University of Reading
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 2000
London, London, City of, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
  •  2
    Philosophy, Psychoanalysis and the A‐Rational Mind (review)
    Philosophical Quarterly 62 (247): 425-427. 2011.
  •  16
    _Philosophy for A2: Unit 4_ is the definitive textbook for students of the current AQA Advanced Level syllabus for philosophy. Structured very closely around the AQA specifications for Unit 4: Philosophical Problems, Michael Lacewing helps students to engage with and understand the arguments of the five key texts: Hume's _An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding_ Plato's _The_ _Republic _ Mill's _On Liberty_ Descartes' _Meditations _ Nietzsche's _Beyond Good and Evil_. All chapters are helpfull…Read more
  • _Philosophy for AS_ is the definitive textbook for students of the current AQA Advanced Subsidiary Level. Structured closely around the examination specifications, it covers the two units of the AS Level in an exceptionally clear and student-friendly style. As an invitation to philosophy, the book encourages and enables students to engage philosophically with the following syllabus topics: reason and experience Why should I be governed? Why should I be moral? the idea of God persons knowledge of…Read more
  •  30
    _Philosophy for A2: Unit 3_ is the definitive textbook for students of the current AQA Advanced Level syllabus. Structured very closely around the AQA specifications for Unit 3: Key Themes in Philosophy, it introduces the student to each of the core themes: philosophy of mind political philosophy epistemology and metaphysics moral philosophy philosophy of religion. All chapters are helpfully subdivided into short digestible passages, and include: quiz questions to test core knowledge discussion …Read more
  •  2
    Review of Salmela (2014) (review)
    Dialectica 70 (2): 257-265. 2016.
  •  12
    _Philosophy for A2: Unit 3_ is the definitive textbook for students of the current AQA Advanced Level syllabus. Structured very closely around the AQA specifications for Unit 3: Key Themes in Philosophy, it introduces the student to each of the core themes: philosophy of mind political philosophy epistemology and metaphysics moral philosophy philosophy of religion. All chapters are helpfully subdivided into short digestible passages, and include: quiz questions to test core knowledge discussion …Read more
  •  2
    _Philosophy for A2: Unit 4_ is the definitive textbook for students of the current AQA Advanced Level syllabus for philosophy. Structured very closely around the AQA specifications for Unit 4: Philosophical Problems, Michael Lacewing helps students to engage with and understand the arguments of the five key texts: Hume's _An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding_ Plato's _The_ _Republic _ Mill's _On Liberty_ Descartes' _Meditations _ Nietzsche's _Beyond Good and Evil_. All chapters are helpfull…Read more
  •  4
    _Philosophy for AS_ is the definitive textbook for students of the current AQA Advanced Subsidiary Level. Structured closely around the examination specifications, it covers the two units of the AS Level in an exceptionally clear and student-friendly style. As an invitation to philosophy, the book encourages and enables students to engage philosophically with the following syllabus topics: reason and experience Why should I be governed? Why should I be moral? the idea of God persons knowledge of…Read more
  • _Philosophy for A2: Unit 4_ is the definitive textbook for students of the current AQA Advanced Level syllabus for philosophy. Structured very closely around the AQA specifications for Unit 4: Philosophical Problems, Michael Lacewing helps students to engage with and understand the arguments of the five key texts: Hume's _An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding_ Plato's _The_ _Republic _ Mill's _On Liberty_ Descartes' _Meditations _ Nietzsche's _Beyond Good and Evil_. All chapters are helpfull…Read more
  • _Philosophy for A2: Unit 3_ is the definitive textbook for students of the current AQA Advanced Level syllabus. Structured very closely around the AQA specifications for Unit 3: Key Themes in Philosophy, it introduces the student to each of the core themes: philosophy of mind political philosophy epistemology and metaphysics moral philosophy philosophy of religion. All chapters are helpfully subdivided into short digestible passages, and include: quiz questions to test core knowledge discussion …Read more
  •  128
    Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychoanalysis (edited book)
    with Richard G. T. Gipps
    Oxford University Press. 2018.
