Post-Doctoral Research Associate — Large Language Models as Philosophical Inquiry Department of Philosophy, University of Reading Applications are invited for a full-time, 12-month Post-Doctoral Research Associate position in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Reading, working on the AHRC Catalyst project Large Language Models as Philosophical Inquiry, led by Dr Jumbly Grindrod. The project works across philosophy and computational linguistics, using analyses of how large language models handle particular linguistic phenomena to shed light on the nature of those phenomena themselves. The postholder will design and carry out the model-analysis studies at the centre of that work, publish and present the findings, and support the project conference and an associated special issue of Ratio. Essential criteria
* A doctoral degree, awarded or with thesis submitted by the start date, in natural language processing, computational linguistics, machine learning or a cognate discipline * Experience of analysing the internal representations or computational behaviour of large language models, using methods such as probing, representational analysis, or feature- and circuit-level interpretability techniques * Experience of designing empirical studies and applying appropriate statistical methods to their analysis * Strong programming skills in Python and experience with standard machine learning and natural language processing libraries * A record of producing peer-reviewed publications in reputable journals or well-respected conference proceedings
Familiarity with philosophy of language is desirable but not essential. We welcome applications from researchers whose background is in linguistics, cognitive science, digital humanities or related fields. Salary: £37,369 to £40,704. Start date 1 February 2027. Closing date: 23:59, 20 November 2026. Interviews: 10 December 2026. Further detail on the project: https://jumblygrindrod.github.io/ahrc-project.html Full details and applications: https://ce1169li.webitrent.com/ce1169li_webrecruitment/wrd/run/etrec179gf.op... Informal enquiries: Dr Jumbly Grindrod, j.grindrod@reading.ac.ukmailto:j.grindrod@reading.ac.uk