hurricane Katrina: Aboriginal Disadvantage and Australian National Identity’National Identities, 17(2),117-135, 2015


Bronwyn Finnigan  

Australian National University

‘Phronesis in Aristotle: Reconciling Deliberation with Spontaneity’Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. XCI No. 3, 674-697, 2015

Dalia Nassar 

University of Sydney

‘Analogy, Natural History and the Philosophy of Nature'Journal of the Philosophy of History, 9, 240-257, 2015

Anik Waldow  

Anik Waldow 

University of Sydney

‘Activating the Mind: Descartes’ Dreams and the Awakening of the Human Animal Machine’Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2015

doi.org/10.1111/phpr.12252

Annette Claire Baier 1929 - 2012 

Annette Baier was a New Zealand philosopher and Hume scholar, focused in particular on Hume's moral psychology.She was well known for her contributions to feminist philosophy and to the philosophy of mind.

Annette Baier Prize Judging Criteria

The sole criterion for the Prize is philosophical merit. 

The judging panel will consider and score the entries on:

1.Overall impression of merit , 2. Originality,  3. Scholarship,  4. Clarity of expression

Eligibility

The prize is open to female professional philosophers who are actively engaged in an Australasian higher education and/or research institution. ‘Professional philosopher’ includes Research Higher Degree students. Entries must appear in print (or in final form if the publication is online only) in 2023 to be eligible. If the piece appears first online and then in hard copy in different years, it may be submitted in either of those years, but may only be submitted once. The prize is open to published papers or book chapters (i.e. chapters in edited anthologies, (not monographs)) in any area of philosophy. 

In addition

  • Only single-authored entries are eligible
  • If the author has Australasian and non-Australasian affiliations, the paper needs to be published under at least one Australasian affiliation (Australia, New Zealand, Singapore)

Entries must be submitted as a PDF for blind review with all names, contact details, publication name and other identifying features redacted.


Submission deadline 28 February 2024 8.00pm AEDT

Submit your entry HERE


Full details on Policy & Procedure can be found HERE (Requires Member Login)

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Nominate to be a Judge for the Annette Baier Prize here.

All enquiries to: Women@aap.org.au