Philosophy recommends

Welcome to the Philosophy Recommends page! Here the staff and students have collated some resources for you to look at if you’re passionate about philosophy. These are aimed at a public, non-academic audience, so they should be a bit easier to digest than journal papers or books. Click on one of the links below to explore the topics further!

You will be given a reading list when you arrive and the first year modules will provide a thorough introduction to Philosophy, but if you do find that you have some spare time beforehand, here are some recommendations from some of our lecturers and current students to really get you thinking and to further add to the excited anticipation of your future studies:

The mind and mental health

Lisa Bortolotti

What Lisa’s into: The philosophy of mental health and the philosophy of psychology.

Lisa Recommends:

Carol Morley's Out of Blue (2018). Out of Blue is a force for good at bringing about a much-needed change in how society views mental illness and those experiencing it. The film makes a very powerful case for seeing Mike as a person, not as a brain stuck in a body. In the movie, the whole of her experiences contribute to her failures and achievements, showing how mental health struggles can be at the same time debilitating and enlightening. Professor Bortolotti acted as a consultant on the film and gave advice on the screenplay and on the first cut of the film.

Follow Lisa’s work: If you’d like to hear about Lisa’s awesome work in the philosophy of psychiatry and mental health, check out her awesome TEDx talk on stigma in mental health.

If you want to learn more about Lisa’s views on mental health, check out the following two podcasts (Behind the Stigma ) and (How to Think Like a Philosopher Ep1)

There’s also loads more cool stuff on Lisa’s website 

Chiara Brozzo

What Chiara’s into: The philosophy of mental health and psychiatry.

Chiara recommends: Emma Jane Unsworth’s Adults. It neatly and wittily captures a certain kind of preoccupation with one’s image on social media, and how this affects the rest of one’s life.

Follow Chiara’s work: It also represents the quirks of human relationships within social media. In connection with these topics, Dr Brozzo has co-authored an article on how certain kinds of interactions on Facebook might lead one to want more of those interactions.

Kathleen Murphy-Hollies

What Kathleen’s into: The philosophy of mental health and ethics.

Follow Kathleen’s work: We’ve done some mini (two minute) interviews, where academics give their thoughts on conspiracy theories, and you can get them all here on YouTube. Have a look to check out Kathleen and others’ thoughts!

For more on conspiracy theories, be sure to have a look at Ema Sullivan-Bissett’s and Nikk Effingham’s work!

Maja Spener

What Maja’s into: The science of consciousness, especially introspection.

Follow Maja’s work: If you’re one of the many folks just dying to know what consciousness is, and whether it can be explained, have a look at this Royal Institute of Philosophy event Can Consciousness be Explained.

Ema Sullivan-Bissett

What Ema’s into: Philosophy of mental health, philosophy of psychology.

Follow Ema’s work: Ema is currently thinking a lot about conspiracy theories, and has written about alien abduction here. She’s also worked extensively on bias in decision making.

For more on conspiracy theories, be sure to have a look at Kathleen Murphy-Hollies and Nikk Effingham’s work!

Henry Taylor

What Henry’s into: Anything to do with the mind, especially consciousness.

Henry recommends: The Parker’s Pensees podcast is a lovely collection of interviews with philosophers of all kinds. Henry also strongly recommends Han Kang’s novel The Vegetarian. It’s a short but intense read about a woman who one day decided that she wasn’t going to do what she was told…

Follow Henry’s work: Henry’s fascinated by everything to do with the mind and consciousness, and he even helped discover a new visual illusion. Check out his articles about illusions here ("Visual illusion that may help explain consciousness") and here ("Sometimes, paying attention means we see the world less clearly").

Henry’s also been interviewed about consciousness at Parker's Pensees podcast.

If you can’t get enough of the mind and consciousness, have a look at Henry’s website.

Knowledge, God and time

Nikk Effingham

What Nikk’s into: The philosophy of time travel, and metaphysics.

