Staff

Dr Sophie Gibb, BA, MA, PhD

Contact Dr Sophie Gibb (email at s.c.gibb@durham.ac.uk)

Biography

Sophie Gibb is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Philosophy, University of Durham. Her research interests lie within contemporary metaphysics (in particular, ontology) and the philosophy of mind (in particular, the mental causation debate). Her current central research topics are concerned with the ontology of the mental causation debate, dualist accounts of psychophysical causation, the powers theory of causation and the trope/ universal debate.

Research Grants and Awards

• Principal investigator  in an AHRC-funded two-year project (£165,000) on 'The New Ontology of the Mental Causation Debate' (co-investigator Professor E. J. Lowe, Durham University), 2008-10.

Research Interests

Sophie Gibb's research is primarily concerned with the following areas of contemporary metaphysics and the philosophy of mind and she would welcome enquiries from students wishing to pursue PhDs in any of them:

• The categories of being, in particular, the nature of properties
• Causation, laws and powers
• The mental causation debate, in particular, the ontology of the mental causation debate.

Postgraduate Modules

• Current Issues in Metaphysics
• Mind and Action

Undergraduate Modules

• Metaphysics
• Introduction to Logic
• Philosophy of the Sciences

Administrative Duties

• Chair of the Board of Examiners
• Director of the Mind, Language and Metaphysics Research Group

Research Groups

• Mind, Language and Metaphysics

Publications

Books: edited

• Gibb, S. C., Lowe, E. J. & Ingthorsson, R. D. (2013). Mental Causation and Ontology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Books: reviews

• Gibb, S.C. (2009). 'Physical Realization' by Sydney Shoemaker. Mind
• Gibb, S.C. (2009). 'The Mind in Nature' by C. B. Martin. Analysis

Essays in edited volumes

• Gibb, S.C. (Forthcoming). Trope Simplicity. In Substance: New Essays. Garcia, R. Philosophia Verlag.
• Gibb, S.C. (Forthcoming). Tropes and the Generality of Laws. In The Problem of Universals in Contemporary Philosophy. Galluzzo, G., Loux, M. & Lowe, E.J.
• Gibb, SC (2013). Mental Causation and Double Prevention. In Mental Causation and Ontology. Gibb, SC, Lowe, EJ & Ingthorsson, RD Oxford University Press.

Journal papers: academic

• Gibb, Sophie C (2013). The Causal Criterion of Property Identity and the Substraction of Powers. Erkenntnis
• Gibb, S.C. (2012). Non-reductive physicalism and the problem of strong closure. American Philosophical Quarterly 49(1): 29-42.
• Gibb, S.C. (2010). Causal Closure Principles and the Laws of Conservation of Energy and Momentum. Dialectica 64(3): 363 - 384.
• Gibb, S.C. (2009). Explanatory Exclusion and Causal Exclusion. Erkenntnis 71(2): 205-221.
• Gibb, S.C. (2007). Is the Partial Identity Account of Property Resemblance Logically Incoherent? Dialectica 61(4): 539-558 (Awarded the Dialectica Annual Essay Prize).
• Gibb, S.C. (2006). Space, Supervenience and Entailment *. Philosophical Papers 35(2): 173-186.
• Gibb SC (2006). Why Davidson is not a Property Epiphenomenalist. International Journal of Philosophical Studies 14(3): 407-422.
• Gibb, SC (2004). The Problem of Mental Causation and the Nature of Properties. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 82(3): 464-476.

Related Links

• AHRC project: The New Ontology of the Mental Causation Debate