The American Philosophical Association is pleased to announce that Deborah Boyle (College of Charleston) has been awarded the 2020-2021 Edinburgh Fellowship. The Edinburgh Fellow has a private office in the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh, is a member of the Institute’s lively research community, and has full borrowing rights at Edinburgh University Library.
The chair of the selection committee said, “Deborah Boyle is an ideal choice for the APA Edinburgh Fellowship. Her book project, The Oxford Guide to Mary Shepherd, promises to make an important contribution to the history of philosophy. Boyle is a leading scholar of early modern women philosophers, and her project on Shepherd will be a valuable addition to the literature. Boyle also has a clear rationale to work in Edinburgh, as her project not only concerns an Edinburgh philosopher and will make use of research materials on Shepherd’s life held in or near Edinburgh, but also connects with the gender studies focus at the Institute for Advanced Studies there, and with the work of current Edinburgh philosophers.”
Boyle is Professor of Philosophy at the College of Charleston, where she has taught since 1999. Her primary research interest is in the work of early modern and modern women philosophers. She is the author of two books, The Well-Ordered Universe: The Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish (2018) and Descartes on Innate Ideas (2009), as well as papers on Astell, Cavendish, Conway, Descartes, Hume, and Mary Shepherd. In 2018 she edited Lady Mary Shepherd: Selected Writings. She is currently writing a book on Shepherd and preparing a modern, abridged edition of Cavendish’s Philosophical Letters. In July, Professor Boyle will become the editor of the Journal of the History of Philosophy.
