Helen Steward

Tel: +44 (0)113 343 3661
Email: H.Steward@leeds.ac.uk

Helen joined the School of Philosophy in 2007, having previously been Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy for many years at Balliol College, Oxford. Her research interests lie mainly in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of action, and in the metaphysical and ontological issues which bear on these areas (e.g. causation, levels of explanation, the event/state distinction). The metaphysics of free will is a particular interest, and she is working at present on a book entitled 'A Metaphysics for Freedom', which argues for a distinctive version of incompatibilism, based on the idea that there is a conflict not only between determinism and free human action, but also between determinism and the activities of a wide variety of animals. Future plans include work on the category of process, and in particular its relevance to agency; and the wider investigation of the philosophical implications of a full-blown recognition (for personal identity, emotions, embodied experience, etc.) of the animality of human beings.

Research Interests
* Philosophy of Action (especially the free will/determinism debate)
* Philosophy of Mind (mental causation, mental ontology, the self)
* Metaphysics (causation, modality, time)

Selected Publications
* ‘Fairness, Agency and the Flicker of Freedom’, Noûs, 43:1 (2009): 64-93.
* 'Fresh Starts', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 108 (2008), 197-271.
* ‘Determinism and Inevitability’, Philosophical Studies 130 (2006), 535–63.
* The Ontology of Mind: Events, Processes and States (Oxford: OUP, 1997).

Full publication list

Downloadable versions of papers freely available via White Rose Research Online.