Philosophy

Edinburgh has a long heritage of producing some of the world's foremost philosophers and theologians, such as David Hume and Adam Smith. One of only half a dozen philosophy departments in the United Kingdom to secure a 5*-rating ('international excellence') in the last RAE, Philosophy has been taught at Edinburgh since the University's inception in 1583.

The department has a dynamic research culture with activity across the whole spectrum of philosophy, ancient and modern, including the works of eminent philosophers -

• moral and political philosophy;
• philosophy of law;
• ethics;
• philosophy of mind and psychology;
• philosophy of perception;
• philosophy of language;
• probability and logic;
• truth, foundations of mathematics and science, and
• the scientific realism debate, and aesthetics.

While the ancient philosophies of Plato and Aristotle are still much studied, the department continues to embrace the future; nowhere is this more marked than with the Archelogos Project, housed within the department, which, with the collaboration of eminent authorities in the field, has created an electronic database with argument analyses of the works of Plato and Aristotle, representing them in a way that makes explicit their logical interconnection.

A second major research activity is the Plato Text Project in which resident classical philosophers, and some collaborators, are engaged in a new edition of the text of Plato's dialogues which is appearing in the new version of the Platonis Opera of Oxford University Press. Finally, major emphasis is placed in our research activities and supervision to cover the whole span of ancient philosophy from the Pro-Socratics to late antiquity, with both approaches to our study of it, analytic and historic-textual.

The department also has a special strength in Philosophy of Mind. Perhaps uniquely in the United Kingdom, the Mind, Language and Embodied Cognition Group conducts frontline research bridging traditional philosophical concerns and the emerging sciences of situated reason and environmentally scaffolded action. This group also has a special interest in perception, and in the impact of near-future technologies on minds and persons.

Finally, the department is strong in Moral Philosophy. Research is being carried out in the "utilitarian tradition" - developing new forms of utilitarianism and finding new ways to meet classic objections. The department is also very strong in the more formal approaches to moral philosophy, deploying sophisticated resources from decision theory to enhance our appreciation of the available options in normative theory.

Further Information

For more information, visit the Philosophy website.