Professor Nikk Effingham PhD (Leeds)

Professor Nikk Effingham

Department of Philosophy
Professor of Philosophy
Head of Department

Contact details

Telephone
0121 41 47246
Email
n.effingham@bham.ac.uk
Twitter
@NikkEffingham
View my research portal
Address
ERI Building
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

I research metaphysics, philosophy of time (mainly time travel), philosophy of religion, and philosophy of epidemiology.

Qualifications

  • PhD. Philosophy, University of Leeds, Leeds, England, 2007.
  • Taught M.A., Philosophy, University of Leeds, Leeds, England, 2001.
  • Joint Honours B.A. Philosophy and English, University of Leeds, Leeds, England, 2000.

Biography

I studied at the University of Leeds, as well as worked there as a teaching assistant and as the administrator for the CMM (Centre of Metaphysics and Mind.) I moved to Glasgow to take up a one-year temporary teaching post before then taking another temporary post at the University of Birmingham. I was made permanent the year after.

Teaching

I teach both metaphysics and the philosophy of religion. 

Postgraduate supervision

I currently supervise doctoral candidates researching areas including metaontology, ontology, the philosophy of time, and the philosophy of mind. I can supervise theses in a wide variety of areas of theoretical philosophy, including metaphysics and many areas of philosophy of religion, science and mind.

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

Research

I’m currently writing a book developing my wave theory of time, expanding on earlier papers. In addition, I’m working on: a monograph exploring time travel in fiction; the metaphysics of fragmentalism and other incoherent systems of metaphysics; and the philosophy of what happens after we die, whether we should believe in ghosts, reincarnation, etc. 

Other activities

Personal website: https://nikkeffingham.weebly.com/

Publications

Recent publications

Book

Effingham, N & Miller, K 2023, Does Tomorrow Exist? A Debate. Little Debates about Big Questions, 1st edn, Routledge, New York. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003105664

Article

Effingham, N 2026, 'Simulations All the Way Up! An Atheist's Response to the Fine‐Tuning Argument', Analytic Philosophy. https://doi.org/10.1111/phib.70007

Effingham, N 2025, 'Fragmenting the Paradox of Material Constitution', Australasian Journal of Philosophy.

Effingham, N 2024, 'The metatheoretical location of our commitments: Heterodox truthmaking as a case study', Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia, vol. 80, no. 3, pp. 745-758. https://doi.org/10.17990/RPF/2024_80_3_0745

Effingham, N 2024, 'Would God really send me to Hell for stealing a Wispa bar?', Sophia. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-024-01002-4

Effingham, N 2023, 'Reincarnation', Religious Studies Archive.

Effingham, N 2023, 'The Close Possibility of Time Travel', Philosophies, vol. 8, no. 6, 118. https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies8060118

Effingham, N 2022, 'Celebrities discuss philosophy episode 4: a transcript', Think, vol. 21, no. 61, pp. 57-72. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175621000476

Effingham, N 2022, 'Fission theories of Original Guilt', International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, vol. 92, no. 1, pp. 15-30. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-021-09823-w

Effingham, N 2022, 'In Favour of Mereological Nominalism: reply to Cumpa and Declos', Philosophia, vol. 50, no. 4, pp. 1707-1719. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-022-00532-w

Effingham, N 2022, 'The wave theory of time: a comparison to competing tensed theories', Journal of the American Philosophical Association. https://doi.org/10.1017/apa.2021.49

Chapter

Effingham, N 2025, Driving in Fourth Gear Through the Fourth Dimension. in J Heter & R Greene (eds), Back to the Future and Philosophy: Essays on Traveling Through the Space-Time Continuum. McFarland, pp. 4-17. <https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/back-to-the-future-and-philosophy/>

Effingham, N 2025, Time Travel. in N Emery (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Time. 1st edn, Routledge Philosophy Companions, Routledge, pp. 270-279. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003495611-29

Effingham, N 2023, Location and Properties. in ARJ Fisher & A-S Maurin (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Properties. 1st edn, Routledge Handbooks in Philosophy, Routledge, pp. 148-158. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003246077-17

Digital or Visual Products

Ichino, A, Bortolotti, L, Effingham, N, Zambra, F, Ceravolo, P & Tarantola, D, Fake Plots: the game: A game to help us recognise misinformation online and conspiracy theories, 2024, Digital or Visual Products, The Philosophy Garden, Online. <https://sites.google.com/view/the-philosophy-garden/fake-plots>

View all publications in research portal