Dr Ema Sullivan-Bissett PhD (York)

Dr Ema Sullivan-Bissett

Department of Philosophy
Reader in Philosophy
Head of Research

Contact details

Address
ERI Building
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

I am a Reader in Philosophy working primarily in the philosophy of mind and psychology.

Qualifications

  • BA in Philosophy (York, 2009)
  • MA in Philosophy (York, 2010)
  • PhD in Philosophy (York, 2014)

Teaching

At Birmingham I have taught the undergraduate modules Logic Through Language, Key Readings, Topics in the Philosophy of Religion, and Fantastic Beasts and How to Understand Them. I have also taught the postgraduate module Epistemology.

Postgraduate supervision

I am currently supervising PhD students in the areas of delusion formation and implicit bias. I welcome enquires from potential PhD students interested in research in philosophy of mind and psychology, epistemology, and philosophy of biology.



Find out more - our PhD Philosophy  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

Research

I work primarily on issues in philosophy of mind and psychology, specifically belief and its connection to truth, monothematic delusion, and implicit bias. I am also interested in biological approaches to what are characteristically thought to be normative questions in philosophy of mind and epistemology.

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Sullivan-Bissett, E 2024, 'Monothematic Delusions are Misfunctioning Beliefs', Synthese.

Sullivan-Bissett, E & Rush, M 2023, 'Unbiased awarding of art prizes? It's hard to judge', British Journal of Aesthetics. https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/ayac028

Sullivan-Bissett, E 2023, 'Virtually Imagining Our Biases', Philosophical Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2023.2184334

Sullivan-Bissett, E 2022, 'Better to return whence we came', The Journal of Value Inquiry, vol. 56, no. 1, pp. 85-100. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-022-09888-4

Sullivan-Bissett, E 2022, 'Debunking doxastic transparency', European Journal of Analytic Philosophy, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 5-24. https://doi.org/10.31820/ejap.18.1.3

Noordhof, P & Sullivan-Bissett, E 2021, 'The clinical significance of anomalous experience in the explanation of monothematic delusions', Synthese, vol. 199, no. 3-4, pp. 10277-10309. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-021-03245-x

Sullivan-Bissett, E 2020, 'Unimpaired abduction to alien abduction: lessons on delusion formation', Philosophical Psychology, vol. 33, no. 5, pp. 679-704. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2020.1765324

Sullivan-Bissett, E 2019, 'Biased by our imaginings', Mind & Language, vol. 34, no. 5, pp. 627-647. https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12225

Chapter (peer-reviewed)

Sullivan-Bissett, E 2023, In Defence of Ontic Austerity for Belief. in E Schwitzgebel & J Jong (eds), The Nature of Belief. Oxford University Press.

Noordhof, P & Sullivan-Bissett, E 2023, The everyday irrationality of monothematic delusion. in P Henne & S Murray (eds), Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Action. 1st edn, Advances in Experimental Philosophy, Bloomsbury Publishing, pp. 87–111. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350266353.0011

Sullivan-Bissett, E 2022, Implicit Bias and Processing. in JR Thompson (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Implicit Cognition. 1st edn, Routledge Handbooks in Philosophy, Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003014584-11

Sullivan-Bissett, E 2020, We are like American robins. in K McCain & S Stapleford (eds), Epistemic duties: new arguments, new angles. 1st edn, Routledge Studies in Epistemology, Routledge, New York, pp. 94-110. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429030215-8

Book/Film/Article review

Sullivan-Bissett, E 2022, 'Believing badly ain't so bad', Philosophical Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2022.2077717

Comment/debate

Sullivan-Bissett, E & Noordhof, P 2024, 'Revisiting Maher’s One-Factor Theory of Delusion, Again', Neuroethics, vol. 17, no. 1, 17. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12152-024-09553-6

Sullivan-Bissett, E 2022, 'Against a second factor', Asian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 2022, 33. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44204-022-00036-0

View all publications in research portal

Expertise

  • Nature of belief and connection to the truth
  • Delusions
  • Implicit bias

Other information