The month of October sees the publication of a new book by Keith Ansell-Pearson, co-authored with Rebecca Bamford. The book presents a detailed, focused study of Friedrich Nietzsche’s text, ‘Dawn: Thoughts on the Presumptions of Morality’ (1881). This is a text which Nietzsche conceived as representing a break with the obscurantism of German philosophy and a work of sceptical enlightenment. Ansell-Pearson and Bamford approach Nietzsche’s text as a work of experimental philosophy that seeks to disable dogmatism in philosophy and invites its readers to actively participate in the activity of critical and novel modes of thinking.

The authors explore the contemporary relevance of Nietzsche’s text in relation to the enlightenment theme of combatting fear, superstition, moral and religious fanaticism, and other themes relevant to today’s reader, and they do so in a format that is both engaging and accessible. ‘Nietzsche’s Dawn’ is the first specific study in the English-speaking world of this neglected but key work, and contextualises its achievements within the context of Nietzsche’s life and other writings. See here for publication details: https://www.wiley.com/en-gb/search?pq=Keith%20Ansell-Pearson%7Crelevance

Dr Daniel Vanello has joined the Department as part of the prestigious Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowship Scheme. He returns to Warwick, having completed his PhD with the Department in 2017, where he researched the role of emotional experience in our learning moral value. Daniel was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Geneva (2017-18) before undertaking a two-year Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the University of Dublin (2018-20). Daniel’s research interests lie in the intersection between ethics and the philosophy of mind and psychology. A main topic of his research is: what is moral understanding, and how do we acquire it? He also has an interest in the phenomenological tradition, with a focus on the early works of Jean-Paul Sartre.

Dr Andrei Bespalov has joined the Department as a WIRL COFUND Fellow with the Institute of Advanced Study. Andrei has a PhD in Political Science from Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, 2019) and also holds a Candidate of Philosophical Sciences degree in social philosophy from Lomonosov Moscow State University (2004), where he taught between 2004 and 2015. Andrei’s current research interests centre on political philosophy and theories of public reason. His Fellowship while with the Department will focus on Sceptical Liberalism: Maintaining Public Reason in the Age of Disagreement. His research will aim to redefine public reason in fallibilistic terms, leading to a liberal conception of political society that is more agonistic and yet more accommodating to pluralism about justice than the standard Rawlsian view.

Dr Walter Dean has been awarded an 18-month long Fellowship for Experienced Researchers by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The Fellowship will fund Walter's continuing research on the role of arithmetical methods in Hilbert's program and related developments in computability theory and reverse mathematics. Among the topics he will explore are whether arithmetisation provides a uniform assimilation of the paradoxes of set theory and semantics to incompleteness phenomena and the legacy of the slogan 'consistency implies existence' (which is often associated with Hilbert) in contemporary model theory. Walter will be based at the Munich Centre for Mathematical Philosophy for the duration of the Fellowship.

Firat Akova, who is studying for a PhD in Philosophy, has been awarded a place on the prestigious Early Career Conference Programme (ECCP) at the Global Priorities Institute (GPI) at the University of Oxford (8 June - 3 July 2020). On this programme, each participant is required to select and focus on a particular research project of fundamental importance to the question of how to do good effectively. The culmination of the ECCP is a conference, at which Programme participants present their project and its findings. The Global Priorities Institute is an interdisciplinary research centre, and conducts foundational research into doing good, using multiple disciplines - especially philosophy and economics - to achieve an effectiveness-based approach to global prioritisation.

We are delighted to announce that Dr Richard Moore will be joining the Warwick Philosophy Department on a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship.

The prestigious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships are awarded to top researchers in the UK. They provide full funding for a maximum period of seven years. Richard's project will utilise the tools of philosophy, linguistics, and psychology to formulate a new account of the developmental relationship between 'mind reading' and communication. Commenting on this exciting area of research, Richard Moore says: "Mind reading, involving the use of a 'theory of mind' (ToM) is the ability to attribute mental states to others to predict and explain their behaviour. Humans are better at this than other species, but the origins of uniquely human forms of ToM are disputed".

Richard will take up his Fellowship and move to the University of Warwick early in 2020.

The Department of Philosophy is pleased to announce the establishment of a new research centre, the Centre for Research in Post-Kantian European Philosophy. The new Centre aims to provide a unique forum for discussion and research in 19th and 20th century European philosophy, including interdisciplinary research with scholars across the humanities and social sciences.It will organise regular seminars, workshops and conferences to promote scholarly and innovative work in the field of post-Kantian European philosophy and provide a stimulating research environment for MA and PhD students and for Faculty.

Professor Quassim Cassam has been awarded funding from The Warwick Ventures Ideas Fund (which supports research in Arts and Social Sciences) for his research project 'Professional Virtues in Modern Medicine'. This is one of only seven projects to receive total funding amounting to over £58k from the first tranche of awards given by the Ideas Fund. Each project was assessed on its potential social, cultural and political impact, in addtion to an alignment with the support that Warwick Ventures can offer.

This funding award will also support a one day Philosophy Department workshop on 'Professional Virtues in Modern Medicine' scheduled for November 2018. Further details and speakers for the day will be announced shortly.

The aim of the Research Development Fund (RDF) is to increase the University's capacity and capability to undertake world-class, innovative and exciting research by providing pump-priming funds. The deadline for submitting applications for the 2018/19 Strategic Awards is Thursday 7 June 2018 at 4pm.

Title: 'Identity and Community: Metaphysics, Politics, Aesthetics'. Keynote Presentation by Professor Alison Stone (Lancaster). Panel Discussion with Professor Miguel de Beistegui (Warwick) based on his forthcoming book 'The Government of Desire: A Geneology of the Liberal Subject', alongside Daniele Lorenzini (Université Saint-Louis Bruxelles/Columbia University) and Federico Testa (Warwick/Monash).

The history of the concept of identity is marked by a fundamental tension: between the individual as subject, and the example of the group; between identity as an inherent or essential nature or specified as a ratified connection. The relation between identity and community, the relational qualities of each, and the content which they encompass has been subject to repeated reformulation throughout history. On the one hand, it has been argued that the subject itself has been constituted in a new way by concrete changes in the way in which we live: by modernism, capitalism, or new technologies. On the other, new examinations of history have drawn into question narratives regarding different nations, classes, genders and cultures.

The identity of individuals, and the aspects of their lives which are to be considered constitutive of that identity, is an issue which is central to a host of complex political and ethical issues. What does it mean to have an identity: to belong to a nation or a continent, to a race, gender or religion? And what is the connection of this belonging and our individual existence and consciousness? During an ongoing refugee crisis, rising nationalism and within an increasingly globalised world, how have the metaphysical and political boundaries of identity shifted?

Art and aesthetics share this tension. The place of the work of art and the individual artist within a genre or movement remains an open question - whether the author is dead, the work a manifestation of the group; whether the ideas behind the artwork are more important than the socio-economic foundation from which it arises. Corollary to this, discussions of art and the political have opened questions concerning the relation of aesthetics to community, and the possible connection of new identities and new forms of, or values within, aesthetics. Does art play a mediating role in the formation of the new community, allow for the expression of a communal voice, or reveal the individual identity then imitated by the mass?