Welcome to the Spotlight Series, where we put the focus on the talented individuals who contribute to the School of Social Sciences and Philosophy here in Trinity College Dublin.
Each month, we sit down with a member of our research team to learn more about their areas of expertise, what the turning points have been in their career, and what inspires them in their daily lives.
Professor Ashley Shaw
Ashley Shaw is an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy. He works primarily in the Philosophy of Mind and Action. His research is about motivation in rational self-conscious agents. He is interested in desire, rational agency, reasons, and how they are related. He also thinks about need, self-control, self-knowledge of desire and affect. His work engages with other disciplines like linguistics and psychology and he is currently writing a book.
What is your current area of research?
My current research is concerned with the nature of desire. I am finishing a draft of a monograph that argues that we should think of desire as a distinctive type of emotion. I also have active interests in areas at the intersection of the philosophy of mind and epistemology (self-knowledge), and the philosophy of language (e.g. on the meaning of words like ‘need’ and ‘want').
What question or challenge were you setting out to address when you started this work?
The central challenge I was concerned with meeting was about the role that desire plays in rational decision-making. For this, it was necessary to clarify the nature of desire, its relationship with the capacity for feeling pleasure, imagination, thought and action.
Share a turning point or defining moment in your work as a researcher?
The first seminars I attended as a graduate student in London were great. It was a real shift from studying philosophy as an undergraduate student to seeing philosophy being done firsthand.
Briefly, what excites you about your research?
What excites me about my research is that I get to think about and (hopefully) better understand the states of mind that shape how one relates to the world and the feelings that structure one’s every waking moment. I find it amazing that something so close to us can be so mysterious!
What do you like to do when you are not working?
I enjoy going to gigs, watching films and cooking.
What are you currently reading?
Most of my reading at the moment is taken up by teaching preparation! This afternoon I was reading John Taurek’s paper ’Should the Numbers Count?’.
If you could have dinner with any historical figure, who would it be and why?
It would be pretty cool to have dinner with a great philosopher from the past like Aristotle. I’d be interested about what he makes of how philosophy has developed in more than two thousand years.
What would people be surprised to find out about you?
I am learning to be a magician in my recently acquired role as an uncle.
October 2025
Past Stories
- Kat Chzhen February 2025
- Maylis Avaro December 2024
- Phil Mullen October 2024
- Gizem Arikan February 2025