It has been announced that Professor Quassim Cassam has been appointed as a member of the Philosophy Sub-Panel for the Criteria Phase of the REF (Research Excellence Framework) 2021.

February 2018 marks the publication of two important philosophical texts by Professor Keith Ansell-Pearson, both published by Bloomsbury Academic.

‘Bergson: Thinking Beyond the Human Condition’ is described by the publishers as an elegant overview, bringing Bergson to a new generation of readers. ‘Ansell-Pearson contends that there is a Bergsonian revolution, an upheaval in philosophy comparable in significance to those that we are more familiar with, from Kant to Nietzsche and Heidegger, which make up our intellectual modernity’.

‘Nietzsche’s Search for Philosophy: On the Middle Writings’: PDF eBook. The publishers observe that ‘this study explores key aspects of Nietzsche’s philosophical activity in his middle writings, including his conceptions of philosophy, his commitment to various enlightenments, his critique of fanaticism, his search for the heroic-idyllic, his philosophy of modesty and his conception of ethics, and his search for joy and happiness. The book will appeal to readers across philosophy and the humanities, especially to those with an interest in Nietzsche and anyone who has a concern with the fate of philosophy in the modern world’.

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/nietzsches-search-for-philosophy-9781474254717/

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/bergson-9781350043947/

Angie Hobbs has selected 'Self-Knowledge for Humans' by Quassim Cassam as her recommendation for the 'Best Modern Philosophy Book' on the current 'The Reading Lists' (TRL) website.

Professor Hobbs is Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield. Her chief interests are in ancient history and literature, ethics and political theory. She describes Professor Cassam's book as a "lucid, revealing and engaging account of the many non-epistemic and non-rational factors that cloud our ability to know ourselves (and indeed others, and various states of affairs). Professor Cassam argues persuasively that we should start with the human predicament, not an unrealistic ideal of homo philosophicus."

Dr Andrea Giananti is visiting the Philosophy Department during the spring and summer terms, 2018. In his own research, Andrea works on perceptual knowledge and self-knowledge, and has a post-doc in Fribourg as part of the Fribourg-Warwick SNF project on Perception, Rationality and Self-Knowledge. Read more below:

 https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/philosophy/research/researchcentres/wma/current/perception/

Pharos is an undergraduate philosophy magazine founded in 2016, run by undergraduates for undergraduates. From Continental to Analytic, Chrysippus to Kant to Kierkegaard to Kamm, we aim to provide a forum for philosophical commentary and analysis that caters to a broad range of interests that extend beyond lectures and seminars.

Publication is bitermly in Terms 1 and 2, with one issue being published in Term 3. Next Submission Deadline: Monday Week 2, Term 2 (15th January 2018). All submissions and longer queries should be directed to our email, pharosmagazine@gmail.com.

In 1997, Quassim Cassam published his first authored book Self and World, exploring the connections between self-consciousness, spatial representations, and bodily awareness. It is a seminal work in the Kantian-Strawsonian tradition, which became out of fashion at the beginning of this century. However, it cannot be denied that there is much to be learned and reconsidered in this work, and the 20-anniversary seems to be an apt time for us to take stock and further pursue the relevant issues. This event brings together perspectives from different traditions, including the Kantian, the phenomenological, the analytic, and the empirical. It is an attempt to understand the contemporary relevance of Cassam’s seminal work, and to explore the future of the Kantian-Strawsonian tradition in general.

All Philosophy UG students at Warwick, we want to hear about your experience of the department, please take 5-10 minutes to complete our survey:

https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/philosophy/people/eqandwelfare/survey

The aim of the survey is to help the department understand how undergraduates experience their learning environment and what improvements may be needed to achieve equality of opportunity.

This survey concerns your experience as an undergraduate student in philosophy at Warwick and your views as regards learning and progression, professional development, career opportunities, and workplace culture. In particular, the survey will explore whether all students feel like they receive equal treatment and opportunities with respect to the above aspects of their student life, and whether and how factors such as gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, first or native language, nationality, social and economic background have an impact on their experience.

Your responses will contribute towards improvements in the department, benefitting everyone who works and studies here. The results will directly inform the department’s Athena SWAN 4-year action plan.

For information about the Athena Swan charter see: http://www.ecu.ac.uk/equality-charters/athena-swan/
Information about the Department of Philosophy’s Athena Swan Bronze award, and associated actions, can be found at: https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/philosophy/people/eqandwelfare/

We are delighted to announce that University of Warwick Philosophy Department has been awarded a Bronze Athena Swan award by the Equality Challenge Unit.

The Department is amongst the first Philosophy Departments in the UK be successful in achieving such an award and we look forward to working on our detailed and lengthy action plan over the coming months and years.

We are committed to ensuring an inclusive and supportive working environment in our department and to making a positive contribution to the culture of the discipline of Philosophy in the UK.

Our priorities include improving gender balance on our postgraduate programmes, proactively identifying and encouraging female applicants for academic positions, implementing a formal mentoring programme to support early- and mid-career researchers, and continuing a conversation with our undergraduate and postgraduate students about issues affecting the culture of our department and our discipline as a whole.

Our Athena swan Submission and Action Plan can be found here along with details of past and forthcoming events and activities.

The Department has also subscribed to the British Philosophical Association / Society for Women in Philosophy Good Practice Scheme more details of which can be found here

As part of a 2021/2022 MEng group project, Horia Druliac, Matthew Bardsley, Chris Riches, and Christian Dunn implemented a fully functional end-to-end (E2E) verifiable online voting system and conducted a successful trial among the residents of New Town in Kolkata, India during the 2022 Durga Puja festival celebration. This was the first time an E2E online voting system was built and tested in India. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Full details about the implementation, the trial and the voter feedback are written in a paper, published in the Journal of Information Security and Application. A free version of the paper is available on IACR e-print as a technical report. Also, see the earlier news item about this Durga Puja trial.

Professor Feng Hao, who supervised this group project, commented: “This is great teamwork. The four MEng students worked relentlessly for nearly a year, with good assistance from Luke Harrison and Professor Bimal Roy. The e-voting system was developed at an industry standard and worked flawlessly during the Durga Puja trial. Several government officials from India also helped us, providing invaluable support for the trial. We sincerely thank them in the acknowledgement section of the paper.”