I join the project as a PhD candidate at UCL supervised by Professor John Hyman. I previously completed the BPhil in Philosophy at the University of Oxford, where I was an Ertegun Scholar, and before that I completed a BA in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. After completing the BPhil, I spent four years working in research and policy in the housing sector, for a social housing provider and in the civil service.
My research interests include the later Wittgenstein, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and moral philosophy. My thesis explores Wittgenstein’s idea that thought takes place against an ‘inherited background’, and the implications of this idea for various forms of scepticism, especially in relation to ethical beliefs.
Wittgenstein’s work in epistemology has been used to respond to traditional forms of scepticism, such as scepticism about the external world and about moral responsibility. I am interested in how Wittgenstein’s idea of an inherited background relates to a more unusual form of scepticism, often discussed under the name of ‘genealogy’. This form of scepticism seeks to show that our beliefs are somehow undermined by their contingent origins—for example, in evolutionary development, cultural history, or personal upbringing.
