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Oxford2012 Philosophy 1 Contents 3 Welcome 4 News 5 New Appointments 6 Two New Degrees 7 Philosophy for Life 8 Feature: Farewell to 10 Merton Street 12 Essay: Oxford and British Idealism 14 Essay: Ready for Deconstruction? 16 Obituary: Sir Michael Dummett WELCOME 20 Focus: Right on Q – Oxford Philosophy and the Philosophy of Psychiatry Welcome to this fourth issue of Oxford Philosophy. We are have had several posts in philosophy that are now fully endowed 24 Feature: Charity of the Wise – pleased to have this opportunity to stay in touch with you, whether in this way. So far Worcester, Trinity, St Anne’s, and Somerville Giving What We Can/80,000 Hours you read Philosophy as part of an undergraduate degree or you have raised funds to qualify for matching funds from the central were a graduate student here. University. Other colleges are still raising the funds, and we hope 26 A New World: Isaiah Berlin Lectures 2012 for further successes in this area. Elsewhere in this magazine one of our new colleagues refers to 28 Student Life: A Year in the Mist Oxford as ‘the world’s leading centre of philosophy’, and another Oxford Philosophy has strongly influenced the development new colleague refers to our ‘exciting and vibrant philosophical of philosophical research and education throughout the world, 30 Bookshelf community’. Oxford holds its leading position not only because because students who have received an Oxford degree have Faculty of Philosophy Administrative Team 2012 good philosophers work here, but because many philosophers become leading professional philosophers. To continue this Catriona Hopton; Iris Geens; James Knight; Tom Moore; Bryn Harris; Andy Davies work here and talk to each other. The articles in this edition tradition, we need funds to support graduate students. Some (Not pictured: Sarah Hewerdine; Emma McIntosh; Dave Smart) give some idea of the quality and the variety of philosophical funds for this purpose have been raised, and recently the activity in the Faculty and its connexions with other parts of the University has begun another matching-funds initiative, the University and with life outside Oxford and outside the academy. Oxford Graduate Scholarship Matched Fund, worth up to a In many areas (including, but not confined to, Ancient Philosophy, total of £100million. The scheme is designed to encourage new Contact us Credits Acknowledgements Philosophy of Science, Applied Ethics, Philosophical Logic) philanthropic donations for fully-funded graduate scholarships Oxford has the largest, or one of the largest, concentration of covering University and college fees and living costs. All matches Oxford Philosophy experts in the world. will be at the ratio of 60% from the donor and 40% from the Editors Paul Lodge The editors would like to thank the Matched Fund (subject to certain caps). Please let us know if you Faculty of Philosophy Tom Moore following people for their kind help and assistance: We are able to form these impressive research clusters because would like further details about the scheme. Radcliffe Humanities Design keikoikeuchi.co.uk we have a large number of philosophers. We have many Radcliffe Observatory Quarter philosophers because we need them for undergraduate and If you come back to visit us, you will notice another recent effort Gail Anderson Woodstock Road graduate teaching. All Oxford students know that individual to encourage our collective philosophical life. We are no longer Photography Keiko Ikeuchi Peter Catapano Oxford, OX2 6GG instruction, in tutorials or supervisions, is the distinctive feature of in 10 Merton Street, and we have moved to our new home in the Gail Anderson (p.7) Michelle Conway teaching in Oxford. These forms of teaching are labour-intensive Radcliffe Humanities building, formerly the Radcliffe Infirmary. UK c/o Suzie Dummett (pp.16-19) Suzie Dummett and especially suited for teaching and learning philosophy. They Both the Faculty administrative offices and the Philosophy and Shutterstock.com (p.28, p.44) Ernie Lepore are also the backbone of philosophical research and philosophical Theology Faculties Library are now in this handsome eighteenth- email: [email protected] Adrienne Lingard Charlotte Paradise life in Oxford. century building. We hope to benefit from the move mainly tel: +44 (0)1865 276928 because our space in the new building includes more space for This system is expensive, and the University needs to find graduate students to work and to talk. This extra space should resources to support it. Most of our academic appointments are help to build up our philosophical community. If you are in Oxford, For news, events and further supported jointly by the colleges and by the central University. A come and have a look. information, please visit: recent initiative to raise money for these joint appointments is the Teaching Fund, which provides funds from the central university Professor Terry Irwin www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk Front and back cover: Images of Radcliffe Humanties, new home to the Faculty of Philosophy. to match funds raised by individual colleges. We are