Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies
Finland
fellow
Helen Beebee
Home institution
University of Leeds
Country of origin (home institution)
United Kingdom
Discipline(s)
Philosophy
Theme(s)
Cultural Studies
Fellowship dates
›
Biography
Helen Beebee gained her PhD from King’s College London in 1996. Since then she has had a variety of jobs at UK universities – Edinburgh, St. Andrew’s, UCL, Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds – and also a postdoc at the Australian National University. Since 2022 she has been Professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of Leeds, where she is Director of the Centre for the History and Philosophy of Science. Beebee is a Fellow of the British Academy, and in 2025 she is President of the Mind Association.
Research Project
Understanding philosophical progress
The sciences have made dramatic progress in the last couple of hundred years, and especially in the last half-century. So much so, that we now have a vast body of incontrovertible scientific knowledge. Philosophy, by contrast, has a 2,500-year history and we know almost nothing. While the nature of the debates changes, they rarely get settled in favour of one view rather than another: many of the issues that divided, say, Plato and Aristotle still divide philosophers today. So how, if at all, can philosophy be said to be making any progress? Helen Beebee is investigating how we might answer this question once we give up on the impossible idea that what we’re looking for is knowledge. And the answer she is developing is that we can gain valuable understanding of the world and our place in it not just by settling on the One True Theory, but by figuring out what the viable options are.
Research Interests:
Metaphysics; metaphilosophy; philosophy of science