Anton Killin
Updated Apr 14, 2024
I am a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Philosophy at Bielefeld University, Germany, where I am also positioned within the InChangE program of the Joint Institute for Individualisation in a Changing Environment (Bielefeld University and University of Münster). I am also a research affiliate of the Australian National University (ANU) and University of Waikato, New Zealand.
Prior to my position in Bielefeld, I held a Lilburn Research Fellowship in New Zealand and lectured in philosophy at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. Before that, I was a senior research fellow in the School of Philosophy and the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language at the ANU, having completed an ANU postdoctoral fellowship. Along the way I also completed postdoc fellowships in the departments of philosophy at Florida International University (Miami, USA) and Mount Allison University (New Brunswick, Canada). I received my PhD in philosophy from Victoria University of Wellington and my MMus from the New Zealand School of Music.
My main research interests are, broadly, philosophy of the sciences and arts, including from the angles of epistemology, metaphysics, and evolutionary theory. I have written on the evolution of musicality and language (and on cognitive/cultural evolution more generally); numerous topics in the philosophy of biology and archaeology; philosophy of music; gamelan music in New Zealand; and a few other things.
Publications
Edited Collections
(in prep, with Corijn van Mazijk and Karenleigh A. Overmann) Philosophy and prehistory: new perspectives on minds, art, and culture. (Topical collection for Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences)
(2021, with Adrian Currie). Creativity in Art, Science & Mind. (Topical collection for European Journal for Philosophy of Science)
(2021, with Sean Allen-Hermanson). Explorations in Archaeology and Philosophy. (Edited volume for Synthese Library, Springer)
(2021, with Sean Allen-Hermanson). Archaeology and Philosophy. (Special issue of Topoi: An international review of philosophy)
Papers
(2024 forthcoming) "Culture, cooperation, and communication: the co-evolution of hominin cognition, sociality, and musicality", British Journal of Aesthetics, https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/ayad038
(2024, with Annette K. F. Malsch & Marie I. Kaiser) "Health-oriented environmental categories, individual health environments, and the concept of environment in public health", Health Care Analysis, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10728-023-00477-5
(2024) "The deep history of musicality: evolutionary cognitive archaeology and music", in Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Archaeology, edited by Thomas Wynn, Karenleigh Overmann & Frederick Coolidge (OUP), pp. 575-598. https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/41984
(2023) "Philosophy of archaeology", in Encyclopedia of Archaeology (Second Edition), edited by Efthymia Nikita & Thilo Rehren (Elsevier), pp. 54-60.
(2022) "Social care and individualised risk in a changing environment", Metascience, 31: 383-386. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11016-022-00789-7
(2022, with Ross Pain) "How WEIRD is cognitive archaeology? Engaging with the challenge of cultural variation and sample diversity", Review of Philosophy and Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-021-00611-z
(2022, with Ross Pain) "Culture, genes, selection, and learning: a response to Nichols, Mackey, and Moll", Philosophical Psychology, 35: 297-300. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2021.1980205
(2022) "The polysemy theory of sound", Erkenntnis, 87: 435-458. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-019-00201-7
(2021) "Evolutionary aesthetics", in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780415249126-M071-1
(2021, with Carl Brusse, Adrian Currie & Ronald J .Planer) "Not by signalling alone: music's mosaicism undermines the search for a proper function", Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 44: e103. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X20001107
(2021) "Music archaeology, signaling theory, social differentiation", in Explorations in Archaeology and Philosophy, edited by Anton Killin & Sean Allen-Hermanson (Cham: Springer), pp. 85-100
(2021, with Sean Allen-Hermanson) "The twain shall meet: themes at the intersection of archaeology and philosophy" [Intro Chapter], in Explorations in Archaeology and Philosophy, edited by Anton Killin & Sean Allen-Hermanson (Cham: Springer), pp. 1-4
(2021, with Ross Pain) "Cognitive archaeology and the minimum necessary competence problem", Biological Theory, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13752-021-00378-7
(2021) "Music pluralism, music realism, and music archaeology", Topoi: An International Review of Philosophy, 40: 261-272. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-019-09676-z
(2021, with Sean Allen-Hermanson) "Introduction: archaeology and philosophy", Topoi: An International Review of Philosophy, 40: 203-205. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-020-09702-5
(2020) "Defending scientific naturalism in philosophy of art" Metascience, 29: 289-292. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11016-020-00528-w
(2020, with Seán G. Roberts, et al.) "CHIELD: The causal hypotheses in evolutionary linguistics database", Journal of Language Evolution, 5(2): 101-120. https://doi.org/10.1093/jole/lzaa001
(2019, with Adrian Currie) "From things to thinking: cognitive archaeology", Mind & Language, 34(2): 263-279. https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12230
(2018) "The origins of music: evidence, theory, and prospects", Music & Science, 1: 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1177/2059204317751971
(2018) "Music and human evolution: philosophical aspects", in Routledge Handbook of Evolution and Philosophy, edited by Richard Joyce (Oxon/NY: Routledge), pp. 372-386
(2018) "Fictionalism about musical works", Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 48(2): 266-291. https://doi.org/10.1080/00455091.2017.1357993
