Professor Quassim Cassam featured as a Guest Interviewee on a recent edition of the BBC Radio Four programme The Moral Maze, where he was questioned by panel members chaired by Michael Buerk. This compelling, and often combative debate explored the moral issues behind the subject of ‘Moral Certainty in a Pandemic’. Listen here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000tcd0

We are delighted to announce that the 3rd Warwick Continental Philosophy Conference will take place on 26-27 March 2021, and will be an online event. The theme will be ‘Continental Philosophy and Its Histories’, and it will explore how Continental Philosophy engages with the ‘Thinkers’ that belong to its history: what is it to ‘read’ Plato, Spinoza, Kant, or Nietzsche in Continental Philosophy? How important is the canon, and what is its methodological and philosophical significance? Should we keep putting forward various creative (mis)readings of past philosophers or, as Husserl suggested early on, is it better to get rid of the past and proceed afresh with a new method? Key Speakers include Professor Stella Sandford (Kingston University), Dr Mogens Laerke (CNRS) and Dr Francey Russell (Columbia University).

 To this end, the Warwick Continental Philosophy Conference Organising Committee invites papers in Continental or European Philosophy focusing on Continental Philosophy and its Histories, broadly understood. The deadline for Abstract submissions is 22 January 2021. For further details about the conference and guidelines for Abstract Submissions, see here: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/philosophy/research/activities/postkantian/events/wcpc

 This conference is made possible by generous funding provided by the University of Warwick Philosophy Department and British Society for the History of Philosophy. It is an annual event within The Centre for Research in Post-Kantian European Philosophy (University of Warwick).

We are pleased to announce that Professor Guy Longworth has been appointed Head of the Department of Philosophy, and succeeds Professor Fabienne Peter in the role from January 2021.

Guy’s main research interests concern language, mind, knowledge, and understanding, and also some aspects of the history of philosophy.

Guy is a member of the Executive Committee of The Aristotelian Society, as well as serving as Editor of the Society’s Proceedings.

The Department of Philosophy has significant representation in the new Social Sciences Fellowships webpages, now officially launched by Research and Impact Services. The new webpages profile and celebrate recently-awarded Fellowships across all three Faculties of Social Sciences, Arts and Medicine, Engineering and Science. See here: https://warwick.ac.uk/research/supporting-talent/fellowships

The new web content showcases, and gives prominence to Fellows from across the Academy, and aligns with the ‘Supporting Talent’ element of the University’s Research Strategy. The comprehensive pre-existing list of all Fellowships/Prizes since 2015 has also been updated as part of this initiative.

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.

The Department of Philosophy has been ranked at an impressive 3^rd place in the Good University Guide for 2021, published by The Times and The Sunday Times respectively. This notable achievement is yet another League Table success for the Department, which recognises its developing academic reputation, quality of teaching and outstanding research provision.

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.

The University Guide, produced annually by The Guardian, has ranked the Department of Philosophy an impressive 6th place in its League Table for 2021. This new ranking builds on the Department’s performance from previous years, and reflects its growing reputation for inspirational course content, outstanding academic research and teaching expertise. Additionally, the University of Warwick is placed 8^th in the 2021 League Table of Universities, which is also an advance from its 2020 ranking.

We are delighted to announce the appointment, from 1 September 2020, of Dr Adina Covaci as a Teaching Fellow, specialising in moral and political Philosophy. Adina, who studied for her PhD at the University of Leeds, has previously taught at the University of Bristol. Adina will develop her research interests during her Fellowship, which include moral deference and topics in applied ethics, and will undertake teaching in both moral and political philosophy.