Departmental news

We are delighted to announce that Keith Ansell-Pearson, Emeritus professor in the philosophy department, has published a new book titled Nietzsche’s Earthbound Wisdom. The book is an incisive exploration of Nietzsche as a bold, visionary poet-philosopher, and reflects Keith’s expertise and dedication to the field.

Published by Chicago press, the book is now available here

Congratulations to Keith on this significant achievement!

British Philosophy Fortnight #philosophymatters is a new annual initiative to celebrate, promote and champion philosophy and raise awareness of what philosophy is and why it matters. Philosophy matters intrinsically, as a vibrant intellectual discipline, and extrinsically, providing crucial skills for living in complex worlds and for responding to pressing global challenges, from pandemics to climate change. Prof Heather Widdows was invited by the British Philosophy Association to speak about why philosophy is so important.

Click here to view

Join us to celebrate our 60^th Birthday! Warwick Philosophy Department is the grand old age of 60. While young in philosophy years, this is some achievement, and we are proud of how we do philosophy and of the philosophy we produce.

We would be thrilled if you could join us at our launch event on June 16^th, 2025 Senate House, Bloomsbury, from 5pm–7pm, to remember our past and embrace our future. The event will be an opportunity to meet and talk with members of our philosophy family – including current and past academics, students, alumni, partners and stakeholders – and to hear from a small number of current members of the department.

We hope you can share this special occasion with us and look forward to welcoming you in June.

Find out more and register here

We are delighted to celebrate one of our PGR Students - Raad Khair Allah for two remarkable achievements:

1. DAHL Hero Medal 2024
   Raad has been honored with the prestigious DAHL Hero Medal 2024 by The Digital Arts and Humanities Lab (DAHL). This recognition celebrates their groundbreaking digital project, "Marginalization of Arab Women and Revolutionising Patriarchy". The same project was also a finalist for the Paula Svonkin Creative Award from the Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA), USA, in 2022.
   👉 Learn more about the DAHL Hero Medal: Read here

2. Award from Duke University
   Adding to this impressive roster of accolades, Raad recently received an award from Duke University, USA, granting them the opportunity to participate in the International Annual Feminist Theory Workshop. This renowned workshop, hosted by Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at Duke, will take place in March 2025.

We are deeply saddened to share the news that Professor David Miller, Reader in Philosophy has passed away.

David taught in the department from 1969 until his retirement in 2007. He was best known for work in logic and methodology, including fervent support and development of some of Popper’s work on scientific method.

According to Karl Popper “If the many, the specialists, gain the day, it will be the end of science as we know it - of great science.” In one sense, the philosopher and logician David Miller was a specialist, devoting much of his enormous mental energy to mathematical logic—in particular, to its applications to scientific methodology, through sharpening and developing what he took to be Popper’s most significant insights in that area. However, pursuing that specific project demands a generalist’s ability to take a synoptic view of the sciences. David was no narrow specialist.

Always meticulous, and always rigorously critical, David had broad interests within and without philosophy, together with an admirable willingness to direct his disciplined attention in a variety of directions. To pick two examples of his breadth of interests, he co-authored a wonderful book on croquet (Croquet and How to Play It, with Rupert Thorp) and, at the behest of some his students, he wrote a wry but respectful review of Alan Badiou’s Being and Event, focusing on Badiou’s circuitous reflections on set theory. David was very funny, and a keen appreciator of others’ humour, with a special fondness for the works of P. G. Wodehouse.

David was educated in Suffolk, at Woodbridge School, and then Peterhouse, Cambridge. In 1964, he began to study Logic and Scientific Method at the London School of Economics, where he became one of Karl Popper’s research assistants. David joined the Department of Philosophy at the University of Warwick in 1969, to help develop its Mathematics and Philosophy programme, remaining in the Department until his retirement in 2007.

The Mathematics and Philosophy degree had a small cohort—it takes a student with rare ability to endure that programme, but, as a colleague recalls, “those that did found themselves taught by a scholar with an equally rare passion for inducting young minds into some of the more challenging areas of philosophy.” A demanding teacher of logic, David was also hugely supportive of anyone willing to think carefully with him, and the many generations of students he taught at the University of Warwick remember him with great fondness. Unless he had private matters to deal with, he would always work with his office door open. He was available to all-comers who sought his advice. Some others followed his example, giving rise to cross-corridor chats and collegial repartee which helped to make the Department especially welcoming to students and new members of staff.

David was a key linchpin in the global network of scholars engaging with and seeking to develop Popper’s work on the philosophy of science and political philosophy. As such, he did numerous services to the wider profession, including serving as Honorary Treasurer of the British Society for the Philosophy of Science and Secretary of the British Logic Colloquium.

In a series of papers in the 1970s, David explored problems with Popper's formal definition of verisimilitude, the evaluation of some false claims as being closer to being true than other false claims. The notion of verisimilitude was central to Popper’s account of scientific inquiry as leading to theories which are strictly speaking false but as nonetheless making progress by improving their proximity to truth. However, prior to David’s work, the difficulties with Popper’s account of verisimilitude had been largely ignored. Since then, a substantial literature has developed, including David’s own important contributions, aiming to improve on Popper’s attempts to account for this centrally important notion.

David’s most important book, Critical Rationalism: A Restatement and Defence, published in 1994, seeks to develop and secure an approach to scientific knowledge growing out of Popper’s earlier work, according to which, as David put it in a later summary, in science, “there exist no grounds whatever, conclusive or inconclusive, for anything that we know.” Rejecting “the ruinous doctrine that all rational opinion is justified opinion…the critical rationalist does not doubt that there is truth to be had, but thinks that it may be had only by making a lucky guess.”

Academic and professional services colleagues recall with fondness how David’s meticulousness extended to his dress—well-polished shoes and bow tie—and his approach to academic administration. This included his unwavering and oft repeated insistence that first year students on the Mathematics and Philosophy degree should all be obliged to fill in a transfer of degree form from Mathematics and Philosophy (year 1) to Mathematics and Philosophy (year 2) at the end of year 1. David’s sense of humour also made a showing here: as examinations secretary, he set assessed work submission deadlines at 3am, which students regularly and naturally misunderstood, typically handing in their work almost twelve hours after the deadline.

His witty interjections were infamous. A visiting proponent of Wittgenstein’s philosophy froze during a Departmental colloquium presentation, unable to come up with a precise example to illustrate their claims. David immediately stumped up with, “Game? Or maybe rope?”. At another colloquium presentation, a speaker made the claim that everyone is afraid of death. David interrupted, “I’m not.” A slightly surreal moment ensued. The speaker made a pistol shape with his hand, pointed it at David, and shouted "BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!" David calmly responded: "That's not the same thing." And to the then Head of Mathematics at the University of Warwick, he objected that mathematicians cared only about students who were bashing their heads against the ceiling, “whereas we philosophers have trouble even getting up off the floor”.

David died on 20 November 2024, aged 82. He is survived by his sons, Alex and James, and his grandchildren, Oscar and Tommy.

If you would like to send any memories of David or thoughts to the family, please do so via inmemorydavidmiller@gmail.com.

We are delighted to share some brilliant news from one of our PGR students - Raad Khair Allah, has successfully published a critical reflection on Syria's war. This important piece was featured in a special issue by the Institute of Advanced Study at Leicester University.

 A soldier’s journey: Alice Kelly, Assistant Professor of Literature and History, writes for The Conversation about how a new World War I memorial can make the war visible to generations of Americans unfamiliar with it – and will help the rest of us remember it anew.