Fiona Macpherson (born 19 October 1971) is Professor of Philosophy at the

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

, where she is also Director of the Centre for the Study of Perceptual Experience. She was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...

in 2017 and a member of

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europea ...

in 2018.

Biography

She studied at the University of Glasgow, the

University of St Andrews (Aien aristeuein) , motto_lang = grc , mottoeng = Ever to ExcelorEver to be the Best , established = , type = Public research university Ancient university , endowment ...

and the

University of Stirling The University of Stirling (, gd, Oilthigh Shruighlea (abbreviated as Stir or Shruiglea, in post-nominals) is a public university in Stirling, Scotland, founded by royal charter in 1967. It is located in the Central Belt of Scotland, built ...

. She has been a

Kennedy Scholar Kennedy Scholarships provide full funding for up to ten British post-graduate students to study at either Harvard University or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Susan Hockfield, the sixteenth president of MIT, described the scho ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

and a Rosamund Chambers Research Fellow at

Girton College, Cambridge Girton College is one of the 31 constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge. The college was established in 1869 by Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon as the first women's college in Cambridge. In 1948, it was granted full college statu ...

, and a Research Fellow at the Centre for Consciousness at the Australian National University. Macpherson has held visiting positions at the

Institut Jean Nicod The Institut Jean Nicod (IJN) is an interdisciplinary research center based in Paris, France. Its current director is the philosopher (2017-), preceded by famous philosopher François Recanati (2010-2017) and Pierre Jacob (2002-2010). Created i ...

, Paris,

Umeå University Umeå University ( sv, Umeå universitet; Ume Sami language, Ume Sami: ) is a public university, public research university located in Umeå, in the mid-northern region of Sweden. The university was founded in 1965 and is the fifth oldest within ...

and the

Institute of Philosophy, University of London The Institute of Philosophy is a research institution associated with the University of London, founded in 2005. A member of the School of Advanced Study, the institute's focus is to promote and facilitate high quality research in philosophy so ...

. She is a member of the governing council of the

Arts and Humanities Research Council The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), formerly Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB), is a British research council, established in 1998, supporting research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities. History The Arts a ...

(AHRC). She is a trustee of the Kennedy Memorial Trust, having been appointed by the British prime minister for a five-year term from 1 October 2014 and reappointed for five years in 2019. She was appointed to the AHRC Creative Industries Advisory Group in 2019. Macpherson was president of the Scots Philosophical Association from December 2015 to December 2016. She is currently president of the British Philosophical Association.

Research

Macpherson's research interests include the nature of

consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...

perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system, ...

introspection Introspection is the examination of one's own Consciousness, conscious thoughts and feelings. In psychology, the process of introspection relies on the observation of one's Mental representation, mental state, while in a Spirituality, spiritual c ...

imagination Imagination is the production or simulation of novel objects, sensations, and ideas in the mind without any immediate input of the senses. Stefan Szczelkun characterises it as the forming of experiences in one's mind, which can be re-creations o ...

and the

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

mind The mind is the set of faculties responsible for all mental phenomena. Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will, and sensation. They are responsible for vario ...

. Amongst her publications, she is the co-editor of ''Disjunctivism: Perception, Action, Knowledge'', published by Oxford University Press in 2008, ''The Admissible Contents of Experience'', published by Wiley-Blackwell in 2011, editor of ''The Senses: Classic and Contemporary Philosophical Perspectives'', published by Oxford University Press in 2011, co-editor of ''Hallucination: Philosophy and Psychology'', published by

MIT Press The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States). It was established in 1962. History The MIT Press traces its origins back to 1926 when MIT publ ...

in 2013, and co-editor of ''Phenomenal Presence'' and ''Perceptual Imagination and Perceptual Memory'' and editor of ''Sensory Substitution and Augmentation'', all published by Oxford University Press in 2018. She is co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Colour, published by Routledge in 2021. She has appeared on numerous radio programmes, including on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of Talk radio, spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history fro ...

discussing human

sense A sense is a biological system used by an organism for sensation, the process of gathering information about the world through the detection of stimuli. (For example, in the human body, the brain which is part of the central nervous system rec ...

s and perception and o
All In The Mind
discussing her collaborative projec
Dreamachine
She is a regular guest on the podcas
Philosophy Takes On The News

Notable remarks

In relation to debates about the issue of all-male panels at academic conferences, Macpherson has warned against tokenism, noting that she had herself organised an all-male panel, when the prominent women she invited were unavailable. She stated that "I think that it is even all right to only invite men as speakers to some events, if that is appropriate because of research that you want to hear about and the theme of the conference".

References

External links

University of Glasgow profile page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Macpherson, Fiona 1971 births Academics of the University of Glasgow Living people Scottish philosophers Scottish women philosophers