Dr Ema Sullivan-Bissett PhD (York)

Department of Philosophy
Lecturer in Philosophy

Contact details

Email: e.l.sullivan-bissett@bham.ac.uk
Twitter: @Ema_SB

View my research portal

Address: ERI Building
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

I am a Lecturer in Philosophy working primarily in the philosophy of mind.

Staff details
Policy information

Qualifications

B.A. in Philosophy (York, 2009)
M.A. in Philosophy (York, 2010)
PhD in Philosophy (York, 2014)

Teaching

At Birmingham I have taught undergraduate modules Logic Through Language and Topics in the Philosophy of Religion. I have also taught the postgraduate module Epistemology. In the academic year 2018-19 I will be teaching two new undergraduate modules: Key Readings and Fantastic Beasts and How to Understand Them: Topics in the Philosophy of Biology.

Postgraduate supervision

I am currently supervising PhD students in the areas of delusion formation and implicit bias. I welcome enquires from potential PhD students interested in research in philosophy of mind and psychology, epistemology, and philosophy of biology.

Current PhD students

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

Research

I work primarily on issues in philosophy of mind and psychology, specifically belief and its connection to truth, and delusional belief. I am also interested in biological approaches to what are characteristically thought to be normative questions in philosophy of mind and epistemology.

Publications

Books

Sullivan-Bissett, Ema, Bradley, Helen, and Noordhof, Paul (eds.) 2017: Art and Belief. Oxford University Press.

Journal articles

Sullivan-Bissett, Ema and Noordhof, Paul forthcoming: 'The Transparent Failure of Norms to Keep Up Standards of Belief'. Philosophical Studies.
Sullivan-Bissett, Ema forthcoming: 'Biased by Our Imaginings'. Mind and Language. doi: 10.1111/mila.12225
Sullivan-Bissett, Ema forthcoming: 'Monothematic Delusion: A Case of Innocence from Experience'. Philosophical Psychology. Vol. 31, no. 6, pp. 920–47.
Bortolotti, Lisa and Sullivan-Bissett, Ema forthcoming: 'The Epistemic Innocence of Clinical Memory Distortions'. Mind and Language. Vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 263–79.
Sullivan-Bissett, Ema 2017: 'Explaining Doxastic Transparency: Aim, Norm, or Function?' Synthese. DOI: 10.1007/s11229-017-1377-0
Sullivan-Bissett, Ema 2017: 'Aims and Exclusivity'. European Journal of Philosophy. Vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 721–31.
Sullivan-Bissett, Ema 2017: ‘Biological Function and Epistemic Normativity’. Philosophical Explorations. Vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 94–110.
Sullivan-Bissett, Ema and Noordhof, Paul 2017: 'Another Defence of Owens's Exclusivity Objection to Beliefs Having Aims'. Logos and Episteme. Vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 147–53.
Stoneham, Tom, and Sullivan-Bissett, Ema 2017: 'Another Failed Refutation of Scepticism'. Teorema. Vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 19–30.
Sullivan-Bissett, Ema 2016: ‘Malfunction Defended’. Synthese. Vol. 194, no. 7, pp. 2501–22
Sullivan-Bissett, Ema 2015: 'Implicit Bias, Confabulation, and Epistemic Innocence'. Consciousness and Cognition. Vol. 33, pp. 548–60.
Sullivan-Bissett, Ema and Noordhof, Paul 2013: ‘A Defence of Owens’s Exclusivity Objection to Beliefs Having Aims’. Philosophical Studies. Vol. 163, no. 2, pp. 453–57.
McGregor, Rafe and Sullivan-Bissett, Ema 2012: ‘Better No Longer to Be: The Harm of Continued Existence’. South African Journal of Philosophy. Vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 55–68.

Chapters

Bortolotti, Lisa, Antrobus, Magdalena, and Sullivan-Bissett, Ema forthcoming: ‘Are Self-enhancing Beliefs Epistemically Innocent?’ In Balcerak Jackson, Brendan and Balcerak Jackson, Magdalena (eds.) Reasoning. Oxford University Press.
Sullivan-Bissett, Ema and Bortolotti, Lisa 2017. 'Fictional Persuasion, Transparency, and the Aim of Belief'. In Sullivan-Bissett, Ema, Bradley, Helen, and Noordhof, Paul (eds.) Art and Belief. Oxford University Press, pp. 153–73.
Sullivan-Bissett, Ema, Bortolotti, Lisa, Broome, Matthew and Mameli, Matteo 2017: ‘Moral and Legal Implications of the Continuity between Delusional and Non-delusional Beliefs’. In Keil, Geert (ed.) Vagueness in Psychiatry. Oxford University Press, pp. 191–210.
Bortolotti, Lisa, Gunn, Rachel, and Sullivan-Bissett, Ema 2016: ‘What Makes a Belief Delusional?’ In Mac Carthy, Ita, Sellevold, Kirsti, and Smith, Olivia (eds.) Cognitive Confusions. Legenda, pp. 37–51.

Book reviews and commentaries

Sullivan-Bissett, Ema 2018: ‘Belief-like Biases and Concept Centrality'. Symposium on Guillermo Del Pinal and Shannon Spaulding’s 'Conceptual Centrality and Implicit Bias'. The Brains Blog.
Sullivan-Bissett, Ema forthcoming: 'Review of David Benatar The Human Predicament: A Candid Guide to Life's Biggest Questions'. American Journal of Bioethics.
Sullivan-Bissett, Ema 2017: 'Transparency Defended'. Symposium on Miriam McCormick's Believing Against the Evidence: Agency and the Ethics of Belief. Syndicate Philosophy.
Sullivan-Bissett, Ema 2017: ‘The Role of Emotions and Values in Competence’. Journal of Medical Ethics. Vol. 43, pp. 379–80
Sullivan-Bissett, Ema 2015: 'Review of The Aim of Belief by Timothy Chan (ed.)'. Mind. Vol. 124, no. 496, pp. 1258–64.
Bortolotti, Lisa and Sullivan-Bissett, Ema 2014: ‘Review of New Essays on Belief: Constitution, Content and Structure by Nikolaj Nottelmann’. Dialectica. Vol. 68, no. 1, pp. 141–6.
Sullivan-Bissett, Ema 2012: ‘Changing Approaches to Blindsight: Relevant, but not Decisive: Reply to Foley’. Philosophical Writings; Proceedings of the Fifteenth Annual British Postgraduate Philosophy Conference. pp. 56–60.