    Psychoanalysis is often equated with Sigmund Freud, but this comparison ignores the wide range of clinical practices, observational methods, general theories, and cross-pollinations with other disciplines that characterise contemporary psychoanalytic work. Central psychoanalytic concepts to do with unconscious motivation, primitive forms of thought, defence mechanisms, and transference form a mainstay of today's richly textured contemporary clinical psychological practice. In this landmark colle…Read more
  •  1030
    Is morality relative? Might what is morally ‘right’ for one culture be morally ‘wrong’ for another? Issue two contained two pieces arguing against this kind of moral relativism. Here, Michael Lacewing suggests that there may be more truth in relativism than was suggested.
  •  19
    Emotions and the virtues of self-understanding
    In Sabine Roeser & Cain Todd (eds.), Emotion and Value, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 199-211. 2014.
    The thought that emotions play a central role in moral epistemology goes back at least to Aristotle. This view has more recently been defended by cognitivists on the basis of cognitivist theories of emotion. This chapter begins from the assumption that the passions are an important source of intuitions about reasons to act, feel, and desire in certain ways. But they can be misleading, and in ways that operate outside unawareness; they lack transparency. One cause of this is the occurrence of def…Read more
  •  66
    A Truthful Way to Live? Objectivity, Ethics and Psychoanalysis
    Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 85 175-193. 2019.
    Is there a best way to live? If so, is this a form of ethical life? The answer, I believe, turns on what we can say about the nature and place of the passions – emotions and desires – in our lives, including in particular, our ability to be truthful about our passions and our relations with other people. I approach the question through the work of Bernard Williams. I consider first what it might be for a way of life to be ‘objectively’ best, before looking more closely at the psychological condi…Read more
  •  97
    In Philosophy, psychoanalysis and the a-rational mind, Brakel focuses her discussion on the nature of primary process, and its relation to a range of philosophical views. While the discussion, and Brakel’s project, is both original and much-needed in the philosophy of psychoanalysis, in the end, I found the book disappointing. The arguments and connections are repeatedly indicative rather than deeply and cogently unified into a coherent whole.
  •  1531
    Introduction: Know thyself
    In Richard G. T. Gipps & Michael Lacewing (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychoanalysis, Oxford University Press. pp. 1-22. 2018.
    In this introduction to the Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychoanalysis, we provide an overview of the promise and problems of connecting philosophy and psychoanalysis through a focus on the age-old theme central to both disciplines, 'know thyself'.
  •  905
    How should we understand the psychoanalytic unconscious?
    In Richard G. T. Gipps & Michael Lacewing (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychoanalysis, Oxford University Press. pp. 407-432. 2018.
    I review the debate between ‘realist’ and ‘constructivist’ understandings of the psychoanalytic unconscious. To oversimplify, realists hold that unconscious mental states exist in the analysand’s mind fully formed and with determinate intentional content, independent of consciousness, and these are discovered in analysis. Constructivists (including relationalists and intersubjectivists) hold that the unconscious meaning of clinical material does not exist ‘pre-organised’ in the analysand’s mind,…Read more
  •  94
    Evidence, Inference and Causal Explanation in Psychoanalysis
    Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 25 (2): 119-122. 2018.
    In my paper, 'The science of psychoanalysis,' I make two assumptions. First, I assume that a 'hermeneutic science' is not a contradiction in terms. Second, I assume that explanations of why someone behaved as they did in terms of motives are a form of causal explanation, and therefore that inferring what someone's motives are from their behavior is a form of causal inference. In his commentary, Gipps objects to both of these assumptions, and this gives me the opportunity to clarify them. Followi…Read more
  •  93
    Statistics, Desire, and Interdisciplinarity
    Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 19 (3): 221-225. 2012.
    I am very grateful to both Edward Erwin and Peter Fonagy for their thoughtful and engaging comments. I do not have space to deal fully with all the issues they raise, but I will try to clarify some key points at which perhaps I implied more than I intended, or failed to be clear. Erwin states that I claim the following principle is a method for inferring causes: “if X is causally relevant to the occurrence of Y, then the incidence of Ys in the class of Xs and Ys will be different compared with t…Read more
  •  97
    The Science of Psychoanalysis
    Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 25 (2): 95-111. 2018.