(2017) "Where did language come from? Connecting sign, song, and speech in hominin evolution", Biology & Philosophy, 32(6): 759-778. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-017-9607-x
(2017, with Adrian Currie) "Not music, but musics: a case for conceptual pluralism in aesthetics", Estetika: Central European Journal of Aesthetics 54(2): 151-174
(2017) "Plio-Pleistocene foundations of musicality: the co-evolution of hominin cognition, sociality and music", Biological Theory, 12(4): 222-235. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13752-017-0274-6
(2017) "Analyzing antiqueness: a response to Curtis and Baines", Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 75(2): 195-197. https://doi.org/10.1111/jaac.12362
(2017) "Hominin musicality and musical expressivity: revisiting Davies’ contour theory", Debates in Aesthetics, 13(1): 11-18
(2016) "Reflections on imitation, vocal mimicry, and entrainment", Aisthesis. Pratiche, linguaggi e saperi dell’estetico, 9(2): 81-87
(2016) "Rethinking music’s status as adaptation versus technology: a niche construction perspective", Ethnomusicology Forum, 25(2): 210-233. https://doi.org/10.1080/17411912.2016.1159141
(2016) "Musicality and the evolution of mind, mimesis, and entrainment", Biology & Philosophy, 31(3): 421-434. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-016-9519-1
(2016, with Adrian Currie) "Musical pluralism and the science of music", European Journal for Philosophy of Science, 6(1): 9-30. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-015-0123-z
(2015) "Works, authors, co-authorship, and power: a response to Hick", Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 73(3): 334-337. https://doi.org/10.1111/jaac.12190
(2015) "Cross-cultural practice in creative perspective: New Zealand compositions for central Javanese gamelan instruments", New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies, 17(1): 21-40
(2014) "Musicality in human evolution, archaeology, and ethnography", Biology & Philosophy, 29(4): 597-609. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-014-9438-y
(2013) "The arts and human nature: evolutionary aesthetics and the evolutionary status of art behaviours", Biology & Philosophy, 28(4): 703-718. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-013-9371-5
Book reviews/notes
(2024) Review of Music in evolution and evolution in music, by Steven Jan, Musicae Scientiae, https://doi.org/10.1177/10298649241228898
(2021) Review of Philosophy of Western Music: A Contemporary Introduction, by Andrew Kania, Teaching Philosophy, 44(3): 389-393
(2020) Review of Social DNA: Rethinking Our Evolutionary Past, by M. Kay Martin, Quarterly Review of Biology, 95(3): 264-265
(2019) Review of Thought In Action: Expertise and the Conscious Mind, by Barbara Gail Montero, British Journal of Aesthetics, 59(1): 95-98
(2018) Review of How Biology Shapes Philosophy: New Foundations for Naturalism, ed. D.L. Smith, Philosophical Quarterly, 68(272): 635-638
(2018) Review of Mereology: A Philosophical Introduction, by Giorgio Lando, Phenomenological Reviews, 4: 74
(2016) Review of Late Works of Mou Zongsan: Selected Essays on Chinese Philosophy, trans. and ed. J. Clower, New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies, 18(1): 99-101
(2015) Review of Institutions, Emotions, and Group Agents: Contributions to Social Ontology, ed. A.K. Ziv and H.B. Schmid, Studies in Social and Political Thought, 25: 265-270
Festschrift contributions
(2015) "Raising a glass" in Jack! Celebrating Jack Body, Composer, edited by Jennifer Shennan, Gillian Whitehead & Scilla Askew (New Zealand: Steele Roberts), pp. 66-67
Community publications
(2021, with Jo Hilder, Megan Collins and Budi S. Putra) "The music behind the shadow puppets", Fifty-Fifty (New Zealand Indonesian Association), Sept 2021 (Issue 19), pp. 5-8.
Professional Affiliations
I have joined the Australasian Association of Philosophy (AAP), New Zealand Association of Philosophers (NZAP), Canadian Philosophical Association (CPA), Florida Philosophical Association (FPA), Irish Philosophical Society (IPS), British Society for the Philosophy of Science (BSPS), International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology (ISHPSSB), International Society for the Philosophy of the Sciences of the Mind (ISPSM), American Society for Aesthetics (ASA), British Society of Aesthetics (BSA), New Zealand Asian Studies Society (NZASIA), Composers Association of New Zealand (CANZ), and Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA/AMCOS).
Creative Work
When in Canberra I play in the blues-rock group Ronnie P and the Free Riders, and when in Wellington I play in various alternative bands including Keller Kinder and Indonesian gamelan ensembles including Gamelan Padhang Moncar and Gamelan Taniwha Jaya. I am also a founding member (although currently a rather inactive member) of Wellington's SMP Ensemble.
A recent composition of mine, Tanpa Tanah, was premiered in May 2021 at a gamelan concert at the National Library of New Zealand. See my SOUNZ profile for more details of my classical, experimental/electroacoustic, and cross-cultural (especially gamelan) musical output.
Selected Composer/Performer Discography
(2014) Naga, Gamelan Padhang Moncar and Gamelan Taniwha Jaya, Rattle Records (Victoria University Press) <you can listen here>
(2014) Dying City, Keller Kinder <for music videos, see House of Glass and Bridgeburner>
(2010) Podróże—Journeys, SMP Ensemble
(2009) NZ Premieres July 2008 to June 2009, SOUNZ (Centre for New Zealand Music)
(2007) Now I Know, Gamelan Padhang Moncar and Gamelan Taniwha Jaya
Professional Audio Recording/Mixing/Editing
(2014) Strange Terrain, Waiteata Music Press. Audio recording "Shifting Shadows"
(2012) NZ Piano Music for Four Hands, Waiteata Music Press. Audio mix/edit of all tracks
(2009) Little Earth, London Fieldworks. Audio mix for DVD release
Film Music/Soundtrack Contributions
(2021) Gamelan music (with Gamelan Taniwha Jaya) for Signed, Theo Schoon, dir. Luit Bieringa
(2013) Gamelan music (with Gamelan Padhang Moncar) for The Hobbit 2: The Desolation of Smaug, dir. Peter Jackson
(2008) Gamelan music (with Gamelan Padhang Moncar) for Rubbings from a Live Man, dir. Florian Habicht
Contact
Write to me at < anton.killin [@] uni-bielefeld.de >
Caricature by Alfred Memelink 2010