News

Former PhD student publishes thesis

Antony Lamb, who was awarded a PhD in philosophy from the University of Bristol in 2012, has had his doctoral thesis published by Routledge. The book, entitled Ethics and the Laws of War: The moral justification of legal norms, is 'an examination of the permissions, prohibitions and obligations found in just war theory, and the moral grounds for laws concerning war'. Antony was supervised by Chris Bertram and is currently a Lecturer at Coleg Gwent, South Wales. His research focuses on the application and development of the just war paradigm to the changing face of conflict.

James Ladyman at HowTheLightGetsIn 2013

James Ladyman will be speaking again at this year's HowTheLightGetsIn festival, in Hay-on-Wye. James will be discussing causality and what it means in a timeless 'block' universe with quantum physicist Lev Vaidman and cosmologist George Ellis, as part of a new addition to the festival: Secrets of the Universe.The science weekender will bring together world-leading scientists and philosophers to "explore the impact of  contemporary science on our understanding of the world". You can see James at the Cause and the Universe session on Friday 31st May, 10.30am. Buy tickets here.

Havi Carel publishes new edited volume

Havi Carel has co-edited (with D. Meacham) a special supplement volume of Philosophy, entitled Phenomenology and Naturalism (vol. 72, 341pp., ISBN 9781107699052). The volume is published by Cambridge University Press. Click here for more information.

Department welcomes new postdoctoral fellows

We are delighted to welcome Jason Konek and Ben Levinstein as postdocs, starting during 2013. Jason and Ben will join Richard Pettigrew's research project Epistemic Utility Theory: Foundations and Applications. This project is supported by an ERC Starting Researcher Grant.

Jason is currently completing his PhD at Michigan, Ann Arbor under the supervision of Jim Joyce.

Ben is currently completing his PhD at Rutgers under the supervision of Branden Fitelson.

Videos now online from the Centre for Science and Philosophy Launch

You can now watch the talks from the recent launch event of the Centre for Science and Philosophy, in full, here. You can also see what guests from around the university and beyond had to say about the importance and exciting future of the Centre.

Havi Carel at BRLSI and the School of Life

On Tuesday 5th February 2013, Havi Carel will be speaking at the Bath Royal Literary & Scientific Institution. Her talk, 'The Experience of Illness' will take place at 7pm. Members, students and visitors alike are welcome to attend. Find out more here.

Havi will also be speaking at the School of Life in London on Wednesday 6th February. In this sold-out event she will talk to journalist Jules Evans about philosophy can help us to face illness and death, and how it can help health professionals to care for patients with greater dignity and humanity. Find out more here.

Dr Havi Carel joins Department as Officer for Students and Impact Officer

The Department of Philosophy is pleased to welcome Dr Havi Carel in a joint post with the School of Social and Community Medicine (SSCM). Alongside her post as Senior Lecturer, Dr Carel also becomes Impact Officer and takes up the new post of Officer for Students. She will also teach in the Medical Humanities program.

Dr Carel works in the philosophy of medicine and phenomenology and is also interested in death, film and philosophy, and Freud. She is currently a British Academy Fellow (2012-2013) and was previously awarded a Leverhulme Fellowship (2011-2012), and an AHRC research networks grant (2209-2011).

She working on a book on the phenomenology of illness, which will be published by Oxford University Press in 2014. Her previous books include Illness, which was shortlisted for the Wellcome Trust Book Prize and translated into several languages (2008, Acumen) and Life and Death in Freud and Heidegger (2006, Rodopi). She has co-edited three volumes: Health, Illness and Disease (2012, Acumen), New Takes in Film-Philosophy (2011, Palgrave Macmillan) and What Philosophy Is (Continuum, 2004).

Of her new position, Dr Carel said, "I am delighted to be joining such a thriving research and teaching environment. I hope to contribute to the student experience in my role as Officer for Students. I also hope to further develop links between philosophy and medicine at the university, as well as links with medical organisations and health professionals. Philosophy of medicine has so much to offer practitioners and policy makers."

She joins Lecturers Kentaro Fujimoto, who has a joint post with the School of Mathematics, and Joanna Burch-Brown, as well as Teaching Fellows Guilia Terzian, Kathy Puddifoot and Jonathan Grose as new members of the Department for 2012-13.

James Ladyman on The Why Factor, BBC World Service radio

James Ladyman recently contributed to an episode of The Why Factor on BBC World Service radio. The 'Mirrors' episode, broadcast 26 January 2013, explores the science, history, myths and mysteries behind the mirror. Listen to the programme on BBC iPlayer, or download the free podcast.

