Professor Neil McDonnell

  • Professor of Philosophy and XR Technology (Philosophy)

telephone: 0141 330 6716
email: Neil.Mcdonnell@glasgow.ac.uk

11 Chapel Lane, Glasgow, Glasgow City, Scotland, United Kingdom, G11 6EW

Import to contacts

ORCID iDhttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-7279-5277

Research interests

Much of my current work focuses on the philosophical issues around the new immersive technologies of Virtual and Augmented Reality. I am working on questions such as: Are virtual entities genuinely real? Are they genuinely valuable? What sort of epistemic status can virtual experiences confer? I am also interested in issues concerning the role AR in particular on our autonomy and social interactions.

I also have expertise concerning the Metaphysics of Causation, in particular my work on difference making conceptions of what it is for one thing to cause another. I have written in defence of a simple counterfactual theory of causation, on the issues of transitivity and proportionality in causation, on the methdology in this subfield, and the implications these might have for theories in the philosophy of mind. This work remains ongoing.

In 2017 I visited the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as a visiting researcher on the Software Assurance and Formal Methods programme. The purpose of the visit was to explore the potential overlaps between work conducted in epistemology and metaphysics (especially causation) in philosophy, and the issues that arise in Safety Engineering - the domain of those who investigate accidents (looking back) and, through development of regulation and testing procedures, try and minimise the risk of them in the future (looking forward). I was generously hosted by C. Michael Holloway.

The visit demonstrated that there is clear overlap, and thus significant potential for collaborative work in this area. I lead the Safety Engineering Reading Group at Glasgow which is building this collaboration, and I am pursuing grants in support of joint research work with NASA.

I am Chair of the ARC XR operations board.

Publications

List by: Type | Date

Jump to: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015
Number of items: 24.

2024

McDonnell, N. , Hirsu, L. , Rodolico, G. , Savickaite, S., Latkovskis, I., Chapronniere, L. and SEER (Scoping Extended Educational Realities), (2024) XRed: Preparing for Immersive Education [Report]. Documentation. University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK.

McDonnell, N. , Hirsu, L. , Rodolico, G. , Savickaite, S., Latkovskis, I., Chapronniere, L. and SEER (Scoping Extended Educational Realities), (2024) XRed: Preparing for Immersive Education. Whitepaper. Documentation. University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK.

2023

McIntyre, K. , Sherry, L. , Stapleton, G. , Latkovskis, I., McDonnell, N. , Nibbs, R. , Douce, G. and Milling, S. (2023) Can Virtual Reality (VR) enhance students’ learning experience? Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice, 11(3), pp. 3-9. (doi: 10.56433/jpaap.v11i3.573)

Donald, C. et al. (2023) The Impact of using Virtual Reality Lessons to Teach Microbiology Online. SEB Centenary Conference 2023, Edinburgh, UK, 4-7 July 2023. (Unpublished)

Stapleton, G. , McIntyre, K. , Sherry, L. , Douce, G. , Milling, S. , Nibbs, R. , Latkovskis, I., Donald, C. and McDonnell, N. (2023) ‘I felt as if I was there’ - Can Virtual Reality (VR) Enhance Students’ Learning Experience of Immunology Teaching? AMEE Glasgow 2023, Glasgow, UK, 26-30 August 2023.

Donald, C. et al. (2023) The Impact of using Virtual Reality Lessons to Teach Microbiology Online. Microbiology Society Annual Conference 2023, Birmingham, UK, 17-20 April 2023. (Unpublished)

Donald, C. et al. (2023) The Impact of using Virtual Reality Lessons to Teach Microbiology Online. 16th Annual University of Glasgow Learning and Teaching Conference, Online, 29 Mar 2023. (Unpublished)

McIntyre, K. , Stapleton, G. , Sherry, L. , Donald, C. , Milling, S. , Nibbs, R. , Douce, G. , Latkovskis, I. and McDonnell, N. (2023) ‘I felt as if I was there’ - Can Virtual Reality (VR) Enhance Students’ Learning Experience of Immunology Teaching? 16th Annual University of Glasgow Learning and Teaching Conference, 29 Mar 2023. (Unpublished)

McDonnell, N. (2023) The Philosophy of X in XAI. In: SHAI 2023: Workshop on Designing for Safety in Human-AI Interactions, Sydney, NSW, Australia, 27-31 March 2023, pp. 170-173.