Timecrimes video coverNikk recommends: Nacho Vigalondo’s Timecrimes. In time travel movies there’s a theme which constantly recurs: The protagonist goes back in time to change something and (shock horror!) it turns out that they caused it all along. It can get a bit dull seeing this trope recycled time and again! ‘Timecrimes’ is an exception. Vigalondo's award winning movie is food for thought, exploring the ramifications of what it’d be like were you to actually use a time machine. Those interested in the philosophy of time travel may also wish to take a look at Nikk's recently published book Time Travel: Probability and Impossibility.

Follow Nikk’s work: If you’d like to learn more about the weird and wonderful world of time travel, check out his views about death and time. In fact, if you can’t get enough of the really cool time content, why not look at his inaugural lecture on time travel (below), or his episode of Free Thinking for BBC Radio 3.

Nikk is also fascinated by conspiracy theories, and has written this article on Flat Earth.

Nikk’s website is brimming with so much cool science-fictiony stuff

For more on conspiracy theories, be sure to have a look at Ema Sullivan-Bissett’s and Kathleen Murphy-Hollies’ work!

Inaugural lecture: Prof Nikk Effingham, The Dangers of Time Travel

Michael Rush

Together with Helen Beebee, now at the University of Leeds, I wrote a book called Philosophy: Why it Matters. You can get a sense of the content from this blog post

Our aim was to explain how a philosophical approach can help you to think more deeply about things you're already interested in and that you already think are important, like how we ought to treat one another, and why we should mind if our politicians don't tell the truth. You don't need to have done any philosophy before to read the book; it's designed to be accessible to everyone. If you like your philosophy with lots of cake references, and one Agatha Christie pastiche that I'm embarrassingly proud of, this could be the book you've been waiting for! 

Scott Sturgeon

What Scott’s into: Epistemology (the philosophy of knowledge) and the philosophy of mind.

Scott recommends: I recommend Lana and Lilly Wachowskis’ movie The Matrix, and David Chalmers’ book Reality+.  Both look at spending one’s life in a fully-immersive virtual reality, but they push for radically different perspectives on doing that.  The movie presupposes that life in virtual reality—no matter how seemingly pleasant—would be worth escaping (even if escape meant life in a hellish non-virtual world).  The book argues that this is a mistake, and that life in virtual reality can be just as satisfying and meaningful as life in a non-virtual world.  It is likely that the movie over-sells the evils of virtual life and the book under-sells the difficulties in establishing its full worth.  This means watching the movie and then reading the book—which is in fact written for the general public, and just happens to be an excellent introduction to philosophy—will position you well to understand lots of what you’ll be asked to think about on your degree.

Ethics: what is right and wrong?

Herjeet Marway

What Herjeet’s into: Practical ethics, especially the ethics of surrogacy.

Herjeet Recommends:

Follow Herjeet’s work: Herjeet has spent a lot of her career thinking about the ethics of pregnancy and surrogacy. Here’s her article on surrogacy, and here she gives her thoughts on babies and skin colour.

Wouter Peeters

What Wouter’s into: All things climate change!

Wouter Recommends: Under a White Sky, By Elizabeth Kolbert (Crown 2021). In this book, environmental journalist Elizabeth Kolbert focusses on the various kinds of environmental crises created by humans, and tracks attempts to control nature with technology in order to address these problems. It describes some of the most cutting-edge technological fixes to environmental crises, but also remains critical of them. It clearly puts into perspective what we’ve already done to the world and how far humanity has gone in its domination of nature.

Many people and our economic paradigm assume that technological solutions will fix all environmental problems that are a consequence of the ever-increasing impact of humanity on nature. This book is an easy-to-read page-turner that is critical of this assumption, and it provides highly interesting examples to question it.

Follow Wouter’s work: Wouter has written and thought extensively about climate change and the ways it impacts humanity. You can find his musings on whether climate ethicists should be flying to conferences and his thoughts on how hard it is to be moral here.

For all things climate, check out Wouter’s website.

Merten Reglitz

What Merten’s into: Practical ethics, especially human rights.

