Academic & Teaching staff

Dr Helen Steward

Senior Lecturer

Dr Helen Steward

+44 (0)113 343 3661

Helen's research interests lie mainly in the the philosophy of action, the philosophy of mind, and in the metaphysical and ontological issues which bear on these areas (e.g. causation, supervenience, levels of explanation, the event/state distinction).

The metaphysics of free will is a particular interest, and her new book 'A Metaphysics for Freedom' (OUP) was published in March 2012. This book 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.

Recently, Helen has turned her attention to work on the category of process, and in particular its relevance to agency, for which she was awarded a British Academy Research Development Award in 2010-11. Future plans include the further development of this work on processes, as well as 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.

Helen is an associate editor for the journal Philosophical Explorations and a member of the Executive Committee of the Aristotelian Society. She is currently also Director of Student Education in the School of Humanities in Leeds.

Research Interests

  • Philosophy of Action (especially the free will/determinism debate)
  • Philosophy of Mind (mental causation, mental ontology, the self)
  • Metaphysics (causation, modality, some aspects of time)

Helen is happy to offer graduate supervision in the first two of these areas, and in certain specific regions of the third!

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).

Downloadable versions of papers freely available via White Rose Research Online

Other Publications

Books

Articles

  • 'Perception and the Ontology of Causation', in Naomi Eilan, Hemdat Lerman and Johannes Roessler (eds.), Perception, Causation and Objectivity: Issues in Philosophy and Psychology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
  • 'Free Will' in J.Shand (ed.) Central Issues of Philosophy (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009): 152-64.
  • 'The Truth in Compatibilism and the Truth of Libertarianism', Philosophical Explorations 12.2 (2009): 167-179.
  • 'Animal Agency', Inquiry 52 (2009): 217-31.
  • 'Fairness, Agency and the Flicker of Freedom', Nous, 43 (2009): 64-93.