Professor David Oderberg

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+44 (0) 118 378 5277
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Professor
- Head of Department
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Director of Postgraduate Research Studies
Areas of interest
- My chief area of research is contemporary metaphysics. I have special interests in moral philosophy, philosophy of religion, and the philosophies of Aristotle and Aquinas.
- My latest book, The Metaphysics of Good and Evil, was published in 2020.
- I am also the author of Opting Out (IEA, 2018), Real Essentialism (Routledge, 2007), Moral Theory (Blackwell, 2000), Applied Ethics (Blackwell, 2000), and The Metaphysics of Identity over Time (Palgrave, 1993).
- In addition, I am: editor of Classifying Reality (Blackwell, 2012); editor of Form and Matter: Themes in Contemporary Metaphysics (Blackwell, 1999); The Old New Logic: Essays on the Philosophy of Fred Sommers (MIT Press, 2005); co-editor of Human Lives: Critical Essays on Consequentialist Bioethics (Palgrave, 1997); and co-editor of Human Values: New Essays on Ethics and Natural Law (Palgrave, 2004).
Postgraduate supervision
- I usually supervise around five PhD students, mainly in my areas of expertise. I am happy to supervise doctoral research students in the following areas: metaphysics, Aristotle, Aquinas, ethics, philosophy of religion.
Teaching
- Modules I teach have included Society and State in Ancient Greece, Metaphysics, and God, Time and Freedom.
Research centres and groups
- I am the editor of Ratio, an international journal of analytic philosophy, and on the editorial boards of Metaphysica and Studia Neo-Aristotelica.
- I am currently Principal Investigator on a major research project entitled ‘Mistakes in Living Systems: A New Conceptual Framework for the Study of Purpose in Biology’, bringing together scientists and philosophers at Reading. It is funded by the John Templeton Foundation.