Gabriel Segal (philosopher)

Gabriel Mark Aurel Segal was born in the UK in 1959, and is the son of psychoanalyst Hanna Segal and brother of mathematician Dan Segal.[1]

Segal was educated at University College London, where he received a BA in Philosophy with First Class Honours in 1981. Later he studied for his B. Phil. at the University of Oxford graduating in 1983 with an overall distinction,[2] and winning the John Locke Prize in Mental Philosophy.[3]

Finally, Segal received his PhD in Philosophy from MIT in 1987, supervised by Ned Block and Noam Chomsky.[4]

Segal's first teaching appointment was at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,[2] after which he accepted a lectureship at King's in 1989.

Segal has been lecturer, reader and professor of philosophy King's College London. He served as Head of Department [5] and has been named Professor Emeritus.[2]

Segal has published extensively on cognitive science, philosophy of mind and psychology, and philosophy of language and linguistics [6]. His work has appeared in academic journals, reviews, books and as individual papers [7]

He co-authored Knowledge of Meaning: An Introduction to Semantic Theory with Richard Larson in 1995 (ISBN 978-0262621007). Segal also authored A Slim Book about Narrow Content, which was published in 2000 (ISBN 978-0262692304) and Twelve Steps To Psychological Good Health and Serenity - A Guide, published in 2013 (ISBN 978-1781488461) with a second edition released in 2017 (ISBN 978-1786238795). In the latter, Segal makes AA's traditional twelve-step program accessible to non-addicts as a psycho-behavioural tool for stress-management and peace of mind.

In September 2016, Segal co-edited Addiction and Choice: Rethinking the Relationship (ISBN 978-0198727224) with Nick Heather. The book was listed as "Highly Commended" in the category of Public Health at the BMA Book Awards 2017.[8] Published by Oxford University Press, the 25-chapter book provides a multidisciplinary perspective on the relationship between addiction and choice from various fields, including philosophy, neuroscience, psychiatry, psychology and the law.[9] Segal's chapters include "20: How an Addict's Power of Choice is Lost and can be Regained" in which he offers a neuro-scientific defence of Twelve-step programs and "24: Ambiguous terms and false dichotomies" in which he defends the disease model of addiction.

Segal appears as a regular panellist on the internet project AskPhilosophers, a question and answer website about philosophical issues. In one instance, a reader posed the question to the project: "Are there arguments against gay marriage that are not religious, bigoted or both?" Segal replied: "There are no good arguments meeting that description.[5]

• Official website