Philosophy 60 - Overview of stories

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The Warwick Dinner Party, was an event organised in 2022 to explore how meals and food take on meaning. This was designed by Professor Eric Holub in Life Sciences, highlighting new varieties of beans that he'd cultivated. promoting crops that are nutritious, affordable, culinarily versatile, and locally grown.

Interesting fact: We cooked the free samples of the beans Eric provided: delicious! ...

A draft of Gillian Rose's philosophical memoir Love's Work, written between November 1993 and January 1994.

Now recognised as one of the late twentieth century's most important British philosophers, Gillian Rose never worked in a philosophy faculty. From 1974 she was a lecturer in sociology at the University of Sussex, and then from 1989 she was chair of social and political thought at the University of Warwick until her death in 1995 ...

Philosophy teaching prospectus from 1965 and 1970

The prospect was distributed to showcase Warwick Philosophy’s ethos, academic achievements and facilities, designed to attract interest and encourage enrolment.

Interesting fact: In 1965, Warwick Philosophy had only a handful of academic staff. We now have 36! ...

Book 'Grounds of Political Legitimacy', by Fabienne Peter, OUP, 2023

The book asks what justifies political decisions, for example policy decisions on climate change, or decisions on the regulation of abortion.

"The book gives a unified account of the limits of both democracy and authoritarianism, an important topic in these difficult times" ...

Photo of students on the Phil/Lit weekend in Wales

For many years, Warwick Philosophy and Literature students and faculty spent a weekend off in some beautiful spot, doing creative work with a text and having a lot of fun involving performances, conversation conviviality, fresh air, and taking ideas and texts into our lives outside of the classroom. Led for many years by Martin Warner, reflecting his energy, dedication and wisdom. Here we were in Wales where we worked with traditional ghost stories ...

The adventures of the teddy bear mascots of the PPE/PPL/EPP Offices, Karl Marx and Simone de Bear-voir by Susanna Jackman

Both Karl and Simone were won in raffles by international PPE students, but when it came to paying for the first-class tickets to fly them home, the students decided to donate them the office instead. Karl and Simone have proved themselves to be more than just cuddly decorations, and have in fact held many important roles over their years of service ...

Patrick Tomlin, Philosophy Professor with the Centre for Ethics, Law and Public Affairs (CELPA), delivers the Philosophy Annual Christmas Lecture, 2024.

CELPA is an interdisciplinary centre which brings together academics from several Warwick departments working in moral, legal, and political philosophy.  

This is a video and photograph of Abdi performing his work at Coventry’s Belgrade Theatre as part of the ‘Empowering Young Voices Project’.

In his poem, ‘The Graveyard of Dreams’, Abdi expresses how a young person living in poverty can collide with expectations of youth culture and desire to fit in. Abdi joined our six-week poetry workshop series. He went from writing love poems to writing this insightful and politically charged poem about what it is like to grow up in Coventry ...

The Grand Hotel Abyss, David Bather Woods.This was created as one of the place settings in Eileen John’s Dinner Party installation inspired by the work of artist Judy Chicago.

“The Grand Hotel Abyss” refers to a quote about the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer by the Hungarian Marxist literary critic and theorist Georg Lukács: “Schopenhauer’s system, well laid out and architecturally ingenious in form, rises up like a modern luxury hotel on the brink of the abyss, nothingness and futility ...

Smart Glasses from the 90s. Henrik Kugelberg is researching the social and political consequences of digital interpersonal surveillance. Smart glasses is one of the technologies he is interested in.

State surveillance figured prominently in the dystopian imagination of the 20th century. Many of the fears have come true: the modern state monitors our actions and our digital communications on an extraordinary scale ...

The book Croquet, by David Miler and Robert Thorp. David Miller taught in the Philosophy department from 1969 until retiring in 2007, focusing on formal methods in the philosophy of science. Wittgenstein suggested that games need have nothing in common and are collected together like the fibres in a rope rather than by a single shared strand. David’s book illustrates the wide diversity of interests of members of the department, be they philosophical or adjacent ...

The book, 'Perfect Me: Beauty as an Ethical Ideal', deemed by The Atlantic as one of the 19 best books of 2018 and  by Edarabia as one of the 100 books to read in a lifetime

Written by Professor Heather Widdows – who works on real world ethical issues, from women’s rights, to genetic justice, and now focuses on beauty ideals and body image in Selfie Culture ...

A joke cartoon allegedly depicting philosophy students from 485 BC. One of a series that featured in the Department meeting minutes in1975.

We do not know who the cartoonist was, but it was likely a member of the philosophy academic faculty ...

The front cover of the University of Warwick Gazette showing the Graduation List for 1969.

Warwick awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters (DLitt) degree to the British philosopher Gilbert Ryle in 1969.

