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Prof. Galen Strawson has developed ideas challenging our central conceptions of the self, freedom, agency, responsibility, and the nature of mental life. The impact of his research at the University of Reading has been a continuing one on cultural life and civil society, helping to shape the views of people outside the academy on these most important aspects of our thought about ourselves. Very unusually for an academic philosopher, Strawson has made significant contributions to popular debate on philosophy of mind, in particular free will and consciousness, and its implications for ethical thinking. This impact includes contributions on national and international radio, television, newspapers and blogs. Through these means, Strawson's radical thinking about subjectivity, the mind, personal identity, free will, and moral responsibility has had a direct impact on non-academic opinion and stimulated lively debate as a result.
Through our very successful schools outreach programme, Philosophy in the City, several members of staff have brought their research ideas to school students and teachers, with considerable influence both on the students themselves and on the way in which philosophy is taught and thought of within those schools. This activity has formed an important part of our civic engagement with Sheffield and its region, in enabling our research work to be understood beyond the academy, while drawing school pupils into the subject and influencing their attitude both to the issues we deal with and to higher education more generally.
Dr Toby Ord is the founder of an international organisation called Giving What We Can. This organization is dedicated to the fight against poverty in the developing world. Its members pledge to give at least 10% of their income to aid and to direct their giving to the organisations that have a demonstrated ability to use their incomes most efficiently. The impetus for the founding of the organization was provided by Dr Ord's early work in ethics. He subsequently undertook additional research into how his ethical ideas could be put into practice. The fruits both of this research and of related research by other Oxford philosophers appear on the organisation's website, where, through a combination of pure and applied philosophy, the ethical case for making the pledge is urged. The arguments advanced have proved to be extremely persuasive: many people have been moved by them, and to great effect. The organisation has over 326 members, from seventeen countries, who together have pledged to give over US $130,000,000 to charity.
New avenues for diagnosis and treatment in a variety of psychotherapeutic settings were influenced by Hutto and Gallagher's innovative approach to social cognition, improving the quality of life of individuals. Their research has contributed to the development of diagnostic tools for the early detection and treatment of schizophrenia and new methodological guidelines for the clinical evaluation of Autism Spectrum Disorders. They developed the Embodied and Narrative Practices framework for understanding social cognition in terms of non-representational embodied interactions, enhanced and supported by highly contextualised socio-cultural, narrative practices. Pivotally, this approach offers an alternative to individualist and intellectualist mainstream cognitivist — e.g. `theory of mind' — approaches, reconceiving the status and importance of these practices in our capacity to relate to and understand others.
Tim Lewens' research into risk, trust and bioethics can be shown to have informed and influenced policy debate. This work has shaped reports of the Business Innovation and Skills working group on Science and Trust, and also reports from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. Lewens' key contributions to the latter's Human Bodies Report have resulted in invitations to give evidence to the Welsh National Assembly, thus helping to shape the Assembly's drafting of its new bill on human transplantation. His work on the Council's report on Mitochondrial Disorders has been echoed in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority's (HFEA's) recent advice to UK Ministers, which aims to inform forthcoming debate to alter existing legislation on experimental mitochondrial therapies. Lewens' research has also led to his being asked to take on consulting roles to industry, most recently with AstraZeneca.
A booklet was produced to address a problem identified by A-level teachers of Philosophy. They had reported that while independent critical engagement is strongly emphasised in the A-level Philosophy marking criteria, the available teaching materials do not foster this skill. The booklet contains essays summarising research papers from three members of the Unit that represent opposing views of Nietzsche's critique of morality. Through questions and puzzles, students are able to compare the claims and take up critical positions. The booklet has contributed a new type of educational material for developing critical thinking in A-level Philosophy and has been used in the UK and overseas.