Conor McHugh
Philosophy, University of Southampton
Philosophy, University of Southampton
I am a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southampton. I am interested in a range of topics in epistemology, philosophy of mind, and value theory, including the nature of belief and of attitudes more generally, normativity, reasons and reasoning, mental agency, doxastic non-voluntarism and self-knowledge. I can supervise research students working on any of these topics.
Between January and April 2025 I am a Visiting Professor at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Email: Firstinitial[dot]Lastname[at]soton[dot]ac[dot]uk
Publications
Monograph
(with Jonathan Way). Getting Things Right: Fittingness, Reasons, and Value. Oxford: OUP (2022). (Reviews of the book have appeared in Ethics, Mind and Analysis.)
Articles and Book Chapters
(Final and definitive versions of journal articles and reviews are available on the journals' websites, or will soon be. Please refer to those versions if citing.)
Most (but not quite all) of my published articles fall under four broad, overlapping themes.
Reasoning, reasons, fittingness and value
Logic and Norms of Reasoning. Erkenntnis (forthcoming).
Norms of Reasoning. Philosophy Compass, 19 (2024). DOI: 10.1111/phc3.13008
Attitudes and the Normativity of Fittingness. Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 97, 273-93 (2023). DOI: 10.1093/arisup/akad011
(with Jonathan Way). Value and Idiosyncratic Fitting Attitudes. In C. Howard and R.A. Rowland (eds.), Fittingness: Essays in the Philosophy of Normativity. Oxford: OUP (2022).
(with Jonathan Way). All Reasons are Fundamentally for Attitudes. Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 21 (2022). DOI: 10.26556/jesp.v21i2.1341 (This paper was the subject of a discussion on the PEA Soup blog, led by a critical précis by Keshav Singh.)
(with Jonathan Way). What is Good Reasoning? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 96, 153-74 (2018). DOI: 10.1111/phpr.12299 (John Brunero has published a response to this paper in the Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy.)
(with Jonathan Way). What is Reasoning? Mind, 127, 167-96 (2018). DOI: 10.1093/mind/fzw068 (Ulf Hlobil has published a response to this paper in the same journal.)
(with Jonathan Way). Against the Taking Condition. Philosophical Issues, 26, 314-31 (2016). DOI: 10.1111/phis.12074
(with Jonathan Way). Fittingness First. Ethics, 126, 575-606 (2016). DOI: 10.1086/684712 (Rach Cosker-Rowland has published a response to this paper in the same journal.)
(with Jonathan Way). Broome on Reasoning. Teorema, 34, 131-40 (2015). ISSN: 0210-1602
Doxastic norms
Incoherence, Inquiry, and Suspension. Asian Journal of Philosophy, 2 (2023). DOI: 10.1007/s44204-023-00126-7
(with Jonathan Way). Objectivism and Perspectivism about the Epistemic Ought. Ergo, 4, 121-45 (2017). DOI: 10.3998/ergo.12405314.0004.005
Engel on Doxastic Correctness. Synthese, 194, 1451-62 (2017). DOI: 10.1007/s11229-015-0767-4.
(with Daniel Whiting). The Normativity of Belief. Analysis, 74, 698-713 (2014). DOI: 10.1093/analys/anu079
La Normativité Epistémique, la Vérité et la Connaissance. In B. Gaultier and J-M. Chevalier (eds.), Connaître : Questions d'Epistémologie Contemporaine, Ithaque (2014). ISBN: 978-2-916120-55-3
Fitting Belief. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 114 (2), 167-87 (2014). DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9264.2014.00369.x
The Truth Norm of Belief. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 93, 8-30 (2012). DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0114.2011.01413.x (Alexander Greenberg and Christopher Cowie have published a response to this paper in the same journal.)
Epistemic responsibility
Exercising Doxastic Freedom. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 88, 1-37 (2014). DOI: 10.1111/j.1933-1592.2011.00531.x
Epistemic Responsibility and Doxastic Agency. Philosophical Issues, 23, 132-57 (2013). DOI: 10.1111/phis.12007
Epistemic Deontology and Voluntariness. Erkenntnis, 77, 65-94 (2012). DOI: 10.1007/s10670-011-9299-6
The nature of belief and intention, and our control of them
Attitudinal Control. Synthese, 194, 2745-62 (2017). DOI: 10.1007/s11229-014-0643-7
The Illusion of Exclusivity. European Journal of Philosophy, 23, 1117-36 (2015). DOI: 10.1111/ejop.12032 (Despite the date, this paper was accepted for publication back in 2012. Sophie Archer has published a response to it in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, and Ema Sullivan-Bissett has published another in the European Journal of Philosophy.)
Normativism and Doxastic Deliberation. Analytic Philosophy, 54, 447-65 (2013). DOI: 10.1111/phib.12030
Control of Belief and Intention. Thought, 1 (4), 337-346 (2012). DOI: 10.1002/tht3.53
Belief and Aims. Philosophical Studies, 160, 425-39 (2012). DOI: 10.1007/s11098-011-9728-z
What Do We Aim At When We Believe? Dialectica, 65, 369-92 (2011). DOI: 10.1111/j.1746-8361.2011.01270.x
Judging as a Non-Voluntary Action. Philosophical Studies, 152, 245-69 (2011). DOI: 10.1007/s11098-009-9478-3
Miscellaneous: self-knowledge and assertion
Reasons and Self-Knowledge. In A. Coliva (ed.), The Self and Self-Knowledge, OUP (2012). ISNB:978-0-19-959065-0 (There are reviews of this book in Analysis, Mind, the European Journal of Philosophy, and Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.)
What Assertion Doesn't Show. European Journal of Philosophy, 20, 407-29 (2012). DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0378.2010.00412.x
Self-Knowledge and the KK Principle. Synthese, 173, 231-57 (2010). DOI: 10.1007/s11229-008-9404-9
Book Reviews
Benjamin Kiesewetter, The Normativity of Rationality. Mind (forthcoming). DOI: 10.1093/mind/fzy015
Clayton Littlejohn and John Turri (eds.), Epistemic Norms: New Essays on Action, Belief and Assertion. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (2015).
Lucy O'Brien, Self-Knowing Agents. European Journal of Philosophy, 18, 153-8 (2010). DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0378.2009.00395.x
Edited Books
(with Jonathan Way and Daniel Whiting). Metaepistemology. Oxford: OUP (2018).
(with Jonathan Way and Daniel Whiting). Normativity: Epistemic and Practical. Oxford: OUP (2018).
(with Ezio Di Nucci). Content, Consciousness and Perception: Essays in Contemporary Philosophy of Mind. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press (2006, paperback edition 2008).
Book Introductory Chapters
(with Jonathan Way and Daniel Whiting). Introduction. In McHugh, Way and Whiting (2018).
(with Ezio Di Nucci) Introduction: the State of Mind. In Di Nucci and McHugh (2006).