This recognized Ryle's significant contributions to philosophy and his influence on contemporary thought ...

The original document displaying the text of the public oration on the conferment of an honorary degree in 1971.

Warwick awarded an Honorary Degree upon Sir Karl Popper in 1971. Sir Karl Popper (1902–1994) was a renowned philosopher best known for his advocacy of critical rationalism and the principle of falsifiability as a criterion for scientific theories ...

Early Philosophy Graduation at Coventry Cathedral

Warwick’s first full graduation ceremony took place in 1968 at Coventry Cathedral, and all graduations were held there until the late 1980s. From 1995 onwards, the venue for the congregations changed to the Butterworth Hall on Warwick campus ...

A department memorandum from 1973

Warwick’s Professor David Miller suggested these pointers be issued to students to improve their comprehension and literary skills. Professor Miller worked in the department from 1969 to his retirement in 2007 ...

Why Matter Does Not Exist Poster

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This photograph capture the joy and achievement of the 2007 Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) graduation at the University of Warwick.

A proud moment for students, families, and faculty alike, the images reflect the culmination of years of interdisciplinary study and intellectual growth.

A Vogue Magazine cover and the full page article inside Vogue on ‘Lookism’.

The article reports on Professor Heather Widdows’s #everydaylookism campaign, a campaign modelled on the Everyday Sexism campaign. The aim is to share lookist stories, to raise the awareness of lookism and make a collective claim that saying negative things about other peoples bodies – body-shaming – is never ok, no matter who you are or how well-intentioned your reasons ...

A special time capsule edition of Pharos magazine to reflect on the philosophical and emotional threads that affected students in 2020 as we navigated COVID.

Pharos is an undergraduate philosophy magazine founded in 2016. Pharos aims to provide a forum for philosophical commentary and analysis that caters to a broad range of interests that extend beyond lectures and seminars ...

An excerpt from the 1974 Union Handbook, highlighting the activities of the PhilSoc in 1974

Warwick Philosophy Society (PhilSoc) provides everything from academic support, discussions and talks, to a variety of socials. It is still going strong to this day.

A interesting fact: In 1974 membership cost just 25p for the whole year! ...

A photo of the old Arts building from 1974-5

The Arts Building, (now Humanities) was purpose-built to support the university's growing arts and humanities disciplines. It featured tutorial rooms designed for small group discussions, reflecting the university's emphasis on interactive and personalized learning experiences. It was home to Philosophy for most of the 1970s ...

A selection of vintage books owned by David Francis Pears, (1921 – 2009), a British philosopher renowned for his work on Ludwig Wittgenstein. The books were left to Professor Naomi Eilan of upon David’s death. The collection contains a large selection of books in philosophy of language, logic, philosophy of mind, political and moral philosophy, philosophy of science, and an excellent collection of books by and about Wittgenstein ...

A 1969 interview with Professor Phillips Griffiths in the Warwick Boar

The Boar is the student newspaper published since 1973. It is an award-winning, student-run print newspaper and a leading source of news for students on and off campus. Professor Phillips Griffiths was Head of Dept in 1969 ...

The handbook was used by philosophy students to gain essential information about academic policies, procedures and services.

Interesting fact: The opening line of the philosophy student handbook in 1966 was quite remarkable: “Philosophy is a kind of self-induced madness”
Indeed! ...

Images of the Social Sciences Building and philosophy department within.

Philosophy move into the brand new Social Sciences Building in 1977

Interesting fact: The social sciences building was designed by the architectural firm Shepheard Epstein Hunter and constructed by Laing, featuring a distinctive cantilever bridge that connects a newer wing to the main structure ...

Art Series by Eduardo Paolozzi

This painting currently resides in the corridor of Warwick's Department of Philosophy. This is one of a set of twelve screenprints entitled 'As Is When' refers to the life and writings of the Austrian born philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. In the series he uses texts from the philosopher's 'Notebooks' and 'Philosophical Investigations' which he combines with collaged images ...

Nietzche's Earthbound Wisdom, by Keith Ansell-Pearson, Emeritus Professor

The book offers a fresh and novel interpretation of Nietzsche as a visionary poet-philosopher. Warwick Philosophy Dept pioneered the study and teaching of Nietzsche’s texts and his philosophy ...

The Sublime, Terror and Human Difference by Christine Battersby, Routledge 2007

This is one of trilogy of monographs by Battersby on feminist aesthetics and metaphysics. The question of the sublime is one of the most important topics in contemporary debates about modernity, politics and art. Stretching back to the 18th century, its key theorists included Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant ...

Schopenhauer by David Bather Woods

This is the cover to my first book, Arthur Schopenhauer: The Life and Thought of Philosophy’s Greatest Pessimist (University of Chicago Press, 2025). Schopenhauer is my main area of research. He’s one of the most influential philosophers in the Post-Kantian tradition, an area of study in which Warwick Philosophy is well known for world-leading excellence ...

