I am Professor of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham, affiliated with the Philosophy Department in the School of Philosophy, Theology, and Religion; and with the Institute for Mental Health in the School of Psychology.
I am also the Editor in Chief of Philosophical Psychology (Taylor and Francis).
Research
I am involved in two new exciting projects.
- One is funded by UKRI, and entitled: A new methodology linking interactional and experiential approaches, and involving young people as co-analysts of mental health encounters. This project started in November 2022 and is led by Michael Larkin at Aston University. The project builds on our previous collaborative work for Agency, Justice and Social Identity in Youth Mental Health, led by Rose McCabe at City University.
- The other will start in September 2023 and is funded by the Wellcome Discovery Award. It is called EPIC, for Epistemic injustice in healthcare, and is led by Havi Carel at the University of Bristol. The other investigators are Ian Kidd (Nottingham), Matthew Broome (Birmingham), and Sheelagh McGuinness (Bristol).
From October 2014 to September 2019, I led a 5-year project on Pragmatic and Epistemic Role of Factually Erroneous Cognitions and Thoughts (PERFECT), funded by a European Research Council Consolidator Grant. I was responsible for two books which emerged from project PERFECT:
- Delusions in Context (Palgrave 2018) is a collection of four papers where I gathered insights on delusions from experts in clinical practice, psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and philosophy. Open access.
- The Epistemic Innocence of Irrational Beliefs (Oxford University Press 2020) is a monograph on beliefs that are at the same time epistemically irrational and epistemically beneficial.
Watch a brief explanation of the idea of epistemic innocence.
More recently, I wrote a textbook with Kengo Miyazono for Polity, Philosophy of Psychology: An Introduction, published in May 2021. Watch a short video on the textbook.
A monograph entitled Why Delusions Matter for Bloomsbury has been published in July/August 2023.
Outreach
I share my research as widely as possible. Recently I have designed The Philosophy Garden, a space for laypeople and especially young people to access philosophical content on important issues that should be thought about and discussed. At the moment, most of the material is on conspiracy theories but we will expand the garden to cover more areas.
In 2013 I founded Imperfect Cognitions, a blog featuring research updates, interviews with experts, and conference reports. I now edit the blog with Kengo Miyazono, Kiichi Inarimori, and Kathleen Murphy-Hollies.
In May 2017 I presented a talk on optimism at the Hay Festival and in October 2017 I gave a TEDxBrum talk on the mental health stigma (watch above). In September 2020 I participated in a debate on whether the self is an illusion at the HowTheLightGetsIn Festival. In November 2022 I presented at Emotions, an itinerant series of events featuring the work of women scientists on emotions. I talked about curiosity and empathy as means for avoiding epistemic injustice.
I have written for The Conversation, Aeon, The Philosopher's Magazine, and IAI News. During COVID-19, my research on conspiracy beliefs and exceptionalist responses to the pandemic by political leaders was featured in newspapers, podcasts, radio and television programmes worldwide (such as Vice and The Hill in the US, SBS in Australia, The Star in Canada, Il Corriere and La Repubblica in Italy).