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Biography

Patrick Butlin was a Teaching Fellow in Philosophy at King’s from 2017 to 2020. Before that, he taught at Hertford College, Oxford, and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Antwerp. He received his PhD from King’s in 2016, having previously studied philosophy, mathematics and neuroscience at Oxford and Sheffield.

Research interests and PhD supervision

  • Philosophy of mind and action
  • Philosophy of psychology and neuroscience
  • Philosophy of artificial intelligence

Dr Butlin’s research is on desire and representation in philosophy of mind. He is interested in using psychology and neuroscience to learn about desire and other sources of motivation in humans and animals, and in thinking about desire in possible artificial agents. In the area of representation, his research focus is on direction of fit, and on teleosemantics and related theories.

For more information, please read Dr Butlin's full research profile.