Aidan McGlynn - Homepage

About me

I'm a senior lecturer in the philosophy department and the Director of Students for the School of Philosophy, Psychology, and Language Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, having joined in September 2012 as a Chancellor's Fellow. I am also currently a Senior Research Associate at the African Centre for Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, University of Johannesburg, a co-editor-in-chief of Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, a member of the Executive Committee of the Aristotelian Society, and a member of the Scottish Feminist Philosophy Network.

Previously I was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Northern Institute of Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen. I did my PhD at the University of Texas at Austin, where I was supervised by Mark Sainsbury, and my undergraduate and masters at the University of St Andrews. 

I work mostly on issues in epistemology and feminist philosophy, particularly where these interact with each other, as well as with other areas of philosophy (e.g. philosophy of language, philosophy of fiction, philosophy of race, philosophy of disability, philosophy of mind).

Research

My current main focuses are epistemic injustice, objectification, and feminist critiques of pornography. I have published a number of papers on issues concerning epistemic injustice and its significance for social epistemology and feminist philosophy, and I have recently finished a book on this topic for Routledge. My current project is a short book defending Martha Nussbaum's 'cluster concept' analysis of objectification. In the past, I've focused more on issues in mainstream epistemology, working on the knowledge first approach, epistemic entitlement, self-knowledge, scepticism, and related issues, and I still maintain an active interest in all of these. For more details, please see my research page.

Editing

I am a co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Social Epistemology (with Jennifer Lackey) and a co-editor-in-chief of Hypatia.

Teaching

I am currently teaching ' Epistemic Injustice' (formerly called 'Knowledge, Ignorance, and Power') and 'Objectification, Dehumanisation, and Othering' as Y4 undergraduate courses, and the knowledge half of 'Knowledge and Reality' at Y2. I have previously taught (or co-taught) 'Philosophy of Fiction', 'Advanced Epistemology', 'Social Philosophy', 'Themes in Epistemology', 'Feminism', 'Scepticism', and 'History of Analytic Philosophy'.

Supervision

I am currently supervising PhDs on epistemic injustice, scepticism, hinge epistemology, and active ignorance concerning disability. I've previously supervised dissertations on a number of issues in epistemology. I'm happy to be involved in projects at Edinburgh that fall under any of my research or teaching interests.

Philosophy for the wider public

'Pornography as Propaganda', a brief blog post at The Forum.

'Objectification, Knowledge, and Pornography', a brief post at the blog of the Changing Attitudes in Public Discourse project based at Cardiff University.

'Pornography and the Contrast Between Sexism and Misogyny', a brief post on Kate Manne's Down Girl at the blog of genderED, the online hub for research and teaching on gender and sexuality at the University of Edinburgh

Contact

Email me