McCardel, F., Holloway, C. M., Wasson, K., McDonnell, N. , Graydon, M., Pena, A. and Lehman, S. (2023) Towards a Coherent View of Evidence in Safety Assurance. Technical Report. NASA, Hampton, VA.

2022

Johnstone, R., McDonnell, N. and Williamson, J. R. (2022) When Virtuality Surpasses Reality: Possible Futures of Ubiquitous XR. In: CHI '22: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, New Orleans, LA, USA, 29 Apr - 05 May 2022, p. 6. ISBN 9781450391566 (doi: 10.1145/3491101.3516396)

Savickaite, S., McNaughton, K., Gaillard, E., Amaya, J., McDonnell, N. , Millington, E. and Simmons, D. R. (2022) Exploratory study on the use of HMD virtual reality to investigate individual differences in visual processing styles. Journal of Enabling Technologies, 16(1), pp. 48-69. (doi: 10.1108/JET-06-2021-0028)

2021

Donald, C. , Veitch, N. , Edmond, A., Marks, L., Kirkwood, N., Carman, C. , McDonnell, N. and Macpherson, F. (2021) The Impact of Using Virtual Reality Lessons to Teach Online. Evolving Molecular Bioscience Education, 27-28 May 2021.

2020

Wildman, N. and McDonnell, N. (2020) The puzzle of virtual theft. Analysis, 80(3), pp. 493-499. (doi: 10.1093/analys/anaa005)

2019

McDonnell, N. and Wildman, N. (2019) Virtual reality: Digital or fictional? Disputatio, 11(55), pp. 371-397. (doi: 10.2478/disp-2019-0004)

McDonnell, N. (2019) The non-occurrence of events. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 99(2), pp. 269-285. (doi: 10.1111/phpr.12476)

McDonnell, N. (2019) Immersive technology and medical visualisation: a user's guide. In: Rea, P. (ed.) Biomedical Visualisation. Series: Advances in experimental medicine and biology, 1156. Springer, pp. 123-134. ISBN 9783030193843 (doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-19385-0_9)

2018

McDonnell, N. (2018) 'Making a Difference', edited by Helen Beebee, Huw Price and Christopher Hitchcock, OUP, 2017, Pp.352, Price h/b £55.00. Philosophical Quarterly, [Book Review] (Accepted for Publication)

McDonnell, N. (2018) Making a contribution and making a difference. American Philosophical Quarterly, 55(3), pp. 303-312.

Carter, J. A. and McDonnell, N. (2018) Welcome to the machine. Philosophers' Magazine, 81, pp. 33-39. (doi: 10.5840/tpm20188144)

McDonnell, N. (2018) Transitivity and proportionality in causation. Synthese, 195(3), pp. 1211-1229. (doi: 10.1007/s11229-016-1263-1)

2017

McDonnell, N. (2017) Causal exclusion and the limits of proportionality. Philosophical Studies, 174(6), pp. 1459-1474. (doi: 10.1007/s11098-016-0767-3)

2016

McDonnell, N. (2016) Events and their counterparts. Philosophical Studies, 173(5), pp. 1291-1308. (doi: 10.1007/s11098-015-0547-5)

2015

McDonnell, N. (2015) The deviance in deviant causal chains. Thought: A Journal of Philosophy, 4(3), pp. 162-170. (doi: 10.1002/tht3.169)

This list was generated on Thu Apr 25 14:44:27 2024 BST.
Jump to: Articles | Book Sections | Book Reviews | Research Reports or Papers | Conference or Workshop Item | Conference Proceedings
Number of items: 24.

