Prof. Dr. Christian List

Personal information

Christian List has been the Chair of Philosophy and Decision Theory, as well as the co-director of the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, since 2021. Previously, he was Professor of Philosophy and Political Science at the London School of Economics, where, until 2024, he continued to hold a visiting professorship after his move to Munich. His work at the intersection of philosophy, economics, and political science concerns the decision-making behavior and rationality of individual agents and collectives. Another focus of his research is the metaphysics and philosophy of mind, where he is especially concerned with free will, the idea of mental causation, the concept of consciousness, and the first-person perspective. Moreover, he is interested in questions from the philosophy of science, including about the connections between different levels of description (e.g. "micro" vs. "macro" levels) in the natural and social sciences. His latest book Why Free Will is Real was published in 2019 by Harvard University Press.

Curriculum vitae

Selected publications

1. List, C. (2023). “The Many-Worlds Theory of Consciousness.” Noûs 57(2): 316–340.
2. List, C. (2019). Why Free Will is Real. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
3. Dietrich, F. & List, C. (2017). “What matters and how it matters: A choice-theoretic representation of moral theories.” Philosophical Review 126 (4): 421–479.
4. List, C. (2014). “Free Will, Determinism, and the Possibility of Doing Otherwise.” Noûs 48 (1): 156–178.
5. Dietrich, F. & List, C. (2013). “A reason‐based theory of rational choice.” Noûs 47 (1): 104–134.
6. List, C. & Pettit, P. (2011). Group Agency: The Possibility, Design, and Status of Corporate Agents. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
7. List, C. & Menzies, P. (2009). “Non-Reductive Physicalism and the Limits of the Exclusion Principle.” Journal of Philosophy 106 (9): 475–502.
8. Dryzek, J. S. & List, C. (2003). “Social choice theory and deliberative democracy: a reconciliation.” British Journal of Political Science 33 (1): 1–28.
9. List, C. & Pettit, P. (2002). “Aggregating sets of judgments: An impossibility result.” Economics & Philosophy 18 (1): 89–110.
10. List, C. & Goodin, R. E. (2001). “Epistemic democracy: generalizing the Condorcet jury theorem.” Journal of Political Philosophy 9 (3): 277–306.

Academic distinctions

• 2023 - Member, Academia Europaea
• 2022 - Member, Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities
• 2014 - Fellow of the British Academy (FBA)
• 2020 Joseph B. Gittler Award from the American Philosophical Association
• 2013 - 2016 Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship
• 2010 Social Choice and Welfare Prize (shared with F. Dietrich)
• 2008 "One of 10 ‘rising stars’ in British academia", Times Higher Education
• 2007 Philip Leverhulme Prize in Philosophy and Ethics
• 2005 Nuffield Foundation New Career Development Fellowship (with F. Dietrich)
• 1998 - 2001 Doctoral scholarships from the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes and the Economic and Social Research Council (UK)
• 1996 - 1998 Oxford University Scatcherd European Scholarship
• 1994 - 1996 Domus Scholarship, St Peter’s College, Oxford
• 1992 - 1998 Scholarship from the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes
• 1990 National champion in Mathematics / Computer Science, "Jugend forscht" science competition

Teaching

Prof. List's current courses can be found on LSF.

If you wish to write a thesis under Prof. List's supervision, please contact him by email, including a few sentences outlining the planned topic, in order to arrange an appointment.

Other activities

Editorships

• 2015 - Subject editor, Philosophy of Social Science, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• 2007 - 2012 Editor, Economics and Philosophy
• Member of the Editorial Board: BSPS Open (since 2020), Mind (since 2015), Economics and Philosophy (since 2015), Episteme (since 2005), Journal of Logic and Computation (since 2006).