Louise Richardson
Senior Lecturer

I joined the department in 2012. Before that, I was a junior research fellow at Christ Church, Oxford. I did my PhD in Warwick and my MA and undergraduate degree (both in Philosophy) in Durham. Currently, my departmental administrative roles involve helping to maintain our commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion. I am chair of our EDI committee, department 'equality champion', and the department's Athena Swan lead. I am also a member of Vanbrugh College Council. 

My research expertise is in the philosophy of mind/philosophy of psychology, specifically issues related to perception and the senses, and philosophical questions about grief.

I am currently co-investigator on the AHRC funded project ‘Grief: A Study of Human Emotional Experience’. As part of the project, I have been writing papers on the object of grief, and grief over non-death losses (with other project team members); grief and memory (with Dorothea Debus); and absence experience in grief. I am currently working on a paper on shared grief, and (with Becky Millar) a paper on the surprising role of smell in facilitating continuing bonds with the dead.

In the philosophy of perception, I have focussed on structural aspects of perceptual experience, and on non-visual perception, especially taste and smell. I also have a long-standing interest in how and for what purposes we distinguish between the senses. I have numerous in-progress papers on smell, including one in which I argue that we can smell gustatory properties, such as sweetness. 

I would be happy to supervise PhD projects in the philosophy of perception. I would also be happy to discuss supervising students working on the philosophy of grief, and those whose projects are in the philosophy of mind and philosophy of psychology more generally.

Editor for Mind and Language