To mark the retirement of Professor Adrian Moore at the end of this academic year, we are delighted to invite alumni, friends, and members of the St Hugh’s College community to a day-long celebration of Philosophy at St Hugh’s on Saturday 20 June.
Whilst alumni who studied Philosophy at St Hugh’s may be particularly keen to attend, anyone with an interest in philosophy is welcome. Talks are intended for a non-specialist audience, with time for discussion and questions throughout the day.
This will be a joyous celebration of Philosophy, the College’s intellectual history, the people who have helped shape it, and those who are studying or have studied here.
The daytime programme is open to all and free to attend for all or part of the day. There is a charge for lunch and evening dinner.
More information
Morning
10.30am – Coffee on arrival
11.00am – Welcome from the Principal
Panel 1: Short contributions from academic colleagues, reflecting on their work with Adrian and his contribution to Philosophy. The panel will include Dr Anita Avramides, Professor Naomi Eilan, Professor Anil Gomes and Professor Lucy O’Brien
12.30pm – Lunch (pre-booking required)
1.30pm – Panel 2: Reflections from former students and colleagues on studying Philosophy at St Hugh’s, the impact it has had in Oxford and beyond, and Adrian’s role as a teacher, mentor, and colleague. The panel will include Karolina Bassa (2017, Mathematics and Philosophy), Andrew Dilnot (Principal, St Hugh’s College, 2002-2012) Carolyn Price (1988, Philosophy) and Jessica Cordingly (2004, PPE).
3.00pm – Break
4.00pm – In conversation: with Professor Adrian Moore and Dr Nick Bunnin followed by audience Q&A
4.30pm – Break – opportunity to see the gardens and visit the Library exhibition and Chapel
5.30pm – Pre-dinner Drinks
6.15pm – Dinner (pre-booking required).
Dress Code: Smart/casual
After nearly forty years of service to St Hugh’s, Adrian has played a central role in shaping the study of Philosophy here and in contributing to the intellectual and pastoral life of the College. This event offers an opportunity to reflect on that legacy and on how Philosophy has evolved within the College over that time. The day will be a great opportunity to celebrate with Adrian, to catch up with friends, and to listen to and take part in interesting conversation and debate.
Professor Adrian W. Moore FBA
Tutorial Fellow in Philosophy
Adrian is the Senior Fellow at St Hugh’s, having been with the College for nearly forty years. From his seminal works The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics, Points of View, and The Infinite (now in its revised third edition), Adrian has been encouraging people to think for decades. With research interests spanning Kant, Wittgenstein, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of logic, the philosophy of language, ethics, and the history of philosophy, Adrian is well-known and widely-published in a range of fields.
Find out more about Prof. Moore from his interview with What is it like to be a philosopher? or by listening to any of his recent video interviews with children for the series A philosopher and a child found on YouTube here.
Morning Panel – Guest Speakers
Dr Anita Avramides, Emeritus Fellow, St Hilda’s College, Oxford
Dr Avramides has published work in the philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind. Her most recent research has been on the question of our knowledge of other minds. This question lies at the intersection of issues in the philosophy of mind, epistemology and metaphysics, and she has pursued her research accordingly. She has recently been interested in assessing the suggestion that we know other minds through perception. Overall, she is concerned to defend the idea that the ‘problem’ of other minds is conceptual, rather than epistemological. Dr Avramides has had a long and varied teaching career, teaching a wide range of undergraduate courses including the philosophy of mind, the history of philosophy, epistemology, and moral philosophy.
Professor Naomi Eilan, Professor of Philosophy at Warwick University and Director of the Warwick Mind and Action Research Centre.
Professor Eilan currently co-directs a Leverhulme/British Academy project on The Second Person and the Only Conncet project (Warwick Impact Fund). She is on the Advisory Board of the European Society of Philosophy and Psychology. She has a longstanding interest in issues that lie at the intersection of philosophy of mind, metaphysics and psychology, and welcomes PhD students in those areas. Her current research focuses on the nature of second person thought; knowledge of one’s own and other minds; joint attention and joint action; theories of communication.
Professor Anil Gomes, Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Trinity College, Oxford, and Professor in Philosophy at the University of Oxford.
Professor Gomes has written on a range of topics in the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and the work of Iris Murdoch. He is the author of The Practical Self (Oxford University Press, 2024).
Professor Lucy O’Brien, Professor in Philosophy, University College London
Professor O’Brien works in the philosophy of mind and action, focusing in particular on self-consciousness and self-knowledge. She is the author of Self-Knowing Agents (OUP 2007) and co-editor, with Matthew Soteriou, of Mental Actions (OUP 2009). She is currently working on interpersonal, rather than personal, self-consciousness and the nature of the self-conscious emotions.
Afternoon Panel Guest Speakers
Carolyn Price, Retired Senior Lecturer at the open University. In the 1980s, Carolyn Price studied Literae Humaniores at St Hugh’s, where she developed an enthusiasm for the philosophy of Plato. Having completed her BA, she went on to do a BPhil and DPhil in Philosophy, though she was diverted into modern philosophy of mind along the way. She stayed at St Hugh’s through the 1990s as a Tutorial Fellow, working alongside Adrian Moore. In 2000, she took up a Lectureship at the Open University, where she worked until her retirement in 2019. Her research remained within philosophy of mind, focusing eventually on the philosophy of emotion. She published various papers and chapters, including discussions of love, grief and regret; she also wrote two books — Functions in Mind (OUP 2001) and Emotion (Polity 2015). She never lost her love of ancient philosophy — a love she continued to indulge through her teaching at both universities.
Professor Nicholas Bunnin is Emeritus Director of the Philosophy Project, University of Oxford China Centre, Visiting Professor of Chinese Philosophy at King’s College London, and associate member of the Oxford Faculty of Philosophy. He co-founded with Qiu Renzong the Philosophy Summer School in China, and co-authored with Yu Jiyuan The Dictionary of Western Philosophy: English-Chinese (2001). His interests include contemporary Chinese philosophy, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, political philosophy, and western philosophy in China.
