Professor Stephan Leuenberger
- Professor of Philosophy (Philosophy)
telephone:
01413304276
email:
Stephan.Leuenberger@glasgow.ac.uk
R404 Level 4, Philosophy, 69 Oakfield Avenue, Glasgow G12 8LP
Research interests
Modality. Some things are the way they are of necessity, while others could be different. But where does the line fall? One popular answer is that there are no brute, or unexplained, necessities. But if I am right, that answer would itself be a brute necessity, if it were necessary. So if it is true, it is contingent---and none the worse for it!
Totality. In many contexts, it matters greatly whether some truth is the whole truth, or whether something is left out. But the question what it means for a truth to be the whole truth - to be "total" - raises a number of puzzles. I claim that the key to solving them is to distinguish different concepts of totality.
Metaphysical Relations. What is the relationship between descriptions of the world at various levels, e.g. the physical and the sociological level? Philosophers have appealed to a number of different relations to formulate relevant hypotheses, among them supervenience, grounding, and emergence. I am using formal tools to clarify these concepts and their relationships.
Grants
- "Being without Foundations", Swiss National Science Foundation (Glasgow PI; September 2019 - August 2023).
- "Grounding in Law", Royal Society of Edinburgh (PI; April 2019 - March 2020).
- "The Whole Truth", AHRC Early Career Research Project (PI; January 2016 - August 2017).
- "Sense-Data", project funded by the John Templeton Foundation via the Cambridge New Directions in Mind Project (CI; July 2016 - 2017).
- "Emergence", project funded by the John Templeton Foundation via the Durham Emergence Project (joint PI; 1 October 2014 - 30 September 2015).
- “The Contingency of Contingency”, AHRC Early Career Fellowship (1 September 2012 – 31 May 2013)
- “Grounds without Supplements”, Carnegie Research Grant (summer 2012)
Supervision
I am happy to supervise Masters and PhD students in metaphysics, philosophical logic, and philosophy of law.
- Chatzigeorgiou, Konstantinos
Philosophical Foundations of Galilean Scholarship (Subject to change)
Past supervisions:
- Mental Causation
- Counterfactual Theories of Causation
- Predestination and Foreknowledge
- Multiple Realization
- Properties as Powerful Qualities
- Ontology of Legal Institutions
Teaching
Junior Honours / MSc Conversion: Metaphysics
Senior Honours: Philosophy of Law
MSc: The Metaphysics of the Social Worlds
Additional information
Outwith Glasgow, I am
- a Visiting Professor at the MAP - the Research Master in Metaphysics and Mind at the USI, Lugano
- affiliated member of eidos, the Centre for Metaphysics at the University of Geneva, and
- book reviews editor of dialectica.