Paul Russell | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1955 (age 69–70) |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Occupation | Professor |
| Education | |
| Alma mater | |
| Thesis | Moral Sentiment and the Rationale of Responsibility (1986) |
| Doctoral advisor | Bernard Williams |
| Philosophical work | |
| Institutions | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Notable works | |
| Notable ideas | Philosophy of David Hume,Moral Responsibility |
Paul Russell (born Glasgow,Scotland,1955) is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia. From 2018-2025 he was also Professor of Philosophy at Lund University,where he was also Director of the Lund/Gothenburg Responsibility Project [LGRP]. Prior to that he was Professor of Philosophy at University of Gothenburg from 2015-2017.
Paul Russell holds an undergraduate degree from Edinburgh University (1979) and a PhD from Cambridge University (1986). At Cambridge his thesis work was supervised by Professor Sir Bernard Williams. He held a research fellowship at Sidney Sussex College,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 (1988);Stanford University (1989–1990),where he held a Mellon Fellowship;University of Pittsburgh (1996–1997);and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2005),where he was Kenan Distinguished Visitor. In 2010 he was the Fowler Hamilton Visiting Fellow at Christ Church,Oxford [1] and in 2023 he was Beaufort Visiting Fellow at St. John's College,Cambridge.
His principal research interests include problems of free will and moral responsibility and the history of early modern philosophy (particularly David Hume).
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),Recasting Hume and Early Modern Philosophy:Selected Essays,Moral Responsibility:A Very Short Introduction,all published by Oxford University Press. His book The Riddle of Hume's Treatise won the book prize from the Journal of the History of Philosophy in 2008,a prize bestowed on "the best published book in the history of philosophy." [2] [3] He has served on the editorial board of the journals Hume Studies and Journal of the History of Philosophy.
Along with his academic publications he has also published opinion pieces and reviews in a variety of venues including, The Globe and Mail ,the Vancouver Sun ,the Times Literary Supplement , The Scotsman ,and Aeon . 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, [4] [5] including at the University of British Columbia,where he called for denunciations of disliked ideas to be measured and responsible. [6] [7] [8]
Books
Books Introduced and Edited
Wrote Introductions For
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