Philip Pettit

Biography

Philip Pettit is the Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Politics and Human Values at Princeton University, where he has taught political theory and philosophy since 2002. Irish by background and training, he was a lecturer in University College Dublin, a Research Fellow at Trinity Hall Cambridge, and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bradford, before moving in 1983 to the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University.

He was elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009, and honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy in 2010; he is also a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities and the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. He holds honorary professorships in Philosophy at the University of Sydney and Queen’s University, Belfast and has been awarded honorary degrees by the National University of Ireland (Dublin), the University of Crete, Lund University, Universite de Montreal and Queen’s University, Belfast.

He works in moral and political theory and on background issues in the philosophy of mind and metaphysics. His single-authored books include The Common Mind (1996), Republicanism ( 1997), A Theory of Freedom (2001), Rules, Reasons and Norms(2002), Penser en Societe ( 2004), Examen a Zapatero (2008), Made with Words: Hobbes on Mind, Society and Politics (2008) and On the People’s Terms: A Republican Theory and Model of Democracy (2012).

Professor Pettit was awarded Companion (AC) in the General Division of the Order of Australia, in the Queen’s Birthday 2017 Honours List, for his eminent service to philosophy through contributions to moral and political theory, as a distinguished academic, and as a leader of public debate on social, economic and environmental issues.