Faculty of Philosophy

The Faculty in 2026–27

Academic staff

41

Research staff

14

Undergraduates

452

Postgraduates

138, of whom 71 are research students

Dean

Professor Catriona Bell

Building

Chapter House, Ferry Lane

The Faculty is one of the largest philosophy departments in the country and one of the oldest. It teaches single and joint honours undergraduates, three taught masters programmes and a research programme of about seventy doctoral students, and it edits the Oxenfurt Philosophical Review, published by the University Press every year since 1940.

Our research is organised in five groups, which overlap a good deal. Most members of the Faculty belong to two.

Research groups

Moral and Political Philosophy

The Faculty’s oldest strength. Current work includes blame and forgiveness, the ethics of risk, lesser-evil reasoning, public reason, and the moral limits of surveillance by the state. The group runs the Thursday Seminar, which has met in term time since 1952.

Group leads: Professor Catriona Bell, Dr Meera Nambiar

Mind, Perception and Language

Perception and its objects, assertion and testimony, and the nature of minds very unlike ours. The group shares a reading group with the School of Computing on machine minds, which in 2026–27 is reading on self-report as evidence.

Group leads: Professor Judith Demery, Dr Ewan Strachan, Dr Eleanor Haworth

Logic, Metaphysics and Epistemology

Non-classical logics and vagueness, persistence and the metaphysics of artefacts, and the epistemology of disagreement. The Faculty has taught logic as a compulsory first-year subject without a break since 1611.

Group leads: Professor Simon Leggatt, Dr Lewis Ormerod

History of Philosophy

Ancient philosophy, the seventeenth century and its correspondence networks, and the history of philosophy at Oxenfurt itself, drawing on the papers of past members of the Faculty in the University Library’s Special Collections.

Group leads: Professor Laurence Ellerby, Professor Hana Novotná

Applied Ethics

Medical ethics and consent, the ethics of technology, and the home of the Centre for the Ethics of Perception and the Frothly–Oxenfurt Fellowship in Machine Ethics.

Group leads: Dr Clare Kearney, Dr Eleanor Haworth

Centre for the Ethics of Perception

The Centre, founded in 2022, studies what it means to see, record and be seen through devices: head-worn cameras, optical implants, and the systems that interpret what they capture. Its founding project, Whose view is it?, funded by the Kiroshi Foundation, produced the Bystanders report with the Foundation’s Chiba Centre for Visual Science in December 2025.

Centre for the Ethics of Perception

The Frothly–Oxenfurt Fellowship in Machine Ethics

From January 2027, six early-career fellows will spend two years between the Faculty and Frothly’s headquarters in San Francisco, working on the moral status of AI systems, each with a Faculty mentor and a mentor from Frothly’s Blackwall programme.

About the fellowship

Study philosophy

• Philosophy BA, and joint honours with English, History, Law, Mathematics and Computer Science
• Ethics and Technology MA, one year full time
• Philosophy MPhil and PhD

Seminars

The Thursday Seminar meets in the Upper Room of the Chapter House at 16:15 on Thursdays in term. The Centre for the Ethics of Perception holds a seminar on alternate Wednesdays, and graduate students run a work-in-progress seminar on Mondays. Seminars are open to members of the University; the term card is sent to the Faculty mailing list.

People

• Professor Catriona BellProfessor of Moral Philosophy; Dean of the Faculty. Moral psychology, blame and forgiveness, Hume.
• Professor Judith DemeryProfessor of Philosophy; Director, Centre for the Ethics of Perception. Perception, recording and privacy, the ethics of looking.
• Professor Simon LeggattProfessor of Metaphysics; Editor, Oxenfurt Philosophical Review. Persistence, causation, the metaphysics of artefacts.
• Professor Hana NovotnáProfessor of the History of Philosophy. Early modern philosophy, Descartes and his correspondents, women philosophers of the seventeenth century.
• Professor Laurence EllerbyProfessor of Ancient Philosophy. Plato’s later dialogues, Aristotle’s ethics.
• Dr Eleanor HaworthAssociate Professor; Director at Oxenfurt, Frothly–Oxenfurt Fellowship in Machine Ethics. Moral status, philosophy of mind, animal minds.
• Dr Ewan StrachanAssociate Professor. Philosophy of language, assertion, testimony.
• Dr Clare KearneySenior Lecturer. Consent, medical ethics, philosophy of law.
• Dr Meera NambiarLecturer. Political philosophy, public reason, surveillance and the state.
• Dr Lewis OrmerodLecturer in Logic. Non-classical logics, vagueness.
• Dr Beatriz CarvalhoLecturer. Aesthetics, the philosophy of photography.
• Dr Tobi AdebayoLecturer. Philosophy of science, models and idealisation.
• Dr Megan ThwaiteResearch Fellow, Centre for the Ethics of Perception. Bystanders, consent and worn cameras.

All staff and research students

Emeritus professors

• Professor Emiel Regis Terzieff-GodefroyEmeritus Professor of Moral Philosophy. Lesser evils, the ethics of medicine, moral luck.
• Professor Ronald SibthorpeEmeritus Professor of Logic. Modal logic, the history of logic at Oxenfurt.

Contact

Faculty Office, Chapter House, Ferry Lane, Oxenfurt OF1 2BT
Email philosophy@oxenfurt.uk · Telephone 01632 960614
The Faculty Office is open from 09:00 to 16:30, Monday to Friday.