Articles

McIntyre, K. , Sherry, L. , Stapleton, G. , Latkovskis, I., McDonnell, N. , Nibbs, R. , Douce, G. and Milling, S. (2023) Can Virtual Reality (VR) enhance students’ learning experience? Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice, 11(3), pp. 3-9. (doi: 10.56433/jpaap.v11i3.573)

Savickaite, S., McNaughton, K., Gaillard, E., Amaya, J., McDonnell, N. , Millington, E. and Simmons, D. R. (2022) Exploratory study on the use of HMD virtual reality to investigate individual differences in visual processing styles. Journal of Enabling Technologies, 16(1), pp. 48-69. (doi: 10.1108/JET-06-2021-0028)

Wildman, N. and McDonnell, N. (2020) The puzzle of virtual theft. Analysis, 80(3), pp. 493-499. (doi: 10.1093/analys/anaa005)

McDonnell, N. and Wildman, N. (2019) Virtual reality: Digital or fictional? Disputatio, 11(55), pp. 371-397. (doi: 10.2478/disp-2019-0004)

McDonnell, N. (2019) The non-occurrence of events. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 99(2), pp. 269-285. (doi: 10.1111/phpr.12476)

McDonnell, N. (2018) Making a contribution and making a difference. American Philosophical Quarterly, 55(3), pp. 303-312.

Carter, J. A. and McDonnell, N. (2018) Welcome to the machine. Philosophers' Magazine, 81, pp. 33-39. (doi: 10.5840/tpm20188144)

McDonnell, N. (2018) Transitivity and proportionality in causation. Synthese, 195(3), pp. 1211-1229. (doi: 10.1007/s11229-016-1263-1)

McDonnell, N. (2017) Causal exclusion and the limits of proportionality. Philosophical Studies, 174(6), pp. 1459-1474. (doi: 10.1007/s11098-016-0767-3)

McDonnell, N. (2016) Events and their counterparts. Philosophical Studies, 173(5), pp. 1291-1308. (doi: 10.1007/s11098-015-0547-5)

McDonnell, N. (2015) The deviance in deviant causal chains. Thought: A Journal of Philosophy, 4(3), pp. 162-170. (doi: 10.1002/tht3.169)

Book Sections

McDonnell, N. (2019) Immersive technology and medical visualisation: a user's guide. In: Rea, P. (ed.) Biomedical Visualisation. Series: Advances in experimental medicine and biology, 1156. Springer, pp. 123-134. ISBN 9783030193843 (doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-19385-0_9)

Book Reviews

McDonnell, N. (2018) 'Making a Difference', edited by Helen Beebee, Huw Price and Christopher Hitchcock, OUP, 2017, Pp.352, Price h/b £55.00. Philosophical Quarterly, [Book Review] (Accepted for Publication)

Research Reports or Papers

McDonnell, N. , Hirsu, L. , Rodolico, G. , Savickaite, S., Latkovskis, I., Chapronniere, L. and SEER (Scoping Extended Educational Realities), (2024) XRed: Preparing for Immersive Education [Report]. Documentation. University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK.

McDonnell, N. , Hirsu, L. , Rodolico, G. , Savickaite, S., Latkovskis, I., Chapronniere, L. and SEER (Scoping Extended Educational Realities), (2024) XRed: Preparing for Immersive Education. Whitepaper. Documentation. University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK.

McCardel, F., Holloway, C. M., Wasson, K., McDonnell, N. , Graydon, M., Pena, A. and Lehman, S. (2023) Towards a Coherent View of Evidence in Safety Assurance. Technical Report. NASA, Hampton, VA.

Conference or Workshop Item

Donald, C. et al. (2023) The Impact of using Virtual Reality Lessons to Teach Microbiology Online. SEB Centenary Conference 2023, Edinburgh, UK, 4-7 July 2023. (Unpublished)

Stapleton, G. , McIntyre, K. , Sherry, L. , Douce, G. , Milling, S. , Nibbs, R. , Latkovskis, I., Donald, C. and McDonnell, N. (2023) ‘I felt as if I was there’ - Can Virtual Reality (VR) Enhance Students’ Learning Experience of Immunology Teaching? AMEE Glasgow 2023, Glasgow, UK, 26-30 August 2023.