fortunate to Chair of the Philosophy Faculty Board 2 3 News New Appointments John Locke Two New Lectures Major Research Susanne Bobzien Awards Senior Research Fellow, US to be Professor of Philosophy I am thrilled about All Souls at Yale University. She is the author We are delighted to announce of Determinism and Freedom in returning to Oxford that the next series of John Locke We are delighted to announce Stoic Philosophy (1998) and has as a Senior Research The Faculty was recently the recipient of two major Lectures in Trinity Term 2013 will that internationally distinguished published numerous articles in Fellow at All Souls awards from the John Templeton Foundation. philosopher, Susanne Bobzien, ancient philosophy and philosophy “ be given by Ned Block (Silver Professor of Philosophy, Psychology will re-join the Faculty in summer of logic and language. Her current College, one of and Neural Science at New York New Insights and Directions for 2013, taking up a Senior Research research projects are, in contemporary the finest research University) under the title “Attention Religious Epistemology Fellowship at All Souls College, philosophy, vagueness with focus institutions, and about and Perception.” one of the blue-ribbons of on higher-order vagueness; and John Hawthorne, Waynflete academic life. in the history of philosophy, post- again becoming part In 2014, the lectures will be given by Professor of Metaphysical Aristotelian ancient logic. She of the world’s leading Martha Nussbaum (Ernst Freund Philosophy, will direct a major Susanne did graduate work at also continues to be interested in centre of philosophy. Distinguished Service Professor of Law new research project which aims Oxford and was a fellow at Balliol determinism, freedom and moral and Ethics at the University of Chicago). to bring recent developments in and Queen’s College between responsibility, and in several other epistemology to bear on topics in 1989-2002, before moving to the areas of philosophy. The Locke Lectures are among the the philosophy of religion in a way world’s most distinguished lecture that will open up new channels of ” series in philosophy. They began in research in religious epistemology. Valued at £1.3million, 1950, funded from the bequest of Henry the project will include funding for five postdoctoral Wilde and more recently through the generous support of researchers, 22 visiting research fellowships, nine public Oxford University Press. Lectures are open to members of the lectures, four roundtable discussions, six workshops, and public; further details about timings and locations will be posted one major international conference. on the Faculty’s website in due course. www.newinsights.ox.ac.uk Establishing the Philosophy of Cosmology In a new partnership between Oxford and Cambridge, Philosophy researchers in physics and philosophy Simon Saunders, for Schools Joe Silk, and David Wallace at Oxford University, and John Barrow and Jeremy Butterfield at Cambridge, are to join researchers at a cluster of US universities to establish the Jeffrey Ketland Ralf Bader field of philosophy of cosmology as a branch of philosophy Tutorial Fellow, Pembroke Tutorial Fellow, Merton In June 2013, Keble College will be host to Philosophy for of physics in its own right, with its own distinctive problems Schools, organized by Edward Harcourt (Tutorial Fellow at and motivations. The initiative will last for three years and Having grown up in Birmingham, I studied physics and After having read PPE at Teddy Hall, I did my graduate Keble) and Tim Chappell (Open University). The last few years will culminate in a major international conference. mathematics at Cambridge, and then philosophy and work at St Andrews and then spent the last two years have seen a huge expansion in demand for philosophy in schools http://philcosmo.physics.ox.ac.uk logic, first at Warwick and then LSE, where my PhD work as a Bersoff Assistant Professor and Faculty Fellow at and colleges, whether in the context of Philosophy or of Religious was mostly about the applicability of mathematics and New York University. My research focuses on ethics, Studies A and AS levels. But many schools and colleges lack the axiomatic truth theories. I have written on topics like truth, contemporary metaphysics, Kant scholarship and resources for specialist philosophy teaching. This intensive one- paradox, validity, incompleteness, proof, indiscernibility, political philosophy. day workshop aims to address these concerns by providing post- structure, realism and nominalism. After positions at LSE, I am also interested in 16 philosophy teachers with the opportunity to join in dialogue Nottingham, KCL, Leeds, early analytic philosophy with academic philosophers, to raise questions about the post-16 Cambridge, Edinburgh and neo-Kantian curriculum, and Munich (Munich philosophy. I am thrilled and to enrich Center for Mathematical about my to return to their teaching Philosophy), I was delighted Oxford and being part of practice with to join Pembroke College its exciting and vibrant unfamiliar as a Tutorial Fellow, and the philosophical community.
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