Alan Roberts

I am in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Sussex.

My PhD thesis was on the philosophy of humour. Despite being universally and uniquely human, humour has been a surprisingly neglected topic in philosophy. My thesis aimed to answer the fundamental question ‘What is humour?’ In answering, I argued that humour is something which is meant to cause amusement, where amusement is roughly defined as the simultaneous activation of two incompatible interpretations that are appraised to be benign.

Before my PhD, I completed an MA in Philosophy & Mathematics at the University of Edinburgh and an MPhil in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. In both, I relished researching topics in the analytic tradition, specifically theories of truth, mathematical logic, decision theory, and the philosophy of mathematics.

When not doing philosophy, I enjoy learning the guitar, playing football and learning Norwegian.