Rate My Professor Darrell Rowbottom

Darrell Rowbottom is Professor and RGC Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at Lingnan University, where he joined in 2011 as Associate Professor, was promoted to Full Professor in 2013, and served as Head of Department from 2015 to 2018. His distinguished academic career prior to Lingnan includes a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford (2008–2011), Junior Research Fellowship at Pembroke College, Oxford (2007–2008), Templeton Postdoctoral Fellowship in Philosophy of Science at the University of Edinburgh's School of Physics (2006–2007), and teaching and research positions at the Universities of Aberdeen and Bristol. Rowbottom's educational background spans physics and philosophy: he earned a BSc (Hons) in Physics from the University of Bristol (1999), PGDip in Philosophy (with Distinction, 2000), MA (by Thesis, 2001) from the University of Durham, MSc in History and Philosophy of Science from the London School of Economics (2002), PhD in Philosophy from Durham (2005, supervised by E. J. Lowe), and DLitt from Durham (2017).

Rowbottom's research centers on philosophy of science, epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of probability, exploring fundamental questions such as 'How should we inquire about the world?' and 'What can we know about the world?'. He is Principal Investigator on the RGC-funded project 'Philosophy of Contemporary and Future Science' (2022–2027) and previous grants including 'Scientific Progress: Foundational Issues' (2020–2022). His major publications include the monographs Scientific Progress (Cambridge University Press, 2023), The Instrument of Science: Scientific Anti-Realism Revitalised (Routledge, 2019), Probability (Polity Press, 2015), and Popper’s Critical Rationalism: A Philosophical Investigation (Routledge, 2011). Key papers encompass 'Scientific Realism: What It Is, The Contemporary Debate, and New Directions' (Synthese, 2019), 'Bertrand’s Paradox and the Maximum Entropy Principle' (with Nicholas Shackel, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2020), and 'A Methodological Argument Against Scientific Realism' (Synthese, 2021). Rowbottom has received the Outstanding Scientific Research Achievement Award (2nd Class, Ministry of Education, China, 2021), Lingnan University Research Output Excellence Award (2021), RGC Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship, and COFUND Senior International Research Fellowship at Durham University's Institute of Advanced Study. He holds prominent editorial positions as Editor-in-Chief of Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A (since 2021), Associate Editor of the Australasian Journal of Philosophy (since 2012), and Coordinating Editor of Theory and Decision (since 2015).