Merten Recommends: Conspiracy Theories by Quassim Cassam. A very accessible book that one can read in a short time. Quassam explains in details what characterises conspiracy ‘theories’ and why they are not really theories. More importantly, though, Quassam explains why these stories, that have become even more pervasive during the Covid-19 pandemic, have a clear political function. This function is not neutral but is actually dangerous to democracies. Absolutely worth reading for anyone interested in our current political context and how philosophy can help us understand what is going on. Dr Reglitz is a lecturer in Global Ethics, his article on internet access as a human right further explores the intersection of Philosophy and Politics. 

Follow Merten’s work: Merten has written extensively about the status of the internet as a human right, which you can find out more about in his Dazed article and this fascinating interview.

Jussi Suikkanen

What Jussi’s into: All things ethics!

Jussi Recommends:

What Is It Like to Be a Philosopher? This is a wonderful set of interviews with a diverse range of philosophers on topics such as how they got into philosophy, what their experiences were like at school and as a student at University, and what it is like to be a professional philosopher.

Home | History of Philosophy without any gaps This is a range of great podcasts that goes through the history of philosophy without any gaps, both period-wise and also geographically. There episodes are nicely accessible and often quite entertaining too.

Exhibition: Philosophy in the Open: Debates and Discussions – Open University Digital Archive This is a curated exhibition of 13 older interviews with leading philosophers from Open University’s television archives. The interviews cover a range of core philosophical topics, and they are accompanied with short new introductory essays.

Michael Sandel: Lectures on Justice YouTube is also a great source for philosophical materials. These, for example, are Michael Sandel’s brilliant introductory lectures on Justice (and ethics and political philosophy more broadly) from Harvard University.

Jeremy Williams

What Jeremy’s into: Practical ethics, especially the ethics of abortion.

Follow Jeremy’s work: Jeremy has spent many years thinking about the ethics of abortion. He has written on sex-selective abortion and the moral status of foetuses. As well as this, Jeremy is also passionate about Equality and Diversity. You can find some of his ideas in this podcast.

What our students say

Amit recommends:

Ex Machina

A great Sci-fi exploring AI, machine consciousness, and all the ethical implications that come with letting rich tech-savvy CEO’s go rampant in expanding risky technology. There’s also a wonderful dancing scene with Oscar Isaac.

Bojack Horseman

If you ever wish for someone to give you existential dread at least let it be from an alcoholic anthropomorphic horse. Bojack Horseman manages to artistically touch on all aspects of the human condition - from a search for meaning in (and of) life, to battling with deep psychological trauma - but it’s also a show that has excellent comedic wit and writing.

Living with Yourself

Starring Paul Rudd and Paul Rudd’s clone, this comedy delves into issues of personal identity, mind-hacking, and human cloning, whilst somehow remaining light-hearted and philosophically astute.

Anya Recommends:

Undone
From the makers of Bojack Horseman, but outrageously under-viewed. This is the most successful exploration of the internal landscape that I have ever come across, rendered possible by the layered film/animated format. Through two seasons we follow a woman who investigates the mystery of her father’s death while simultaneously coming to grips with her new access to the world following an accident – or is it schizophrenia? This access, with guidance from the indigenous shamanic traditions of her Mexican heritage (for example, dance induced trance), is used to explore alternative ideas of time, identity, death, and ultimately ask questions about our capacity for moral action when we are imbedded in an ancestral chain of inherited trauma.

I am a Strange Loop – Douglas Hofstadter

Musings on the mind, from a brilliant mind. There is a beautiful chapter that goes through the making sense the author had to undertake after the passing of his beloved partner. By thinking about what her identity (understood as her thought states) consisted of when she was alive, he proposes that those sharing those thoughts, in a very real sense, allow fragmented versions of her to persist.

Waking Up App
A treasure trove of curated content – talks from thinkers from ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ traditions (think modern takes on Stoicism and Buddhism, to brain science insight and Zen koans), and dedicated mini-courses honing cognitive skills to better engage with this human condition. Some call this meditation. Applied philosophy at its finest. Also offered free to those that can’t afford the annual subscription on a ‘No Questions Asked’ basis.

Hannah recommends: 

'Puppies, Pigs and People: Eating Meat and Marginal Cases', Alastair Norcross. This text discusses the ethical implications of animal exploitation for human benefit and is typically studied in the first year Applied Ethics module.

