Department of Philosophy, University of Sheffield

We are pleased to share a call for abstracts for an interdisciplinary conference organised by one of our postdoctoral fellows, Lorenzo Sartori, on epistemological, methodological, and hermeneutical perspectives on visual representations in the medical sciences.

The conference will take place in Sheffield, on 17–18 September 2026 . It will be in-person only.

The deadline for abstracts is 15 April 2026, with notifications of acceptance to be received in May.

For full details, see: https://lorenzosartori93.word-press.com/imi-conference/

Conference “Interpreting Medical Images (IMI): epistemological, methodological, and hermeneutical perspectives” Overview Medical images—such as X-rays, MRIs, CT scans, ultrasounds, and increasingly AI-generated or AI-assisted visualizations—play a central role in contemporary medical knowledge and practice. …

We have been honoured to be selected as the UK Philosophy Department of the Year for 2026 by the British Philosophical Association.

The judges highlighted this part of the nomination:

“Philosophy at Sheffield has a longstanding reputation for combining academic excellence with friendliness. In practice, we see philosophy as a form of inquiry where community, fellowship, and collective flourishing are at the heart of what we do. A major achievement has been renewing and protecting our outstanding academic culture in the face of institutional adversity […] and the tragic loss of two senior colleagues. We have done this by engaging in small and big ways of cultivating a community of learners and researchers who support one another, collaborate regularly, and raise each others’ ambitions.”

We are also very pleased to share that our own ChongMing Lim won the Early Career Award for Philosophical Research for his work on commemoration and that our own Jim Chamberlain was the co-winner of the prize for Contribution of Research Outwith the Academy for his work in the Philosophy in Prisons project.

An awards ceremony took place online last Friday. It was very heartening to see all the great work being done in Philosophy in the UK celebrated all in one place.

Well done to all the winners!

https://bpa.ac.uk/prizes2026/

BPA Prizes 2026 - British Philosophical Association The British Philosophical Association is delighted to celebrate the inaugural recipients of our new BPA Prizes. These awards were established to recognise and promote the outstanding breadth, depth, and public value of philosophical work taking place across the UK today. Philosophy flourishes in man...

Is there a right to secession? And if so how does it work? Can anywhere just declare that it is an independent country? And what exactly its a country? Discuss. Maybe with reference to Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Catlonia, Quebec, the former Soviet Union, Taiwan, the American Confederacy and - just for fun, why not? - Pimlico. Watch the film and join the discussion. Philosophy at the Showroom. This Thursday. 6pm.

Philosophy: Passport to Pimlico | Showroom Cinema Residents of a part of London declare independence, when they discover an old treaty. This leads to the need for a 'Passport to Pimlico'.

Delighted to share that we have been placed in the Top Ten both for the overall quality of our PhD programme, and also in the ratings of departmental climate, in the latest Academic Philosophy Data and Analysis (APDA) graduate programme survey!

This is out of 149 primarily English-speaking graduate programmes in Philosophy across the world and in response to the questions: “How likely would you be to recommend this program to prospective PhD students?” and “Rate your satisfaction with this program’s efforts to foster a healthy, respectful academic culture or climate”.

We are pleased and honoured that our efforts are recognised by our graduate students.

For more, read the full survey results at the link:

Placement, Program Ratings, Student Comments, and Keywords: an APDA Update (guest post) - Daily Nous What’s the latest data about philosophy graduate programs? In the following guest post, Carolyn Dicey Jennings, professor of philosophy at UC Merced and director of Academic Philosophy Data and Analysis (APDA), shares results from the latest APDA survey, completed at the end of 2025. It includes i...