Philosophy

University of Stirling

Rm A79

Stirling

FK9 4LA
Scotland

UK

I took my first degree at the University of Edinburgh and then received a Ph.D from the University of Cambridge. I have been in the Department at Stirling since 1971. I was appointed Professor in 1994. In 2005 I was elected to a Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

My main research interests are in philosophy of mind and the theory of knowledge. In Understanding People: Normativity and Rationalizing Explanation (Oxford University Press, 2004), I argue that normative considerations play an important role in predicting and explaining human thought and action and that the concepts of belief and intention are normative concepts. I draw out significant implications for our understanding of human thought and action. More recently I have been working in epistemology with particular emphasis on perceptual knowledge, the epistemology of testimony, and knowledge from indicators. This work arose from an AHRC funded project, The Value of Knowledge. The project issued in, among other things, a book co-written with Duncan Pritchard and Adrian Haddock entitled The Nature and Value of Knowledge: Three Investigations (Oxford University Press 2010).

Autumn 2009

PHI911 Philosophy: What is It All About?; PHI9XB: Self-Deception; SASP Current issues

Click here for a list.

Member of the Editorial Board of The Philosophical Quarterly.