Michael Scott

Before coming to Manchester I was a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Nottingham. My BA is from Oxford University, my PhD from University College London and I was a research fellow at the University of Utrecht (1998-2001). I joined Philosophy at Manchester in 2003 where I am currently a Reader.

I have worked on a number of research project, the most recent being a PI on BIOMOT (2011-15), an EC funded project on the FP7 programme with seven partner institutions in Europe.

A central theme in my research is Philosophy of Religion, in particular religious language. I am author of Reading Philosohy of Religion with Graham Oppy (Monash) for Wiley-Blackwell (2010) and Religious Language with Palgrave Macmillan (2013) . The latter book draws on current research in the philosophy of language (as well as work in theology and Continental Philosophy) to develop a novel theory of religious langague. I argue that there is an expressive component in the meaning of religious utterances (although I reject a fully expresssivist theory) and that there are distinctive characteristics to the speech acts employed in religious dicourse. I have published numerous papers in the field and have one fothcoming in Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion.

 I have a number of other philosophical interest and topics on which I have published:

• Perception, in particular the individuation of the senses. In a paper in progress I defend a fictionalist theory of the senses.
• Theories of moral motivation.
• I'm doing some joint research with Lawrence Kelley (Imperial College) on scientific methods in current molecular biology.

Philosophy of Religion PHIL20022

Philosophy of Psychology PHIL30361 

Metaethics and Religious Langauge PHIL30842.