    Can psychoanalysis take its place in the science that is psychology? I want, for now, to put aside the therapy, and ask about the theory, its evidence and generation. For at the heart of psychoanalysis as theory and therapy is a theory about the nature, development, and functioning of the human mind, especially in relation to motives. There are a number of features of this theory, in particular the role and nature of unconscious mental states and processes, that makes it recognizably distinct an…Read more
  •  37
    Philosophy for A2: Unit 4 is the definitive textbook for students of the current AQA Advanced Level syllabus for philosophy. Structured very closely around the AQA specifications for Unit 4: Philosophical Problems, Michael Lacewing helps students to engage with and understand the arguments of the five key texts: Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding Plato's The Republic Mill's On Liberty Descartes' Meditations Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil . All chapters are helpfully subdivided in…Read more
  •  37
    Philosophy for AS _and A Level _is an accessible textbook for the new 2017 AQA Philosophy syllabus. Structured closely around the AQA specification this textbook covers the two units shared by the AS and A Level, Epistemology and Moral Philosophy, in an engaging and student-friendly way. With chapters on 'How to do philosophy', exam preparation providing students with the philosophical skills they need to succeed, and an extensive glossary to support understanding, this book is ideal for student…Read more
  •  1
    _Philosophy for A Level_ is an accessible textbook for the new 2017 AQA Philosophy syllabus. Structured closely around the AQA specification this textbook covers the two units Metaphysics of God and Metaphysics of Mind, in an engaging and student-friendly way. With chapters on 'How to do philosophy', exam preparation providing students with the philosophical skills they need to succeed, and an extensive glossary to support understanding, this book is ideal for students studying philosophy. Each …Read more
  •  84
    Could Psychoanalysis be a Science?
    In K. W. M. Fulford, Martin Davies, Richard Gipps, George Graham, John Sadler, Giovanni Stanghellini & Tim Thornton (eds.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy and psychiatry, Oxford University Press. 2013.
    Could psychoanalysis be a science? There are three ways of reading this question. First, is psychoanalysis the kind of investigation or activity that could, logically speaking, be "scientific"? If we can defend a positive answer here, then it makes sense to ask, second, is psychoanalysis, in the form in which it has traditionally been practiced, and continues to be practiced, a science? If there are good reasons to doubt its credentials, then we might ask, third, is psychoanalysis able to become…Read more
  •  51
    _Philosophy for A2_ is an engaging textbook for the new AQA A2 Philosophy syllabus. Structured closely around the AQA specification this textbook covers the two units, Ethics and Philosophy of Mind, in a comprehensive and student-friendly way. All of the anthology texts are explained and commented on and woven into the discussion of the syllabus. With chapters on ‘How to Do Philosophy’ and exam preparation this textbook provides students with the philosophical skills they need to succeed. Each c…Read more
  •  121
    Emotion, Perception, and the Self in Moral Epistemology
    Dialectica 69 (3): 335-355. 2015.
    In this paper, I argue against a perceptual model of moral epistemology. We should not reject the claim that there is a sense in which, on some occasions, emotions may be said to be perceptions of values or reasons. But going further than this, and taking perception as a model for moral epistemology is unhelpful and unilluminating. By focusing on the importance of the dispositions and structures of the self to moral knowledge, I bring out important disanalogies between moral epistemology and typ…Read more
  •  103
    The problem of suggestion in psychoanalysis: An analysis and solution
    Philosophical Psychology 26 (5): 718-743. 2013.
    From its inception, psychoanalysis has been troubled by the problem of suggestion. I defend an answer to the problem of suggestion understood as a methodological concern about the evidential basis of psychoanalytic theory. This purely methodological approach is relatively uncommon in discussions in psychoanalysis. I argue that suggestion in psychoanalysis is best understood in terms of experimenter expectancy effects. Such effects are not specific to psychoanalysis, and they can be corrected for…Read more
  •  99
    Philosophy for AS is the definitive textbook for students of the current AQA Advanced Subsidiary Level. Structured closely around the examination specifications, it covers the two units of the AS Level in an exceptionally clear and student-friendly style. As an invitation to philosophy, the book encourages and enables students to engage philosophically with the following syllabus topics: reason and experience Why should I be governed? Why should I be moral? the idea of God persons knowledge of t…Read more