International Social Ontology Society - Call for applications: 5 post-doc positions in social ontology / social cognition at the University of Milan

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Call for applications: 5 post-doc positions in social ontology / social cognition at the University of Milan - deadline 20th of October

Call for applications: 5 post-doc positions in social ontology / social cognition at the University of Milan - deadline 20th of October

2 Oct 2025 7:51 PM | Åsa Burman (Administrator)

Call for applications: 5 post-doc positions in social ontology / social cognition at the University of Milan

Deadline: 20 October 2025 at noon (CET).

Duration: 2 years

Requirements: PhD in philosophy, cognitive science, or related fields

Gross salary: about 50.000 Euro per academic year; incoming workers from foreign countries are entitled to significant tax exemptions.

The positions (‘Contratti di ricerca’) are funded by the University of Milan on the project FIS2 Advanced Grant “The Normative Roots of Social Kinds”. The recipients will work with Professor Francesco Guala and/or Professor John Michael on practices of social classification and/or the normative basis of joint action. We welcome applications from candidates with a background in philosophy and/or social cognition. More details can be found below, as well as here: https://www.unimi.it/en/node/52924

The University of Milan is a major teaching and research institution located in one of Europe’s thriving cities. The Department of Philosophy has been identified twice as a centre of excellence by the Italian government, and awarded with special funding from 2017 until 2027. It hosts more than seventy researchers working in every major area of philosophy, as well as neighbour disciplines in the social sciences and humanities. Website: https://dipafilo.unimi.it/

Detailed call for applications: https://www.unimi.it/en/node/52924

Contact: francesco.guala@unimi.it ; john.michael@unimi.it

Project description:

The project “The Normative Roots of Social Kinds” (NORSK) aims at explicating the distinctively normative dimension of social categories, or “kinds”, while also doing justice to their epistemic functions, using an interdisciplinary suite of methods and resources. Its core insight is that social categories are simultaneously real and normative. In exploring this insight, the project will start out from a detailed investigation of paradigmatic ‘folk’ and scientific categories, revealing how norms and values play important epistemic roles in stabilising behaviour and facilitating inferences across social properties. In particular, it will develop and assess the hypothesis that norms and values ‘anchor’ the success of inferential practices, helping to fix the extension of social categories. Integrating the methods of cognitive neuroscience, cross-cultural and comparative psychology, the project will also investigate the cognitive and social mechanisms which underpin social normativity. A key working hypothesis is that kinds facilitate coordination by providing cues and signals that modulate normative attitudes and expectations in joint action contexts. Such cues and signals are culturally situated, and may also depend on dispositions that vary across social groups and cultures. NORSK aims to identify the cultural parameters and individual differences which underlie this variance. In addition, the project will investigate proto- forms of normativity in other species (non-human primates and canids), and thereby home in on those aspects which are uniquely human. Finally, it will also probe cultural and individual factors that regulate various forms of punishment and partner selection, as well as the ways in which these mechanisms are efficacious in sustaining the normative attitudes that ‘glue’ social kinds together.

We are looking for candidates willing to contribute to theoretical or empirical research. Candidates interested in the theoretical aspects of the project should be informed about one or more of the following topics: the ontology of natural and social kinds; the topology of concepts and categories; social constructionism vs. realism; measurement in science and society; reflexivity and performativity; the politics of classification; the role of values in science and ontology; ameliorative metaphysics. They will focus on one or more paradigmatic ‘folk’ and scientific categories, with the aim of explaining how norms and values can stabilise behaviour, facilitate inferences across social properties and fix the extension of kind terms. They will be expected to develop case studies from classic social science – such as money, unemployment, kinship, or castes – and use them to explore philosophical theories about the ontology and epistemology of kinds.

Candidates interested in the experimental aspects of the project will contribute to fieldwork and/or laboratory testing involving (i) canids, (ii) non-human primates, or (iii) humans. They are expected to have a background either in comparative research, and should have some experience doing fieldwork or lab-based research with one of these groups. Statistical modelling skills (preferentially using R) are expected. Candidates interested in research with non-human animals should have video coding skills using software such as Elan, Boris or Observer. Candidates interested in research with humans are expected to have programming skills (Python and/or JavaScript). The successful candidates will collaborate with the NORSK team at the University of Milan and with our external collaborators in developing and implementing either fieldwork or a lab-based paradigms to enable cross-species comparisons in the capacity to form and maintain commitments in joint action, and will use the insights gained to spell out and evaluate hypotheses concerning the phylogenetic and ontogenetic origins of commitment.

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