MLitt student published

Geoff Blumenthal, an MLitt student, has had an article ‘Copernicus’s development in context’  accepted by Science in Context. Since October 2011 he has also had an article ‘Kuhn and the Chemical revolution: a re-assessment’ published in Foundations of Chemistry, an article ‘On Lavoisier’s achievement in chemistry’ published in Centaurus, and an article ‘Diplomacy, patronage and the preface to De revolutionibus’ accepted for publication in the Journal for the History of Astronomy.

Michael Welbourne, Department of Philosophy, University of Bristol 1963-1998

We are sorry to report the passing of Michael Welbourne. Michael specialised in epistemology, especially the epistemology of testimony. His book the Community of Knowledge (1986) was a pioneering text in social epistemology. As a young scholar he won the John Locke prize. He joined the philosophy department at the University of Bristol in 1963, where he remained until his retirement in 1998. He was twice head of department and also graduate dean of the faculty of arts. He was known as an incisive and knowledgeable philosopher, a great teacher and servant of the university, and a charming and kind-hearted person. Michael died while walking to a concert of Beethoven string quartets at St Georges Hall on the evening of Friday 7th December. His funeral will take place on Friday Dec 21st at 12 noon at Memorial Woodlands, Earthcott Road, Alveston, telephone 0800 6129517. Family flowers only please. Donations to Jackdaws Music Educational Trust.

Andrew Pyle publishes book

Andrew Pyle's new book, Locke, will be released in December 2012 by Polity Press, as part of their 'Classic Thinkers' series. See here for more information.

Giles Pearson publishes new book

Giles Pearson's new book, Aristotle on Desire, has just recently appeared with Cambridge University Press.  See here.

James Ladyman quoted in New Scientist

James Ladyman has been quoted in Amanda Gefter's article, 'Reality: Is everything made of numbers?', in issue 2884 of New Scientist, 26 September 2012. James is quotes as saying "it might be less misleading to say that the universe is made of maths than to say it is made of matter."

Chris Bertram at Bristol Festival of Ideas

Chris Bertram will be speaking about 'Great Thinkers That Have Shaped the Modern World' with writer and film-maker Stephen Trombley as part of the Bristol Festival of Ideas 2012.Their talk will take place on 9th November, 18.30-19.30 in Foyles bookshop, Cabot Circus. For more information about the event and to book a free place, click here. You can also subscribe to the Festival blog for author interviews and more information, or follow the Festival on twitter and facebook.

James Ladyman at the Battle of Ideas festival

James Ladyman will be speaking at the 2012 Battle of Ideas festival (#battleofideas). He will join three other academics to debate 'Research for the sake of it' on Sunday 21st October at The Barbican in London. The festival, now in its eighth year, brings together a huge range of speakers to debate topical issues in education, media, social justice and more. For the full programme and to buy tickets visit the festival website.

James Ladyman on the Rationally Speaking podcast

James Ladyman has appeared as a guest on the Rationally Speaking podcast, talking about metaphysics. Listen to the podcast here. See also Part I and Part II of a blog entry at Rationally Speaking, on James' book with Don Ross, Everything Must Go.

Richard Pettigrew becomes a Higher Education Academy Fellow

Richard Pettigrew has been granted Fellow status by the Higher Education Academy. This "provides national recognition of...commitment to professionalism in teaching and learning in higher education".

Joint publication success

Final year PhD student, Milena Ivanova, and post-doctoral fellow Cedric Paternotte (who leaves us in 2012 to take up a post at LMU, Munich) have co-authored a paper, 'Theory Choice, Good Sense and Social Consensus', forthcoming in Erkenntnis.

Samir Okasha in the Philosopher's Annual

For the second year in a row, a Bristol philosopher has had a paper chosen for the Philosopher's Annual. Samir Okasha's paper 'Theory Choice and Social Choice: Kuhn vs. Arrow' (published in Mind 120) has been chosen as one of the ten best philosophy papers published in 2011.The results are available online.

Former MA student publishes book

Geoff Crocker, a former philosophy MA student at Bristol, has just had a book 'A Managerial Philosophy of Technology : Technology and Humanity in Symbiosis’published by Palmgrave Macmillan. Geoff says that he worked on the book from the starting point of his MA thesis on philosophy of technology, supervised by James Ladyman.

Alumna wins Olympic gold

Bristol philosophy alumna Laura Bechtolsheimer won a gold medal for Great Britain in dressage at the London 2012 Olympics. Click here to read the full story.

Bristol philosophers on the radio

Click here to listen to Bristol philosophers of science discussing 'Love and Science' on BCFM Community Radio for Bristol.

Bristol ranked 7th in the UK for Philosophy

The Department of Philosophy at the University of Bristol has been ranked 7th in the UK in the 2012 QS World University Rankings. The Department was was also ranked in the top 40 worldwide, placing 33rd. The rankings are based on academic reputation, employer reputation and citation data. This impressive result corroborates the Department's strong reputation for research excellence and student employability.

