Aberdeen Philosophy

📈 The National Student Survey 2026 results are in and we're delighted to have maintained our consistently strong performance.

This year, we're in the Top 5 UK Philosophy departments for positive responses!

🌐 We've updated our website!

The latest information about our research, teaching, and events - plus some bonus photos of us in the beautiful Cairngorms - can be found here:

Philosophy | The School of Divinity, History, Philosophy & Art History | The University of Aberdeen Aberdeen Philosophy is a vibrant research and teaching department. Our welcoming community of scholars are international experts in a diverse range of philosophical sub-disciplines, from the ethics of AI to the philosophy of time.

🤖 📚️ "In our view, AI literacy belongs within existing digital literacy requirements [...] The window for acting before the habit becomes the norm is not large."

-- Prof Jesper Kallestrup, research student Sriram Raghavan, and UoG's Adam Carter.

Give our children a licence to think: What AI literacy should look like WE DO not let teenagers drive without a licence. Even though many can drive a car, driving is consequential enough to require structured preparation: knowledge of risks, demonstration of competence an... Read more at The Business Times.

📖 'Rethinking Healthcare Improvement' by Vikki Entwistle, Alan Cribb & Polly Mitchell, is now out (and available as a free ebook, with thanks to the Wellcome Trust)!

The book illustrates the importance of philosophy for healthcare improvement. E.g. the authors argue that in healthcare, questions about *whether* something is an improvement are as important, and often as difficult, as questions about *how* to improve something.

Rethinking Healthcare Improvement What is 'good' healthcare? Can we define and deliver it, or will we simply make things better for some people and worse for others? Bringing together the fields…

🎓 Congratulations to all UoA Philosophers graduating this afternoon!

To share a testimonial about your experience that could feature in UoA news pieces and possibly the local press, click here:

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💬 Our Jesper Kallestrup is speaking at this workshop on Trust, Trustworthiness and AI at the University of Sheffield later this week.

💬 Our Eilidh Beaton will deliver a talk on attention and political philosophy at this workshop on The Ethics of Immigrant Selection at the University of Reading next week.

The Ethics of Immigrant Selection Workshop The Ethics of Immigrant Selection workshop  Date: 22nd June, 2026 from 10:00 to 18:00 University of Reading, Reading Details: While the normative literature on migration has long centred on whether borders should be open or closed, recent philosophical work has shifted toward examining how...

🚨 New co-authored publication from our PhD student Frank Burr & Prof Mike Beaney now out in Religions.

🗞️ Paper title: In the Beginning Was the Redeeming Word: Tolstoy’s Spiritual Influence on the Genesis of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus.

Available open access here:

In the Beginning Was the Redeeming Word: Tolstoy’s Spiritual Influence on the Genesis of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus This article discusses the influence of Leo Tolstoy on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s early philosophy. In particular, we elucidate the influence that Wittgenstein’s reading of Tolstoy’s Gospel in Brief had on the genesis of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, in inspiration, structure, and content. Ce...

💬 Some highlights from our workshop on Migration and Asylum in Scotland last Friday, featuring Bradley Hillier-Smith (St Andrews), Yulia Long (Edinburgh), Natasha Saunders (St Andrews), and David Owen (Southampton).

🗓️ We are delighted to be hosting this workshop on Migration and Asylum in Scotland, 11.30am-5.30pm this Friday in the Sir Duncan Rice Library.

To register, please contact [email protected].