Chris Letheby

Dr Chris Letheby is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at The University of Western Australia (UWA). His areas of specialization are philosophy of mind, philosophy of cognitive science, and philosophy of neuroscience. His research interests include the causal mechanisms and epistemic status of transformative spiritual practices, the possibility of a "naturalistic spirituality", and the nature of self-awareness. At UWA he teaches topics including intro to philosophy, formal logic, epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, philosophy of artificial intelligence, and philosophy of psychology and psychiatry.

Letheby's research to date has focused mainly on the use of classic psychedelic drugs in neuroscience and psychiatry. In several articles and a book, he has argued that a traditional conception of psychedelics as agents of insight and spirituality can be reconciled with naturalism, the philosophical position that the natural world is all there is. He takes a neurophilosophical approach, grounding his philosophical analyses in scientific findings, and he has engaged in several interdisciplinary collaborations with neuroscientists and psychologists.

Letheby's monograph Philosophy of Psychedelics was published in 2021 by Oxford University Press, in the series International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry. An open-access symposium featuring multiple commentaries on the book was published in 2022 by the journal Philosophy and the Mind Sciences. The book has received two awards, both from The University of Adelaide (where Letheby worked as a postdoc while writing it): the Faculty of Arts Prize for Outstanding Research by an Early Career Researcher and the School of Humanities Early Career Prize for best publication in 2021. A Spanish translation was published in 2022 by Editorial Bauplan. Along with Professor Philip Gerrans (Adelaide), Letheby has edited a collection of essays, Philosophical Perspectives on Psychedelic Psychiatry, which is due out from OUP in August 2024.

Current teaching (2024):
PHIL1003 God, Mind, and Knowledge
PHIL2002 Logic: How to Defeat Your Foes With Reasoning
PHIL2006 Philosophy of Psychology and Psychiatry
PHIL2008 Machine Minds and Superintelligence: The Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence
PHIL4106 Analytic Philosophy

Past teaching:
PHIL1003 God, Mind, and Knowledge (2018, 2022, 2023)
PHIL2002 Logic: How to Defeat Your Foes With Reasoning (2021, 2022, 2023)
PHIL2004 Philosophy of Mind (2023)
PHIL2008 Machine Minds and Superintelligence: The Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence (2023)
PHIL2006 Philosophy of Psychology and Psychiatry (2019, 2020, 2022)
PHIL4106 Analytic Philosophy (2022)
PHIL2005 Exploring the Nature of Science (2018, 2019, 2021)
PHIL2007 Knowledge and the Justification of Belief (2020)