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Dr Matthew Simpson

Fellowship Type
College Position
Fellow in Philosophy
University Position
Assistant Professor (Unestablished) in the Faculty of Philosophy
Subject
Philosophy
Research Interests
Philosophy of language, metaethics, metaphysics, logic.
Teaching Interests
Philosophy of language, logic, ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind

I am an Assistant Professor (Unestablished) in the Faculty of Philosophy and Director of Studies for philosophy at Robinson. My research interests lie mostly in the philosophy of language, where it overlaps with philosophy of mind and metaphysics. I am interested in how we are able to think and speak about the world, what it might mean to say or think something true about the world, and what the answer to these questions can teach us, if anything, about the nature of the world itself. I am especially interested in the language of ethics -- words like 'good', 'bad', 'wrong', and 'right', and in logical words like 'and', 'not', 'or', and 'all'. How do these words work, what sorts of thoughts do they express when we use them, and what in the world are these words actually about?

Before my current position, I held academic positions at Central European University in Vienna, University College London, and at Robinson College, where I held a research fellowship between 2020-2023, and studied as an undergraduate and graduate student between 2009-2017.