Robin Le Poidevin (born 1962) is Emeritus

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

Metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of ...

at the

University of Leeds The University of Leeds is a public research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was established in 1874 as the Yorkshire College of Science. In 1884, it merged with the Leeds School of Medicine (established 1831) and was renamed Y ...

, whose special interests include

agnosticism Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, the divine, or the supernatural is either unknowable in principle or unknown in fact. (page 56 in 1967 edition) It can also mean an apathy towards such religious belief and refer t ...

philosophy of religion Philosophy of religion is "the philosophical examination of the central themes and concepts involved in religious traditions". Philosophical discussions on such topics date from ancient times, and appear in the earliest known Text (literary theo ...

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of ...

, and

philosophy of space and time Philosophy of space and time is a branch of philosophy concerned with ideas about knowledge and understanding within space and time. Such ideas have been central to philosophy from its inception. The philosophy of space and time was both an inspi ...

Biography

Le Poidevin was educated at

Repton School Repton School is a 13–18 co-educational, private, boarding and day school in the public school tradition, in Repton, Derbyshire, England. Sir John Port of Etwall, on his death in 1557, left funds to create a grammar school which was th ...

and Oriel College Oxford, where he graduated with a

B.A. A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree ...

(1984, converted to

M.A. A Master of Arts ( or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA or AM) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Those admitted to the degree have ...

, 1988) in

Psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

and

Philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

. He took a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in Philosophy at

Emmanuel College, Cambridge Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer to Elizabeth I. The site on which the college sits was once a priory for Dominican mo ...

(1989). He was Gifford Research Fellow in

Logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...

and Metaphysics at the

University of St Andrews The University of St Andrews (, ; abbreviated as St And in post-nominals) is a public university in St Andrews, Scotland. It is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest of the four ancient universities of Scotland and, f ...

, 1988-89. He was appointed to a lectureship in Philosophy at the

in 1989, where he taught until 2022. He was the 2007 Stanton Lecturer in Philosophy of Religion at the University of Cambridge and the 2012 Alan Richardson Fellow in Theology at the University of Durham. From 2010 to 2015 he was Editor of ''Religious Studies'', and is a past President of the British Society for the Philosophy of Religion. Le Poidevin has defended both

and religious fictionalism in his writings on religion, and the B-theory of

time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

(which denies the reality of temporal passage) in his writings on metaphysics. In 2025 he was approved for award of the degree of Doctor of Letters (Litt.D.) by the University of Cambridge.

Publications

Books

* ''Change, Cause and Contradiction: A Defence of the Tenseless Theory of Time'', London: Macmillan, 1991.
''Arguing for Atheism: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion''
London: Routledge, 1996. * ''Travels in Four Dimensions: The Enigmas of Space and Time'', Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. * ''The Images of Time: An Essay on Temporal Representation'', Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. * ''Agnosticism: A Very Short Introduction'', Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. * ''Religious Fictionalism'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. * ''And Was Made Man: Mind, Metaphysics and Incarnation,'' Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023.

Edited Volumes

* '' The Philosophy of Time'' (co-edited with Murray MacBeath), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. * ''Questions of Time and Tense'', Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. * ''Being: Developments in Contemporary Metaphysics'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. * ''The Routledge Companion to Metaphysics'' (co-edited with Peter Simons, Ross Cameron and Andrew McGonigal, London: Routledge, 2009. ISBN 9780415396318

Essays (selected)

* ''The Experience and Perception of Time'' (

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy The ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (''SEP'') is a freely available online philosophy resource published and maintained by Stanford University, encompassing both an online encyclopedia of philosophy and peer-reviewed original publication ...

) * ‘Why I am Agnostic’, in Mark Lamport, ed, ''The Rowman and Littlefield Handbook of Philosophy and Religion'', Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2022. * For a fuller list, see: *
Robin Le Poidevin (University of Leeds) - PhilPeople
*
Robin Le Poidevin - Google Scholar

References

External links

Robin Le Poidevin homepage on the Leeds University website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Le Poidevin, Robin 1962 births Living people 20th-century British philosophers 21st-century British philosophers Academics of the University of Leeds Atheist philosophers British atheists British critics of religions Metaphysicians British philosophers of religion Philosophers of time Rationalists