Paul Russell (born Glasgow, Scotland, 1955) is a professor in philosophy at
Lund University
, motto = Ad utrumque
, mottoeng = Prepared for both
, established =
, type = Public research university
, budget = SEK 9 billion GRP His position at Lund is a half-time research position and has been made possible thanks to a major grant from the Swedish Research Council for "the international recruitment of leading researchers" (2014). Prior to his current position at Lund University he has held positions as Professor of philosophy at the
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks among the top thre ...
Edinburgh University
The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted ...
(1979) and a PhD from
Cambridge University
The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III of England, Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world' ...
(1986). At Cambridge his thesis work was supervised by Professor Sir
Bernard Williams
Sir Bernard Arthur Owen Williams, FBA (21 September 1929 – 10 June 2003) was an English moral philosopher. His publications include ''Problems of the Self'' (1973), ''Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy'' (1985), ''Shame and Necessity'' ...
. He held a research fellowship at
Sidney Sussex College
Sidney Sussex College (referred to informally as "Sidney") is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England. The College was founded in 1596 under the terms of the will of Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex (1531–1589), wife ...
, Cambridge from 1984 to 1987.
Apart from the positions mentioned above he has also held a number of visiting appointments at various universities, including
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with highly selective ad ...
Mellon Fellowship
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation of New York City in the United States, simply known as Mellon Foundation, is a private foundation with five core areas of interest, and endowed with wealth accumulated by Andrew Mellon of the Mellon family of Pitts ...
;
University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the univers ...
(1996–1997); and
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...
(2005), where he was Kenan Distinguished Visitor. In 2010 he was the Fowler Hamilton Visiting Fellow at Christ Church, Oxford.
His principal research interests include problems of
free will
Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded.
Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to ac ...
and
moral responsibility
In philosophy, moral responsibility is the status of morally deserving praise, blame, reward, or punishment for an act or omission in accordance with one's moral obligations.
Deciding what (if anything) counts as "morally obligatory" is a ...
and the history of early modern philosophy (particularly
David Hume
David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment phil ...
).
He is the author of ''Freedom and Moral Sentiment: Hume's Way of Naturalizing Responsibility'' (1995), ''The Riddle of Hume's Treatise: Skepticism, Naturalism, and Irreligion'' (2008), ''The Limits of Free Will: Selected Essays'' (2017), and ''Recasting Hume and Early Modern Philosophy: Selected Essays'', all published by
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
. His book ''The Riddle of Hume's Treatise'' won the book prize from the ''
Journal of the History of Philosophy
The ''Journal of the History of Philosophy'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal. It was established in 1963 after the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association passed a motion to this effect in 1957. The journal is publi ...
'' in 2008, a prize bestowed on "the best published book in the history of philosophy." He has served on the editorial board of the journals Hume Studies and
Journal of the History of Philosophy
The ''Journal of the History of Philosophy'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal. It was established in 1963 after the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association passed a motion to this effect in 1957. The journal is publi ...
.
Along with his academic publications he has also published opinion pieces and reviews in a variety of venues including, ''
The Globe and Mail
''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...
'', the ''
Vancouver Sun
The ''Vancouver Sun'', also known as the ''Sun'', is a daily broadsheet newspaper based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The newspaper is currently published by the Pacific Newspaper Group, a division of Postmedia Network. Published s ...
'', the ''
Times Literary Supplement
''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp.
History
The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to '' The Times'' but became a separate publication ...
'', ''
The Scotsman
''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its pare ...
'', and ''
Aeon
The word aeon , also spelled eon (in American and Australian English), originally meant "life", "vital force" or "being", "generation" or "a period of time", though it tended to be translated as "age" in the sense of "ages", "forever", "timele ...
''. Selections of his work have been translated into several languages, including Chinese, Polish, Italian and Hungarian.
In recent years Paul Russell has commented on and discussed issues relating to free speech on the university campus, including at the
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks among the top thre ...
.
Awards
* 2023 Beaufort Visiting Fellow,
St. John's College, Cambridge
St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge founded by the Tudor matriarch Lady Margaret Beaufort. In constitutional terms, the college is a charitable corporation established by a charter dated 9 April 1511. The ...
Journal of the History of Philosophy
The ''Journal of the History of Philosophy'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal. It was established in 1963 after the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association passed a motion to this effect in 1957. The journal is publi ...
Books
* Recasting Hume & Early Modern Philosophy: Selected Essays. New York (Oxford University Press: 2021).
* The Limits of Free Will: Selected Essays (Oxford University Press: 2017).
* The Riddle of Hume’s Treatise: Skepticism, Naturalism, and Irreligion (New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press: 2008). ublished in paperback 2010 with a new foreword.
* Freedom and Moral Sentiment: Hume's Way of Naturalizing Responsibility (New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). Published in paperback, 2002.
Books Introduced and Edited
* The Oxford Handbook of Hume. (Oxford University Press: 2016).
* The Philosophy of Free Will: Essential Readings from the Contemporary Debates, edited with Oisin Deery (Oxford University Press: 2013).
*Free Will and Reactive Attitudes: Perspectives on P.F. Strawson’s “Freedom and Resentment”, Introduced and edited with Michael McKenna (Farnham: Ashgate: 2008). Reissued and published in paperback by Routledge, 2016.* Joseph J. Russell, Analysis and Dialectic: Studies in the Logic of Foundation Problems, Introduced and edited by P. Russell (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1984).
Wrote Introductions For
* David Hume, Dialoger om naturlig religion ya Doxa, 2020Swedish translation by Jan Landgren. The edition is provided with a newly written preface by Paul Russell.