Donald, C. et al. (2023) The Impact of using Virtual Reality Lessons to Teach Microbiology Online. Microbiology Society Annual Conference 2023, Birmingham, UK, 17-20 April 2023. (Unpublished)

Donald, C. et al. (2023) The Impact of using Virtual Reality Lessons to Teach Microbiology Online. 16th Annual University of Glasgow Learning and Teaching Conference, Online, 29 Mar 2023. (Unpublished)

McIntyre, K. , Stapleton, G. , Sherry, L. , Donald, C. , Milling, S. , Nibbs, R. , Douce, G. , Latkovskis, I. and McDonnell, N. (2023) ‘I felt as if I was there’ - Can Virtual Reality (VR) Enhance Students’ Learning Experience of Immunology Teaching? 16th Annual University of Glasgow Learning and Teaching Conference, 29 Mar 2023. (Unpublished)

Donald, C. , Veitch, N. , Edmond, A., Marks, L., Kirkwood, N., Carman, C. , McDonnell, N. and Macpherson, F. (2021) The Impact of Using Virtual Reality Lessons to Teach Online. Evolving Molecular Bioscience Education, 27-28 May 2021.

Conference Proceedings

McDonnell, N. (2023) The Philosophy of X in XAI. In: SHAI 2023: Workshop on Designing for Safety in Human-AI Interactions, Sydney, NSW, Australia, 27-31 March 2023, pp. 170-173.

Johnstone, R., McDonnell, N. and Williamson, J. R. (2022) When Virtuality Surpasses Reality: Possible Futures of Ubiquitous XR. In: CHI '22: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, New Orleans, LA, USA, 29 Apr - 05 May 2022, p. 6. ISBN 9781450391566 (doi: 10.1145/3491101.3516396)

This list was generated on Fri Apr 26 15:32:17 2024 BST.

Grants

 

2023

Museums in the Metaverse Project, a Levelling Up Innovation Accelerator project funded by Innovation UK. This project aims to unlock the potential of virtual reality museums through the development of a two-sided platform. This allows lay and expert creators alike create virtual museums on one side, and reach a global audience on the other. Investigators: Neil McDonnell (PI), Maria Economou, Pauline Mackay, Murray Pittock. 2023 - 2025.
2022

Scoping Extended Educational Realities Whitepaper Policy Project: I lead the SEER group which includes Lavinia Hirsu, Gabriella Rodolico, Imants Latkovskis, Lysette Chaprioniere, and Sarune Savickaite. This whitepaper project is supported by a substantial donation from Meta and will address the opportunities and barriers around widespread adoption of XR technology in education. The whitepaper will deliver in Q3 2023.
2018

Project Mobius: Fiona Macpherson (P.I) and I were awarded £364,000 from Innovate UK for this project aimed at transforming education through the use of immersive technology, and pedagogical data analytics. The project is in collaboration with Sublime Digital and ran from October 2018 until September 2021. The Edify education platform was a major output of this project.
2017

Fiona Macpherson and I were awarded a grant of £6,670 from the Templeton Foundation via the The New Directions in the Study of Mind Project at the University of Cambridge for a project on Virtual and Augmented Reality, which ran from April - June 2017.
2017

Fiona Macpherson and I were awarded a grant of £15,000 from the University of Glasgow Knowledge Exchange Fund for a project on Virtual and Augmented Reality, which ran from January - March 2017.
2014

Umut Baysan, Stephan Leuenberger, Fiona Macpherson and I were awarded £50,000 by the Templeton Foundation, via the Durham Emergence Project.

Supervision

I am happy to supervise Masters and PhD students in metaphysics, especially in relation to counterfactuals, causation, and explanation, and in topics related to metaphysics and epistemology regarding Virtual and Augmented Reality, and Safety Engineering.

 

  • Ding, Yiheng
    Freedom and the ethics of nudge - a moral assessment
  • Husselman, Tammy-Ann
    Multi-User Virtual Reality (VR) Environments: Immersion and Perceptual Experience during Learning for Neurodivergent Students
  • Millington, Elliot
    Sensorily Stressed: An Exploration of the Relationship between Anxiety and Sensory Reactivity in Autistic People
  • Song, Ningning
    Creative Practice as Research: Exploring Storytelling With Virtual Reality In 360-Degrees Documentary

Teaching

I teach on a range of topics related to metaphysics, including issues around what is possible and what must be (modality), what it means to cause something (causation), whether certain things like virtual entities really exist (ontology), and on what time is, and what we can learn from thinking about time travel. 

Lately I have been teaching accross these topics in level 2 undergraduate course 2B (What is there?), and the taught Masters course on Metaphysics. 

From 2021-2022, I will be teaching a senior honours option course focussed specifically on Causation.