Mindgrad 2004 Programme by Naomi Eilan

MindGrad was established in 2004 and is run under the auspices of the WMA. It is an annual, two-day international graduate conference, focusing on issues in the philosophy of mind, broadly construed ...

A Philosophy Ambassadors t-shirt, given to students who represent the philosophy department on Warwick University open days by Emma Clinton

The job of the ambassadors is to welcome prospective students or offer holders to the philosophy department, chat to them and answer their questions about what it is like to study here (usually it is very easy to hype up the department and the experience of studying here!) ...

Warwick alumni Bernie Vincent-Betts interviewed about her time studying PhilPol at Warwick in 1982.

Audio link in full story

Bernie’s account of her degree is a full insight into studying as a female, mature student (24yrs) mother of two under 3 years old in the early 1980s and also following in her father's footsteps by studying at Warwick. Bernie also became an active member of the Labour Party both on and off campus ...

An interview with Vera Okojie, a Philosophy BA graduate (2020), about her experience of working with Microsoft during her studies at Warwick.

The work placement scheme was introduced a few years ago to foster the career development of philosophy students. Vera, a Philosophy Alumnus continues to visit Warwick and support our students with their career planning ...

Philosophy and Its Traditions conference poster by Tobias Kelling

The picture shows the poster announcement for a conference at the Centre, organized by Andrew Benjamin. The conference theme, “Philosophy and its Traditions”, speaks to one of the central concerns of continental philosophy: to get clear on the role of philosophy’s rich past for present thinking ...

ESPP Merchandise by Naomi Eilan. This is a bag from the 2014 meeting of the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology (ESPP) in Noto (Sicily).

The WMA— as well as the interdisciplinary AHRB/C project ‘Consciousness and Self-Consciousness’ from which the centre developed — have had close links with the ESPP, the annual philosophy/psychology European conference, since its inception ...

In 1988, doctoral students in the Philosophy Department started the “Warwick Journal of Philosophy” with the aim of providing space for graduate students to publish their own research. Among its contributors are several prominent academic philosophers, such as Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Nancy, John Sallis, and Isabelle Stengers, as well as other intellectual figures like Nick Land and Philippe Sollers. The journal is still active ...

Warwick Studies in European Philosophy, Tobias Kelling

This is the library copy of a book published in the book series Warwick Studies in European Philosophy, edited by Professor Andrew Benjamin Routledge.

Simon Critchley's book is a good example of one kind of philosophy prominent at Warwick in the 1990s. 'Very Little… Almost Nothing: Death, Philosophy, Literature' is a crossover between literary and philosophical writing, addressing themes of Existentialism ...

This shows a recent CRPLA Symposium, co-sponsored with the Mead Gallery at the Warwick Arts Centre.

Warwick's Centre for Research in Philosophy, Literature and the Arts integrates work in philosophy with research across the humanities. This symposium focused on the Mead exhibition, Material Worlds: Contemporary Artists and Textiles, and is a prime example of what CRPLA does. In this case researchers from History of Art, Literature, and Philosophy joined one of the artists exhibiting her work, all sharing their expertise and exploring art and ideas in depth ...

The Hegel Reader, Stephen Houlgate, Oxford: Blackwell, 1998

An anthology of texts by G.W.F. Hegel for use by students and other interested readers. It covers the whole range of Hegel’s thought, including his Phenomenology of Spirit, Science of Logic and Philosophy of Right, and his lectures on aesthetics and the philosophy of religion ...

Photos of Warwick students speaking at our first annual Student Research Celebration. We now combine celebrating the end of the academic year with an opportunity for students to present their excellent research from the year. The first theme was Race and Philosophy. The papers presented highlighted students thinking personally, politically, aesthetically and boldly about philosophical questions posed by race ...

When the Phil/Lit undergrad degree was established (1969), it was intended to run as a ‘double module with the texts of both significance and literary interest between Philosophy and English & Comparative Literary Studies.

Of course students wanted to know what previous Phil/Lit students had studied, so we put up an essay list. This expanded year by year - hence the three lists now on the board ...

Joint Attention: Communication & Other Minds edited collection by AHRB Project on Consciousness and Self-Consciousness 1997-2004, Naomi Ellan, Christoph Hoerl, Teresa McCormack, Johannes Roessler

The project gave rise to the Warwick Mind and Action Research Centre (WMA) ...

Book 'Extremism,A Philosophical Analysis', by Quassim Cassam, Routledge, 2021

This is the first philosophy book dedicated to analysing extremism.

Extremism is one of the most charged and controversial issues of the twenty-first century. It remains an intractable and poorly understood problem.

Interesting fact: "Violent extremists, also known as terrorists, rarely use grenades!" ...