Lisa Bortolotti

Lisa Bortolotti (born 1974 in Bologna) is an Italian philosopher who is currently professor of philosophy in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, and in the Department of Neuroscience and Rehabilitation at the University of Ferrara, Italy. Her work is in the philosophy of the cognitive sciences, including philosophy of psychology and philosophy of psychiatry, as well as bioethics and medical ethics. She was educated at the University of Bologna, King's College London, University of Oxford and the Australian National University, and worked briefly at the University of Manchester before beginning at Birmingham, where she has been a lecturer, senior lecturer, reader and now professor.

She has published five sole-authored books: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science (Polity Press, 2008); Delusions and Other Irrational Beliefs (Oxford University Press, 2009); Irrationality (Polity, 2014); The Epistemic Innocence of Irrational Beliefs (Oxford University Press, 2020); and Why Delusions Matter (Bloomsbury Academic, 2023). Delusions and Other Irrational Beliefs, in which Bortolotti challenges the argument that delusions cannot be beliefs due to their irrationality, was the winner of the 2011 American Philosophical Association book prize. In addition, she edited Philosophy and Happiness (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), Delusions in Context (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), and Epistemic Justice in Mental Healthcare (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025) and co-edited Psychiatry as Cognitive Neuroscience: Philosophical Perspectives (Oxford University Press, 2009) with psychiatrist Matthew R. Broome.