About
A brief description of who you are and what you do.
This section will only display on your public profile if you’ve added content.
You can update this in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select ‘Edit profile’. Under the heading and then ‘Curriculum and research description’, select ‘Add profile information’. In the dropdown menu, select - ‘About’.
Write about yourself in the third person. Aim for 100 to 150 words covering the main points about who you are and what you currently do. Clear, simple language is best. You can include specialist or technical terms.
You’ll be able to add details about your research, publications, career and academic history to other sections of your staff profile.
Research
Research interests
- Epistemology
- Kant and Contemporary Kantian Philosophy
- Philosophy of Practical Reason
- General Philosophy of Mind
- Philosophy of Neurodiversity
Current research
I am currently working on the structure of knowledge, the epistemology of learning, the metaphysics of neurodiversity, and a book-length defense of a Kantian approach to theoretical rationality and normativity.
You can update the information for this section in Pure (opens in a new tab).
Research groups
Any research groups you belong to will automatically appear on your profile. Speak to your line manager if these are incorrect. Please do not raise a ticket in Ask HR.
Research interests
Add up to 5 research interests. The first 3 will appear in your staff profile next to your name. The full list will appear on your research page. Keep these brief and focus on the keywords people may use when searching for your work. Use a different line for each one.
In Pure (opens in a new tab), select ‘Edit profile’. Under the heading 'Curriculum and research description', select 'Add profile information'. In the dropdown menu, select 'Research interests: use separate lines'.
Current research
Update this in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select ‘Edit profile’ and then ‘Curriculum and research description - Current research’.
Describe your current research in 100 to 200 words. Write in the third person. Include broad key terms to help people discover your work, for example, “sustainability” or “fashion textiles”.
Research projects
Research Council funded projects will automatically appear here. The active project name is taken from the finance system.
Publications
Public outputs that list you as an author will appear here, once they’re validated by the ePrints Team. If you’re missing any outputs that you’ve added to Pure, they may be waiting for validation.
Supervision
Current PhD Students
Contact your Faculty Operating Service team to update PhD students you supervise and any you’ve previously supervised. Making this information available will help potential PhD applicants to find you.
Teaching
A short description of your teaching interests and responsibilities.
This section will only display on your public profile if you’ve added content.
You can update your teaching description in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select ‘Edit profile’. Under the heading and then ‘Curriculum and research description’ , select ‘Add profile information’. In the dropdown menu, select – ‘Teaching Interests’. Describe your teaching interests and your current responsibilities. Aim for 200 words maximum.
Courses and modules
Contact the Curriculum and Quality Assurance (CQA) team for your faculty to update this section.
External roles and responsibilities
These are the public-facing activities you’d like people to know about.
This section will only display on your public profile if you’ve added content.
You can update your external roles and responsibilities in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select ‘+ Add content’ and then ‘Activity’, your ‘Personal’ tab and then ‘Activities’. Choose which activities you want to show on your public profile.
You can hide activities from your public profile. Set the visibility as 'Backend' to only show this information within Pure, or 'Confidential' to make it visible only to you.
Biography
Dr Kurt Sylvan is an Associate Professor in Philosophy at the University of Southampton.
I joined the department in January 2014, initially as a post-doctoral lecturer in the Normativity: Epistemic and Practical project, but becoming permanent in 2015.
I finished my PhD at Rutgers in 2014. Ernest Sosa was my advisor and Ruth Chang, Jonathan Dancy, Alvin Goldman, and Susanna Schellenberg were on my committee. My PhD thesis sought to explain why we should care about being epistemically rational. My explanation rested on the thought that epistemic rationality constitutes respect for truth.
My longest-standing research interests are in epistemology. I also have research interests in philosophy of mind and cognitive science, philosophy of practical reason, and the history of epistemology. I've taught classes in many other areas, including ethics, aesthetics, political philosophy, history of philosophy, and metaphysics.
A significant portion of my research is concerned with epistemic normativity and epistemic value. Two recent papers develop key ideas from my dissertation: (1) paper published in Philosophical Review developing the first explicit and systematic non-consequentialist account of theoretical normativity (Epistemic Kantianism) and (2) a paper in Philosophical Studies applying similar ideas to practical reason. I'm finishing a book developing these ideas in a more Kantian way, entitled Respect for the Truth: A Kantian Account of Theoretical Normativity.
My work in epistemology in the narrow sense (i.e., the theory of epistemic states, processes, activities, and episodes) is mostly separate from all this normativity business. For I think epistemology in the narrow sense is a branch of the philosophy of mind, and not really part of the philosophy of normativity. I defended this view in a 2018 paper. Some other topics I've worked on under the non-normative heading recently are ways of knowing, perceptual knowledge, inferential knowledge, and learning (in progress).
My work on suspension of judgment, the basing relation, internalism, and the metaphysics and epistemology of neurodiversity contributes things to both normative and non-normative epistemology.
You can update your biography section in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select your ‘Personal’ tab then ‘Edit profile’. Under the heading, and ‘Curriculum and research description’, select ‘Add profile information’. In the dropdown menu, select - ‘Biography’. Aim for no more than 400 words.
This section will only appear if you enter the information into Pure (opens in a new tab).
Prizes
You can update this section in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select ‘+Add content’ and then ‘Prize’. using the ‘Prizes’ section.
You can choose to hide prizes from your public profile. Set the visibility as ‘Backend’ to only show this information within Pure, or ‘Confidential’ to make it visible only to you.