Philip Pettit's Bio

Philip Pettit was born in Ireland in 1945. He took a BA and an MA from the National University of Ireland, and a PhD from Queen's University, Belfast. He has taught at Queen's University (1967), University College, Dublin (1968) and Trinity Hall, Cambridge (1972-75). After returning for a short period to University College, Dublin, he was appointed Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bradford (1976). He moved to the Research School of Social Sciences, ANU, in 1983, where he was Professor of Social and Political Theory and Professor of Philosophy. He moved to Princeton University in 2002. He teaches political theory and philosophy and is Laurance S.Rockefeller University Professor of Politics and Human Values.

Philip Pettit works in two broad areas: the foundations of economics and the social sciences, where this includes issues of psychology and metaphysics as well as methodology; and moral and political theory: the theory of what values our social institutions should realise and of how they can be best organised to promote such values. In both areas he works sometimes in more purely philosophical mode, sometimes in a mode that engages with economic and related methods; and in both areas, he works sometimes on his own, sometimes in collaboration with colleagues in philosophy, economics, political science and law.

Email: ppettit 'at' princeton.edu

NEW BOOK: Libertà
Libero arbitrio e libertà politica
Università Bocconi editore, Milano, 2005
194 pagine, 16 euro

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