PhD student at the Joint Session

PhD student Chris Gifford has been accepted to speak at the 86th Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association. His talk, 'Getting the Most out of Borderline Cases', will be part of this year's Postgraduate Session at the University of Stirling. Speaking of Chris' good news, Richard Pettigrew said it was "very prestigious". The Joint Session takes place 6-8 July 2012.

James Ladyman at HowTheLightGetsIn 2012

Professor James Ladyman, Head of Department of Philosophy, will be speaking at HowTheLightGetsIn, the world's largest philosophy and arts festival. The event is run by the Institute for Art and Ideas and takes place 1-10 June 2012 in Hay-on-Wye, with a theme this year of 'Uncharted Territories: Progress for a new era'. As well as philosophers, the line up also includes musicians, politicians, poets and more, across 410 events. James will be speaking about 'The Ultimate Map of Reality' on Saturday 2 June, along with Adrian Moore, Giles Fraser, and Hilary Lawson. Click here for the full programme.

Postgraduate conference proceedings published in top journal

Milena Ivanova and Matt Farr, both current PhD students, have been confirmed as guest editors of Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics for the publication of the proceedings of a conference held in Bristol last August. The conference, 'Conventional Principles in Science', was principally organised by Milena and co-organised by Matt, and hosted renowned international speakers including Michael Friedman. The two-day conference focused on questions surrounding conventions in physics, mainly spacetime theories and quantum mechanics, in relation to the notion of 'relativized a priori'. Click here for the full conference line-up.

Publication success for postgraduate student

Chris Gifford, a current PhD student, has had a paper accepted for publication in a top international journal, Erkenntnis. The paper is entitled 'Against the Modal Argument'.

Postgraduate student published in top journal

Megan Blomfield, an M.Litt student in only her second year of graduate work, has had her paper 'Global Common Resources and the Just Distribution of Emission Shares' accepted by The Journal of Political Philosophy, a top-ranked international journal. Professor Chris Bertram said of the news, "It really is a great achievement for Megan to get published in such a place at such an early stage and, I think, reflects very well on Bristol as a place to do postgraduate work in philosophy, though the credit is all hers."

Richard Pettigrew in the Philosopher's Annual

Dr Richard Pettigrew, British Academy Research Fellow in the Department of Philosophy, is co-author of an article that has been chosen by the Philosopher’s Annual as one of the ten best articles published in philosophy in 2010.

The article, entitled ‘An Objective Justification of Bayesianism II: The Consequences of Minimizing Inacurracy', was written with Hannes Leitgeb and appeared in Philosophy of Science, vol. 77, no. 2, in April 2010.

Dr Pettigrew explained the thinking behind the article: "Suppose that I know that a die will be rolled; and suppose that I believe that it will land on three more strongly than I believe that it will land on an odd number. We would say that I am irrational. But why?  In this article, we sought to answer this and other questions about how our degrees of beliefs ought to relate to one another. We argued that people whose degrees of beliefs do not relate to one another in the prescribed ways can expect themselves to have less accurate beliefs than those whose degrees of beliefs do".

The Philosopher’s Annual aims to select the ten best articles published in philosophy each year (something it acknowledges is "as simple to state as it is admittedly impossible to fulfil"), and is available online.

Professor James Ladyman, Head of the Department of Philosophy, said: "The Philosopher’s Annual is compiled by an international panel of editors of the very best philosophy journals. Articles in all areas of philosophy are considered and only ten are chosen. It is an exceptional achievement for a young philosopher to have a paper appear in this compilation".

Recent successes for our postgraduate students

• Congratulations to Edit Talsepp for passing her PhD viva in May 2013.
• Congratulations to Marianna Antonutti Marfori for passing her PhD viva without corrections in March 2013.
• Congratulations to Elina Pechlivanidi for passing her PhD viva in March 2013.
• Congratulations to Tom Richardson and Chris Gifford, who passed their PhD vivas in December 2012.
• Congratulations to James Lambert for passing his PhD viva in December 2011.
• Congratulations to Mo Liu for passing her PhD viva in November 2011.
• Congratulations to Alex Malpass for passing his viva. Alex was an honorary member of staff at the University of Bristol 2011/12, and is now a Lecturer at the University of Glasgow 2012/13.
• Congratulations to PhD students Marianna Antonutti Marfori and Milena Ivanova on each being awarded a RIP Jacobsen Fellowship.
• Congratulations to PhD student Simone Duca, who has secured a post-doctoral position at Bochum, Germany.
• Congratulations to PhD student Zoe Drayson, who has secured a post-doctoral position at the Australian National University's Centre for Consciousness.
• Congratulations to PhD student Alex Tillas, who has obtained a post-doctoral position at Heinrich-Heine-Universität, Düsseldorf.
• Ellen Clarke who was awarded her PhD in 2010, has been elected to a post-doctoral research fellowship at All Souls College, University of Oxford.