Courses I am teaching in 2008-9
For the BA
Introduction to Philosophy
(Lectures)
Plato
Philosophy of Language
For the MA
Philosophical Topics
I have one term’s research
leave, worked out as a reduced teaching load for the whole year in 2008-9.
Research interests
Philosophy
of Language, Metaphysics, Aesthetics, Ethics, Plato, Wittgenstein.
Selected publications
· Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Wittgenstein
and the Tractatus (London:
Routledge, 2008)
· Introduction
to Philosophy of Language (Cambridge:
Cambridge
University Press,
2006)
· The
Good and the True (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992)
· ‘The
Question of Idealism in McDowell’, Philosophical
Topics (forthcoming 2009)
· ‘Mysticism
and Nonsense in the Tractatus’, with J. Dodd, European
Journal of Philosophy (forthcoming 2008)
· ‘Doing
Justice to Musical Works’, in K. Stock, ed., Experience, Meaning, and Work: Philosophers on Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming
2007)
· ‘Akrasia
in the Protagoras and the Republic’, Phronesis 51
(2006), pp. 195-229
·
‘Realism
beyond Correspondence’, in H. Beebee and J. Dodd, eds., Truthmakers: the
Contemporary Debate (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 49-65.
· 'Metaphor
and Philosophy: an Encounter with Derrida', Philosophy 75 (2000),
pp. 225-244.
· 'Mind,
World, and Value', in A. O'Hear, ed., Current Issues in Philosophy of
Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 303-320.
· 'The
Place of Language', Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 67
(1993), pp. 153-72.
· 'Why
There are No Mental Representations', Minds and Machines 1 (1991).
· 'The
Varieties of Sense', Philosophical Quarterly 38 (1988), pp. 385-400.
· 'Socrates'
Last Argument', Phronesis 30 (1985), pp. 223-48.
More on
Publications and Research
About me
I
read Greats (Philosophy and Greek and Latin Literature) at Exeter College,
Oxford. I
was convinced at the time that I ought to be a school-teacher, so I did a
year's teacher training, before teaching English for two years in a
comprehensive school. I changed my mind about my future career half-way
through this period (by the Athenian treasury at Delphi, on a holiday in Greece), and returned to Oxford to do the BPhil in Philosophy. At
the end of that I was appointed Rank Xerox Senior Scholar at Oriel (I think
the company's representative had always been interested in the mind-body
problem), where I began work on my DPhil. After two years, in 1985, I was
appointed to a job in Philosophy at Sussex.
Research
The
principal focus of my work is on the philosophy of language. I am working
on a book whose aim is to question the almost universal assumption that
words are signs. Most contemporary philosophy of language is shaped by this
assumption: it lies behind Gricean accounts of meaning and referential theories
of meaning, for example. My chief worry is that it is inconsistent with a
proper realism about the world, one which holds that the world as it is in
itself is not in any way determined by the character of any way of
representing it. I aim to present arguments against the view that words are
signs, and develop an alternative account of language.
I
have recently completed an introductory book on the philosophy of language
for Cambridge University Press, which aims to guide students through the
principal texts in the analytic tradition. Despite the fact that I am
doubtful about the central assumptions of these texts, I think these are
great works which need to be brought within the reach of ordinary
undergraduates. Because the book’s
focus is on the great texts of the tradition, it amounts to a critical history of analytic philosophy
of language, as well as giving students what I think they need: I hope it
will provoke thought among the experts without being too partisan. This book came out in December 2006.
Still
under the general heading of ‘philosophy of language’, I have just finished
a book on Wittgenstein's Tractatus for Routledge’s ‘Guidebook’ series. Although this is meant to be accessible
to students, it aims to resolve many of the central problems in the
interpretation of the work. It is to
be published in November 2008.
During
the preparation for this book I worked with Julian Dodd (at Manchester) on a paper
on the central paradox of the Tractatus (the fact that it seems to declare,
with reason, that all of its sentences are nonsense). This paper, ‘Mysticism and Nonsense in
the Tractatus’, presents a view which is clearly distinct from both the
‘traditional’ interpretation and the currently fashionable ‘resolute’
reading. This is forthcoming in
print in the European Journal of Philosophy, and is currently
available online through the journal’s website.
My
concerns in the philosophy of language have raised questions for me about
the nature of works of art and of artistic 'media' (for want of a better
word). ‘Doing Justice to Musical
Works’ is a development of this line of thinking: its aim is to raise
doubts about standard approaches to the ontology of musical works in a way
which brings the medium of musical works more firmly into the foreground. The question of artistic representation
(and representation in general) is addressed in ‘Rembrandt’s Hat’, which I
presented at the British Society of Aesthetics conference in September
2006.
A
precise connection between the philosophy of language and the philosophy of
art is raised by consideration of the nature of the objects of our
attention when we look at pictures, or read works of fiction (similar
points arise in connection with plays and operas, but the media involved
are more complicated in these cases).
I have written a draft paper on this topic entitled ‘Objects of Art’: I aim to do justice to the
temptation (which in my case is very strong) to think that the objects of
our attention in these cases are things which do not really exist, and
which have what seem to be contradictory properties. This paper was presented to the British
Society of Aesthetics conference in September 2007.
In
the same area, I have recently completed a paper called ‘How Can There Be
Works of Art?’, which is concerned with the kind of meaning works of art
have, and how it is possible for them to have such a meaning. The central claim is that the meaning of
works of art is not a matter of what anyone means by them, or what anyone
takes them to mean. I take similar points
to have application in the philosophy of language. This paper was presented at the British
Society of Aesthetics conference in September 2008.
I
have a long-standing interest in Plato, and have recently published a paper
on Plato on akrasia (weakness of will).
This re-examines two of the most discussed passages in Plato: the
argument in the Protagoras against the possibility of doing what one knows
to be wrong, and the argument in the Republic for the division of the
soul. The paper claims that the
logic of each argument is different from what it has generally been
supposed to be, and that, although the arguments presented depend on
different (indeed,
incompatible) assumptions, Plato himself seems to hold the same view at
both places.
I
am also working with a former colleague, Rickie Dammann, on a paper on
Plato’s philosophy of art—on the notion of ‘imitation’ as it appears in the
Republic, in particular. This has
strong links with the problems considered in the ‘Objects
of Art’ paper.
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