Philip Simon Gerrans (born 14 October 1959) is an

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Aus ...

academic and philosopher, and a former

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adju ...

er.

Education and cricket career

Gerrans was born in

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

and attended

Daramalan College Daramalan College is a Roman Catholic high school in Canberra, Australia, located in the suburb of Dickson. It encompasses Year 7 to Year 12, in a co-educational environment. Run by the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, it has an emblem of a re ...

Canberra Canberra ( ; ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the Federation of Australia, federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's list of cities in Australia, largest in ...

and the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public university, public research university and member of the Group of Eight (Australian universities), Group of Eight, located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton, A ...

. He played several matches for the

Australian Capital Territory cricket team The ACT Comets (also known as the Canberra Comets) are a cricket team that represent the Australian Capital Territory. The Comets are the premier team of the Cricket ACT who are affiliated with Cricket Australia. In the Domestic One Day Compet ...

in the 1980s, including matches against

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touring teams from

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Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

and the

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. Gerrans studied philosophy, politics and economics as a mature student in England at

Worcester College Worcester College ( ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. The college was founded in 1714 by the benefaction of Sir Thomas Cookes, 2nd Baronet (1648–1701) of Norgrove, Worcestershire, whose coat of arms was ad ...

at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

. While studying at Oxford, he played

for

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

in 1990 and 1991, making eleven appearances. He scored 130 runs in his eleven matches, at an

average In colloquial, ordinary language, an average is a single number or value that best represents a set of data. The type of average taken as most typically representative of a list of numbers is the arithmetic mean the sum of the numbers divided by ...

of 14.44 and a high score of 39. With his right-arm

medium pace Fast bowling (also referred to as pace bowling) is a type of bowling in cricket, in which the ball is delivered at high speed. The fastest bowlers bowl the ball at over . Practitioners of fast bowling are known as fast bowlers or quicks. Also ...

bowling, he took 14 wickets at a

bowling average In cricket, a player's bowling average is the number of runs they have conceded per wicket taken. The lower the bowling average is, the better the bowler is performing. It is one of a number of statistics used to compare bowlers, commonly use ...

of 66.14, with best figures of 3 for 86. He also made a single first-class appearance for a combined Oxford and Cambridge Universities team against the touring

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in 1990, taking three wickets.

Philosophy career

After graduating from Oxford, Gerrans returned to Australia where he studied for his

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

at the Australian National University under the supervision of Frank Jackson and

Philip Pettit Philip Noel Pettit (born 1945) is an Irish philosopher and political theorist. He is the Laurance Rockefeller University Professor of Human Values at Princeton University and also Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy at the Aust ...

. Once his studies were complete, Gerrans moved into academia. He is a philosophy professor at the

University of Adelaide The University of Adelaide is a public university, public research university based in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. Its main campus in the Adelaide city centre includes many Sa ...

and an associate of the

Swiss Center for Affective Sciences The Swiss Center for Affective Sciences ( French: '' Centre Interfacultaire en Sciences Affectives'' or " CISA" ) is a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research center based at the University of Geneva (Geneva, Switzerland). The center was ...

. Gerrans has published more than 50 research papers, with a particular interest in what psychological disorder reveals about the mind. He is the author of the book ''The Measure of Madness: Philosophy of Mind, Cognitive Neuroscience, and Delusional Thought'' (MIT Press, 2014). With Chris Letheby, he is the co-editor of the book ''Philosophical Perspectives on Psychedelic Psychiatry'' (OUP, 2024).

References

External links

Publications by Philip Gerrans
at

ResearchGate ResearchGate is a European commercial social networking site for scientists and researchers to share papers, ask and answer questions, and find collaborators. According to a 2014 study by ''Nature'' and a 2016 article in ''Times Higher Education' ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gerrans, Philip 1959 births Living people People from Melbourne People educated at Daramalan College Alumni of Worcester College, Oxford Australian cricketers Oxford University cricketers Oxford and Cambridge Universities cricketers Australian National University alumni 20th-century Australian philosophers 21st-century Australian philosophers Australian philosophers of mind Academic staff of the University of Adelaide 20th-century Australian sportsmen