Jennifer Saul

Jennifer Saul is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield, and she is currently researching racist and sexist political speech. Her most recent books are Implicit Bias and Philosophy Volumes 1 and 2 (co-edited with Michael Brownstein); and Lying, Misleading and What is Said (all with Oxford University Press).

Jenny's primary interests are in Philosophy of Language, Feminism, Philosophy of Race, and Philosophy of Psychology. She is currently working on racism in political speech, a topic which has kept her extremely busy recently. (In addition to academic papers (which can be found at her academia.edu page, she has written many articles on this topic for a broader audience.)

Jenny's most recent book was Lying, Misleading and What is Said: An Exploration in Philosophy of Language and in Ethics (Oxford University Press 2012). This argues that considering the distinction between lying and misleading-- which seems to many an ethically significant one-- can help to shed new light on methodological disputes in philosophy of language over notions like what is said, semantic content, assertion, impliciture, and expliciture. She also argues that careful attention to the way that communication works can shed new light on the ethical issues. (And she considers some fascinating real-world cases, feeding her lifelong obsession with political scandals but also branching out into such excellent topics as the Jesuit doctrine of Mental Reservation.)

Jenny was Director of the (2011-2013) Leverhulme-funded Implicit Bias and Philosophy Project (link at the right). She has published two co-edited volumes on implicit bias with Michael Brownstein. and she continues to lecture widely on this topic to a range of audiences. She is especially interested in helping academic institutions find methods to combat both implicit and explicit biases, and she frequently advises on this topic.