معرفی
Professor Sophie Gibb serves as Professor, DEC Chair, and Curriculum Officer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Durham. Her academic career centers on foundational research in metaphysics and philosophy of mind, with significant contributions to contemporary debates in ontology and mental causation.
Her research focuses on the ontology of mental causation, dualist accounts of psychophysical causation, powers theory, and the trope/universal debate. Current work explores causal closure principles, property realization, and the interplay between metaphysical frameworks and philosophical problems of mind, emphasizing how ontological commitments shape solutions to mental causation.
Recent publications reveal a concentrated trajectory examining causal exclusion, physicalism, and dualism through the lens of ontology. Her work consistently bridges abstract metaphysical theory with concrete problems in philosophy of mind, particularly advancing powers-based approaches to mental causation while critically engaging with physicalist and dualist paradigms.
She received the Dialectica Annual Essay Prize for her 2007 paper. Research funding includes:
- AHRC-funded project (2008-2010) as Principal Investigator on 'The New Ontology of the Mental Causation Debate' (£165,000)
- John Templeton Foundation project (2013-2016) as investigator and philosophy of mind work group leader on emergence (£1.6 million)
- AHRC Network Grant (2014-2016) as Principal Investigator for 'Emergence: Where is the Evidence?'
Professor Gibb serves as Associate Editor for the Australasian Journal of Philosophy and contributes to academic governance through DEC Chair and Curriculum Officer roles. Her edited volumes and collaborative projects demonstrate leadership in building research networks around emergence and mental causation, particularly through the philosophy of mind work group within the Templeton project.
