At present I have three research streams - each is related to and informs the others, and ultimately I hope to produce from them a coherent whole. But before I write my big books on Ethics, Metaphysics, and Logic I guess I should fill in this website, so here's where I am at so far. I won't link to exemplary papers in each stream as the temptation to just link everything would overwhelm me and it would become unwieldy - all my writings are spread out between here, the public philosophy paper, and my blog.
The highest level research stream is on social epistemology, especially-but-not-solely focussed on the institutional arrangements undergirding scientific research. I am interested in how we produce and disseminate knowledge, and how our socialisation, the incentives we face, and the choices available to us, affect what kind of knowers we turn out to be. To this end I have been rather critical of pre-publication peer review as it currently operates in science, explored the causes of scientific fraud and gender differences in publication habits, and thought about how expertise can or should be incorporated into democratic governance. I have also tried to keep track of who is actually doing what, and have been keen to help out projects which track the demographics of my own field, philosophy. Finally, I have taken a few stabs at thinking about social epistemology as it plays out in the wider world, looking at how risk aversion might create systematic ignorance where racial difference is involved, and tried to say a bit about what we should want out of an account of group lying for corporate social agents. All in all I consider this the (relatively! I'm a philosopher!) applied wing of my research, where I hope that the other streams have their payoff in coming up with serviceable pictures of the world that might inform how we navigate social life and attempt to alter its conditions, and also wherein I test my more abstract thinking against data and experience.
The middle layer research stream concerns social scientific methodology and social theory. Since so much of my work at the above layer requires thinking about how groups are and could be, I have spent a lot of time reflecting on how this can be done well. I myself often make use of formal tools, so have thought about how those formal tools may aid in reasoning about difficult issues surrounding intersectionality or racial oppression. I also have pragmatist or empiricist instincts, so I try to devise ways by which social theorising can be rendered intersubjectively testable by empirical method. In general my informed methodological instincts are pluralistic, I think the best we can probably do is allow a variety of individuals to specialise in a variety of different approaches and try to foster a respectful community of researchers who can amalgamate this diverse information base when needs be.
The most fundamental level consists of a mostly historical scholarly research stream. Here I try to work out what thinkers I take inspiration from were up to and why. I have written about why I think using this sort of historical approach to pick problems is a good idea here. For my part the main sources of inspiration have been various Africana philosophers, especially WEB Du Bois, on the one hand, and the logical empiricist philosophers, especially Carnap and Neurath, on the other. While it has not yet been reflected in my published research (though see some of my public facing work and blog posts) the Church fathers, especially St. Augustine, ancient Chinese philosophers, especially Zhuangzi, as well as some of the Roman Stoics, especially Epictetus, have also been of some significance to me here. By coming to understand their thought and how I position myself through and with and against it, I feel I am gradually carving out an approach to the above problems that addresses the issues of our moment while drawing on the best of the traditions I inherit.
Published Papers
Liam Kofi Bright, Nathan Gabriel, Cailin O'Connor, and Olúfémi Táíwò. Forthcoming. "On The Stability of Racial Capitalism" in Ergo
Marcus Arvan, Liam Kofi Bright, and Remco Heesen. Forthcoming. "Jury Theorems for Peer Review". in British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
Liam Kofi Bright. Forthcoming. "Du Bois on the Centralised Organisation of Science" in Pluralising Philosophy's Past Marius Backmann & Amber Griffioen (eds.)
David Kinney and Liam Kofi Bright. Forthcoming. "Risk Aversion and Elite-Group Ignorance." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.
Liam Kofi Bright. Forthcoming. "Ida B. Wells-Barnett’s The Red Record" in Neglected Classics of Philosophy - Vol. II Eric Schliesser (ed)
Haixin Dang and Liam Kofi Bright. 2021. "Scientific Conclusions Need Not Be Accurate, Justified, or Believed by their Authors". Synthese Vol.199, No.3; 8187-8203
Remco Heesen and Liam Kofi Bright. 2021. ``Is Peer Review a Good Idea?" in British Journal for the Philosophy of Science Vol. 72, No.3: 635–663
Eric Schwitzgebel, Liam Kofi Bright, Carolyn Dicey Jennings, Morgan Thompson, and Eric Winsberg. 2021. “The Diversity of Philosophy Students and Faculty.” The Philosopher’s Magazine Vol.93 No.1: 71-90
Liam Kofi Bright. 2021. "Why do Scientists Lie?" in Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements Vol. 89, No.1; 117-129
Norheim, Ole F., Joelle M. Abi-Rached, Liam Kofi Bright, Kristine Bærøe, Octávio LM Ferraz, Siri Gloppen, and Alex Voorhoeve. 2021. "Difficult trade-offs in response to COVID-19: the case for open and inclusive decision making." Nature Medicine Vol.27, No.1; 10-13
Liam Kofi Bright. 2020. "Group Lies and Reflections on the Purpose of Social Epistemology" in Aristotelian Society Supplementary Vol.94. No.1; 209--224
Bryce Huebner and Liam Kofi Bright. 2020. "Collective Responsibility and Fraud in Scientific Communities" in Routledge Handbook of Collective Responsibility. Saba Bazargan-Forward & Deborah Perron Tollefsen (eds.). Routledge
Liam Kofi Bright 2019. Book Review of "An Epistemic Theory of Democracy" in Economics and Philosophy Vol. 35. No. 3; 563--568
Cailin O'Connor, Liam Kofi Bright, Justin Bruner. 2019. ``The Emergence of Intersectional Disadvantage" in Social Epistemology Vol. 33. No. 1; 23--41
Remco Heesen, Liam Kofi Bright, Andrew Zucker. 2019. ``Vindicating Methodological Triangulation" in Synthese Vol. 196. No. 8; 3067--3081
Liam Kofi Bright. 2018. ``Du Bois' Democratic Defence of the Value Free Ideal.'' In Synthese Vol.195, No. 5; 2227--2245
Liam Kofi Bright, Haixin Dang and Remco Heesen. 2018. ``A Role For Judgement Aggregation In Coauthoring Papers.'' In Erkenntnis Vol.83, No.2; 231--252
Liam Kofi Bright. 2017. ``Logical Empiricists on Race.'' In Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science: Part C Vol. 65, No.1; 9--18.
Liam Kofi Bright. 2017. ``Decision Theoretic Model of the Productivity Gap." in Erkenntnis Vol. 82, No.2; 421 -- 442
Liam Kofi Bright. 2017. ``On Fraud." in Philosophical Studies Vol. 174, No. 2; 291 -- 310
Liam Kofi Bright, Daniel Malinsky, and Morgan Thompson. 2016. ``Causally Interpreting Intersectionality Theory.'' in Philosophy of Science Vol. 83, No. 1; 60 -- 81
Tina Fernandes Botts, Liam Kofi Bright, Myisha Cherry, Guntur Mallarangeng, and Quayshawn Spencer. 2014. ``What is the State of Blacks in Philosophy?'' in Critical Philosophy of Race Vol 2. No. 2; 224 -- 242
Papers I Am Probably Not Going to Publish But Still Think Are Interesting
Liam Kofi Bright (2021) Logical Nihilism Suggests Evidential Nihilism - a short essay noting what I think is an interesting generalisation from logical nihilism, the idea that there are no true relationships of logical consequence.
Liam Kofi Bright (2021) On Being of Some Use - a short essay I wrote to conform to this style guide. In it I lay out my pessimism about philosophy's prospects for being of practical use to our urgent social and political problems.