Professor Julian Dodd

Profile

I joined the University of Leeds in July, 2020 as Head of the School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science.

Before that I was at the University of Manchester for twenty years, as Lecturer in Philosophy (from 1999) and then Professor of Philosophy (from 2006). During my time at Manchester I served two three-year terms as Head of Department.  

I gained a BA in Philosophy from the University of Sussex and a BPhil (1990) and DPhil (1994) in Philosophy from the University of Oxford, finishing the latter while a full-time lecturer at Bolton Institute of Higher Education (now the University of Bolton). There I found it thrilling to teach a student cohort consisting largely of enthusiastic and committed returners to full-time education. They certainly put me through my paces.

I’ve enjoyed a wide range of service to the profession, most notably by serving on the Mind Association Executive and as Director of the Assocation from 2015-18.  

Responsibilities

• Head of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science
• Professor of Philosophy

Research interests

Over the last twenty years or so I’ve done a lot of work in the philosophy of music, writing two monographs, Works of Music: An Essay in Ontology (OUP, 2007) and Being True to Works of Music (OUP, 2020). The former, largely an exercise in applied metaphysics, gave me some notoriety as a defender of platonism about musical works; the latter focusses on normative issues, exploring the various norms of authenticity that govern our practice of performing works of Western classical music. 

I have quite a wide range of research interests. My paper, ‘What 4’33”  is’ (The Australasian Journal of Philosophy 96 (2018): 629-41) won the American Society of Aesthetics 2019 Ted Cohen Prize, and I have also recently published articles on the later Wittgenstein on rules and rule-following (in The Philosophical Quarterly), on cultural appropriation (in The British Journal of Aesthetics), and on the identity theory of truth (in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society). I am currently completing two papers: one on Wittgenstein’s so-called private language argument, and one on perspectival facts.

Qualifications

• BA in Philosophy (Sussex)
• BPhil in Philosophy (Oxford)
• DPhil in Philosophy (Oxford)

Professional memberships

• Mind Association (Honorary Life Member)
• British Philosophical Association
• American Society of Aesthetics

Research groups and institutes

• Centre for Aesthetic, Moral and Political Philosophy

Current postgraduate researchers

• Moses Estrada-Alvarez
• Madeleine Page