Dan O'Brien
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Oxford Brookes University
Department of History, Philosophy and Religion - Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Research activities
Details of my research
Background
Dan has a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Birmingham and has previously taught at Birmingham, Keele and Warwick Universities. He is also an Honorary Research Fellow at Birmingham and teaches MA modules for the Open University.
Teaching
This year Dan will teach the Theory of Knowledge module.
Research Interests
Dan’s research interests include Hume’s Philosophy of Religion and the epistemology of testimony. He is currently writing a monograph on Hume for Springer, editing a Hume Companion for Continuum, and editing Hume’s complete writings on religion for Broadview Press.
Dan has refereed for various peer-reviewed journals including The Philosophical Quarterly Philosophica, Critica, and Erkenntnis; he is also an examiner for A and AS level Philosophy. He is a member of the Mind Association, the Hume Society, and the British Philosophical Association.
Selected Publications
Papers
2008: ‘Testimony, Engineered Knowledge and Internalism’ in Philosophica, vol. 75, no. 2, pp. 53–68.
2008: ‘Introduction to the Epistemology of Testimony’ in Philosophica, vol. 75, no. 2, pp. 5–11.
2008: ‘Testimony and Lies’ in The Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 57, No. 227, pp. 225–238.
2007: ‘A More Satisfying Exorcism’ in The International Journal of the Humanities, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 87–92.
2006: ‘Gullible Yet Intelligible’ in Abstracta, volume 3, no. 1, pp. 46–73.
2004: ‘Shakespeare and the Analysis of Knowledge’ in Discourse: Learning and Teaching in Philosophical and Religious Studies, volume 4, No. 1, pp. 57–70.
2004: ‘Family Life’ in the Richmond Journal of Philosophy, vol. 8, pp. 3–17.
Internet Publications
‘The Objects of Perception’ in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (ed. J. Fieser). http://www.iep.utm.edu/p/perc-obj.htm (last revised: August 2003).
‘The Epistemology of Perception’ in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (ed. J. Fieser). http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/epis-per.htm (last revised: October 2004).
Encyclopedia Entries
2009: ‘Induction’, ‘Induction by Enumeration’, ‘Inductive inference’, ‘A Priori / A Posteriori’, and ‘Analytic / Synthetic’ in F. Russo & J. Williamson, eds., Key Terms in Logic, Continuum, London & New York, forthcoming.
2009: ‘Benjamin Rush’ in The Dictionary of Early American Philosophers, ed. J. Shook, Thoemmes-Continuum, forthcoming.
Book Reviews
2008: Mental Illness by M. Thompson, Greenwood Press, Westport, 2007 (Metapsychology Online, vol. 12, No. 15) (co-author: L. Russell).
2007: Living With Darwin by P. Kitcher, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007 (Metapsychology Online, vol. 11, No. 28).
2004: Mind and Mechanism by D. V. McDermott, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2001 (Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology, vol. 7, No. 2).
2004: A Defence of Hume on Miracles by R. Fogelin, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2002 (Philosophy in Review, vol. 24, no. 2).
2003: Pathways to Knowledge: Private and Public by A. J. Goldman, OUP, 2002 (Philosophy, vol. 78, No. 2, pp. 304–7).
2003: On Dennett by J. Symons, Wadsworth, Belmont, CA, 2002 (Philosophy in Review, vol. 23, no. 4).
2002: The Emergence of Consciousness by A. Freeman, ed., Imprint Academic, Thorverton, 2001 (The Review of Human Nature, vol. 2: 249–252).
Recent Talks and Presentations
2009: ‘Humean Therapies’, Philosophical and Therapeutic Approaches to the Therapeutic: A Symposium, Westminster Institute of Education, January 2009.
2008: ‘Humean Therapy’, VIIIth Polish Philosophical Congress, Warsaw, September 15–20.
2008: ‘Humean Therapy and the Problem of Evil’, Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society and MIND association, Aberdeen, July 13.
2008: ‘A Feminist Interpretation of Hume on Testimony’, Society for Women in Philosophy UK panel at the Joint Session, Aberdeen, July 13.
2008: ‘Humean Therapy and the Cause of Evil’, Kings College Philosophical Theology Seminar, April 28–9.
2007: ‘Transtemporal and Transindividual Reasons’, ECREA Philosophy of Communication conference: 25 Years of Universal Pragmatics, University of Surrey, November.
2007: ‘Epistemic Partiality’, Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society and MIND association, University of Bristol, July.
2007: ‘Friendship and the Acquisition of Testimonial Knowledge from Unreliable Speakers’, Royal Institute of Philosophy Lecture, Keele University, January 31.
Media enquiries
Contact the Public Relations Office on +44 (0)1865 484452.