'Recent work on the nature and development of delusions' is an interesting insight to the Philosophy of Mental Health module. The author, Professor Lisa Bortolotti also teaches on this module. Prof. Bortolotti has also delivered a TED talk on deconstructing the stigmas surrounding mental health. 

Rosie recommends:

Book and dvd covers

The Good Place (2016-2020) is a wonderfully witty sitcom that explores moral philosophy in a hilarious and accessible way. It largely focuses on meta-ethics, questioning the difference between learning ethics versus actually doing ethics. This really brought these conceptual ideas down to earth and made them relatable to real life. I laughed out loud at the philosophy jokes, I cried at the emotional character arcs and I nerded-out at the references to some of my favourite thinkers. It is absolutely essential watching for anyone who's ever thought about what it is to be a "good" person.

Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind (2004) is a story which essentially studies the nature of heartbreak. However, it is told in such an innovative and philosophical way. It explores human autonomy, consciousness, emotion, memory and ethics within an exploitative, neo-liberal, capitalist society not so far from our own. The cinematography is beautiful, and the story is incredibly thought-provoking. It is one of my all-time favourite movies and, after watching it for the first time, it left me contemplating it for days.

Sex, Culture and Justice’ by Clare Chambers. Chapters from this book are discussed on several modules in the course, so this is a great place to start for Feminist Philosophy.

Wisecrack is a really great YouTube channel that explores all things relating to philosophy and film/pop culture. The videos are really well put together, entertaining but also intellectually stimulating. One of my personal favourites! 

screenshot of Wisecrack You Tube channel

 

Jack's recommendations for Philosophy applicants

Philosophy student Jack offers some recommendations for prospective students to help them prepare for their studies.

 

Sophie recommends:

The Last of Us (2013) is a narrative-driven video game set in post-apocalyptic America. Though the story initially follows a traditional hero’s arc––hardened survivor Joel is tasked with helping young Ellie save the remaining population––it quickly becomes one of the most beautiful tales told in video games. It concludes with a familiar philosophical conundrum: when faced with great peril, is it okay to save our loved ones at the cost of countless others? Unlike philosophers who attempt to answer such dilemmas (e.g. the trolley problem), The Last of Us only asks its players to question themselves and whether ‘saving the world’ is worth losing everything you love.

The Walking Dead: The Telltale Definitive Series (2019) is an episodic video game which mirrors aspects of the popular television series. We follow determined Clementine from outbreak day onward as she and others adapt to life as apocalypse survivors. Along the way, players make difficult decisions on behalf of the characters: who should be fed when resources are scarce? Is it okay to steal supplies from a seemingly abandoned vehicle? Are there conditions under which killing people is okay? At the end of each chapter, players view how popular their choices were compared with other players’ decisions. I gained insight into my own instinctive ethical values and where I stand apart from others. The Walking Dead is a moving saga showing what we value in the worst of times.

Try watching some lectures online

The Trolley Problem - Philosophy undergraduate lecture

Listening to, digesting and following up on lecture material will be – for many – a new skill when they come to university. If you’ve never heard a lecture before there are lots available online where you can get used to this type of teaching. iTunes U is a fantastic resource where you can find free educational content from universities all around the world. We also have content from some of our own academics online, so their faces and voices can become familiar to you before you arrive!

Listen to these somewhere comfortable where there won’t be too many other distractions. Let the information wash over you at first: there’s no need to jot everything down.  Instead, try to identify any major or particularly important points. See if you can follow the academic’s line of thinking. If there’s anything you don’t understand, write down your questions, and follow these up afterwards. Like any other skill, this is something that you will improve at with time. The more lectures you watch or listen to, the better at this you will get!

Further reading

This is a list of interesting and accessible philosophy books which you might want to have a look at before you start your course. These are not compulsory in any way and by no means should you try to read many of them (after all, it is summer). But if you have a look at one or two, they will give you a sense of what you will be doing and also help you to begin your studies.

General philosophy

Ethics

History of philosophy

Philosophy of mind

Doing philosophy

Others