Katherine Hawley, 1971-2021

An expert on everything from metaphysics and the philosophy of science to the nature of trust has died.

Katherine Hawley was born in Stoke-on-Trent in 1971 and studied physics and philosophy at Balliol College, Oxford (1989-92). After what she described as “a few inarticulate months living in France”, she began an MPhil on the history and philosophy of science at the University of Cambridge (1993-94), followed by a PhD (1994-97). She then took up the Henry Sidgwick research fellowship at Newnham College, Cambridge (1997-99) before moving to the University of St Andrews for the rest of her career.

Initially appointed as a lecturer, Professor Hawley was later promoted to senior lecturer and, in 2008, professor of philosophy. She was also head of what is now the School of Philosophical, Anthropological, and Film Studies from 2009 to 2014.

In a memorial site set up by the university’s department of philosophy, senior lecturer Ben Sachs recalled Professor Hawley as “the kind of colleague that everyone should be so lucky to have – a colleague I’ll now try to be for others…Whatever it was – showing up for social events like the department picnic, standing out in the freezing cold on the picket lines, volunteering to organise our department’s hosting of the biggest annual British philosophy conference – Katherine gave of herself for the good of the group.”

Exceptionally wide-ranging in her philosophical interests, Professor Hawley initially made her name with a work of hardcore metaphysics titled How Things Persist (2001). She co-edited two collections, Philosophy of Science Today (with Peter Clark, 2003) and The Admissible Contents of Perception (with Fiona MacPherson, 2011). In later years, however, she turned to more immediately practical topics, in Trust: A Very Short Introduction (2012) and How To Be Trustworthy (2019). She was also very committed to the ideal of public philosophy, discussing trustworthiness in an interview for a Philosophy Bites podcast, giving presentations on “the impostor syndrome” and submitting evidence to a UK parliamentary inquiry into fake news. A version of the interview appeared in Women of Ideas (edited by Suki Finn, 2021), where she expressed the hope that “in the future there will be as many ways of being a woman in philosophy as there are women philosophers”.

Greatly admired within her discipline, Professor Hawley was honoured with prestigious fellowships by both the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the British Academy. She died of cancer on 28 April and is survived by her husband, also an academic at St Andrews, and two children.

matthew.reisz@timeshighereducation.com