Professor Lisa Bortolotti MA (London), BPhil (Oxon), PhD (ANU)

I am on research leave right now. Contact me by email if you want an appointment or are interested in PhD supervision.

I have a Laurea in Filosofia (summa cum laude) from the University of Bologna (1997), an MA in Philosophy (with Distinction) from the University of London (1998), a BPhil from Oxford (2000), and a PhD in Philosophy from the Australian National University in Canberra (2004).

Before joining the Philosophy Department at the University of Birmingham as a Lecturer in 2005, I was Honorary Lecturer in Bioethics in the Centre for Social Ethics and Policy at the University of Manchester and Research Associate on the EC-funded EU-RECA (on the concept of research and the ethical regulation of research activities) coordinated by Professor John Harris. Since at Birmingham, my research and teaching has focused on the philosophy of the cognitive sciences (rationality and belief).

I am the author of a textbook, Introduction to the philosophy of science (Polity Press, 2008); a monograph, Delusions and Other Irrational Beliefs (OUP, 2009); and a key concepts book, Irrationality (Polity, 2014). In 2011 I was awarded the American Philosophical Association Book Prize for the monograph. My next monograph is entitled The Epistemic Innocence of Irrational Beliefs, and is forthcoming in 2020 with Oxford University Press.

I edited three volumes, Philosophy and Happiness (Palgrave, 2009); with Matthew Broome, Psychiatry as Cognitive Neuroscience: Philosophical Perspectives (OUP, 2009) which was listed among the Guardian Books of the Year in 2009; and Delusions in Context (Palgrave, 2018) with contributions by Philip Corlett, Richard Bentall, Rachel Upthegrove, and myself. Delusions in Context is available open access. 

Until the end of December 2019 I will be on research leave. From January 2020 I will teach LI Philosophy of Mental Health and LM Philosophy and Mental Health.

I supervise postgraduate research students in the following areas:

• Philosophy of Psychology (belief, delusion, confabulation, memory, rationality)
• Philosophy of Psychiatry (classification and diagnosis, psychiatric ethics, notion of mental disorder).

Currently I am supervising the following students:

• Rosa Ritunnano
• Aneela Khan
• Kathleen Murphies-Hollies
• Chloe Bamboulis
• Jane Kisbey
• Rafael Ambriz Gonzalez
• Jessica Sutherland
• Lucy Prior
• Joseph Houlders
• Markella Grigoriou
• Federico Bongiorno
• Valeria Motta
• Noorit Larsen
• Eugenia Lancellotta

The following students have successfully completed:

• Andrew Wright (The Problems of Pain), viva passed in February 2015.
• Andrew Woodhall (Addressing Anthropocentrism in Nonhuman Ethics), viva passed in December 2016.
• Isaura Peddis (Empathy as an Emotion), viva passed in September 2017.
• Rachel Gunn (Delusions and Affective Framing), viva passed in November 2017.
• Magdalena Antrobus (Epistemic and Psychological Benefits of Depression), viva passed in November 2017.
• Ben Costello (Moral Sequencing and Intervening to Prevent Harm), viva passed in December 2018.
• Alex Miller Tate ('Radical' Cognitive Science and Philosophical Psychopathology: The case of depression), viva passed in February 2019.
• Matilde Aliffi (Epistemic Rationality of Emotions: A new defence), viva passed in April 2019.

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Find out more - our PhD Philosophy  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

My research topics include: theories of belief ascription, rationality debate in philosophy and cognitive science, rationality and self knowledge in psychopathology, delusions and confabulation, psychological realism, autonomy and personhood, demarcation between science and pseudoscience, research ethics, reproductive ethics, animal rights, death and immortality. More recently, I got interested in theories of delusion formation, in the relationship between having a diagnosis of mental illness and being morally responsible for one's actions, and in the phenomena of positive illusions and unrealistic optimism.

For 5 years (2014-2019), I lead a project called PERFECT, Pragmatic and Epistemic Role of Factually Erroneous Cognitions and Thoughts, funded by an ERC Consolidator Grant (EUR 1.900.065). The project allowed me to build a team of post-doctoral researchers and PhD students, and Michael Larkin (Psychology, Aston University) was also involved as a co-investigator. PERFECT featured in the Birmingham Heroes campaign on research that matters in November 2015 (on mental illness) and November 2017 (on youth mental health).

From September 2015 for 12 months I was on a non-residential fellowship (20%, $76,299) for a project entitled "Costs and Benefits of Optimism" as part of a funding initiative on Hope and Optimism supported by the Templeton Foundation and managed by Cornell University and the University of Notre Dame.

From September 2013 for twelve months I was funded by an AHRC Fellowship to pursue a project entitled "The Epistemic Benefits of Imperfect Cognitions". 

In 2012 I was awarded a Wellcome Trust Small Grant in the Ethics & Society stream on Moral Responsibility and Psychopathology which funded a workshop on the topic in March 2013. Co-applicants were Matthew Broome (University of Oxford) and Matteo Mameli (King's College London).

From January to June 2011 I was funded by a Wellcome Trust Research Expense Grant for a project on Rationality and Sanity. 

In 2009 I was awarded AHRC reseach leave for a project on the nature of clinical delusions, and an Endeavour Research Fellowship (offered by the Department of Education, Employment and the Workplace Relations of the Australian Government) to work with Professor Max Coltheart and other members of the Belief Formation group at Macquarie University.

• Watch Lisa's inaugural lecture: "Agency without rationality"

Professional service

• Series Editor for International Perspectives on Philosophy and Psychiatry, Oxford University Press. 
• Member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Wellbeing.
• Member of the Editorial Board of History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences.
• Member of the Editorial Board of the Ethics Science and Innovation book series, Bloomsbury Academic.
• Member of the Editorial Board of Topoi.
• Member of the Editorial Board of Ethical Theory and Moral Practice.
• On the Advisory Board of Philosophical Inquiries (philinq).
• Associate Editor for Ethical Theory and Moral Practice (2013-2016).
• E-letter Editor for Journal of Medical Ethics (2005-2010).

Membership

I am a member of the Higher Education Academy, the British Philosophical Association, the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology and the European Society for Analytic Philosophy. From 2010 to 2013 I was committee member for the British Society for the Philosophy of Science, and from 2010 to 2015 I was on the Executive of the Mind Association.