sign in sign up
<<
Home , Anita Avramides, Categorization, Michael Dummett, William James Lectures

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: and British

14 Essay: Ready for ?

16 Obituary: Sir

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 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 of the 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 , Applied Ethics, Philosophical ) 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 ( 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. , 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 at Yale University. She is the author We are delighted to announce of and Freedom in returning to Oxford that the next series of 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. , Susanne Bobzien, ancient philosophy and philosophy “ be given by Ned Block (Silver Professor of Philosophy, will re-join the Faculty in summer of logic and . Her current College, one of and Neural Science at New York New and Directions for 2013, taking up a Senior Research research projects are, in contemporary the finest research University) under the title “Attention Religious Fellowship at All Souls College, philosophy, vagueness with focus institutions, and about and .” one of the blue-ribbons of on higher-order vagueness; and , 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

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 theories. I have written on topics like truth, contemporary , 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, and . After positions at LSE, I am also interested in 16 philosophy teachers with the opportunity to join in dialogue Nottingham, KCL, Leeds, early 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 part of practice with to join Pembroke College its exciting and vibrant unfamiliar as a Tutorial Fellow, and the philosophical community. materials and Faculty of Philosophy as approaches. CUF Lecturer, in September 2012.

4 5 study study Two New Degrees

For the first in nearly four decades the Philosophy for Philosophy Faculty has established new joint honours schools Life Philosophy, Psychology Computer Science and and Philosophy Marianne Talbot introduces the range of options for studying

In December, philosophy tutors will be interviewing candidates for a new Michaelmas Term 2012 saw the first intake for our new degree in philosophy at Oxford’s Department degree course in Psychology, Philosophy and Linguistics and the first Philosophy and Computer Science. This is a three or four year course, for Continuing Education PPL students will arrive in October 2013. The new course is a successor leading either to a BA degree after three years, or a Masters degree after to Psychology, Philosophy and Physiology (PPP), which was Oxford’s four years. first psychology degree, beginning in 1947. In The Republic makes clear his belief that For those who live near Oxford, we have a weekly Computing and Philosophy are close intellectual cousins. Artificial the study of philosophy is especially fitted to older programme of approximately 35 classes The establishment of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics as the (AI), robotics, virtual are fascinating areas When they are people. As Director of Studies in Philosophy at Oxford throughout the year. These are held in Oxford, newest Faculty within the Humanities Division presents an opportunity where Computer Science and Philosophy meet. But there are also older and their University’s Department for Continuing Education Reading, Newbury and Gerrard's Cross. All involve to enhance the successor degree to PPP, with Linguistics replacing many others, since the two disciplines share a broad focus on the begin (www.conted.ox.ac.uk) I am constantly amazed at weekly 2 hour classes and the completion of an Physiology. Psychology students will be able to include General representation of information and rational . In a future where the energy and enthusiasm that older people will assignment. Linguistics, Phonetics and Phonology, and Psycholinguistics in their philosophical reflection about the living world – both biological and to mature, put into the study of philosophy, often around the course with Psychology options on Language Acquisition and Reading social – will be increasingly informed by computer modelling, philosophy their mental edges of senior and demanding positions. It is my Many Oxford philosophy postgraduates get their first and Language: Development and Disorder. Philosophy students with has much to gain if some of its proponents are able to programme training can job to provide as many opportunities as possible for teaching as members of OUDCE’s panel a theoretical interest in language will now be able to study General themselves. studying philosophy informally and part-time, for fun of part-time tutors. This is a wonderful way to start Linguistics, Syntax, and alongside and be intensified. or for credit. a career in teaching philosophy because mature Language and Frege, Russell and Wittgenstein. The Psychology and The course is largely based on the Computer Science half of the Finally when students are extremely motivated and unafraid to ask Philosophy combination will, of course, continue as before, enhanced by “Mathematics and Computer Science” degree and the Philosophy half of they are no Our philosophy weekend schools are particularly questions. the new Finals paper on Philosophy of , examined for the “Mathematics and Philosophy” degree. In the first year students will popular. People come from all over the country, and the first time this summer. cover core material in both subjects, including a bridging course studying longer fit for from abroad. Each year we run seven schools, on Many people have gone from studying philosophy Alan Turing’s pioneering work on computability and artificial intelligence. political or topics such as philosophy of physics, metaphysics informally at OUDCE to studying formally. Last year The 1950s witnessed the cognitive revolution in psychology and the Later years will include a wide range of options, with an emphasis on military service, in pre-Socratic philosophy, the philosophy of we had two new PhDs, and quite a few MAs. Our beginnings of the interdisciplinary endeavour that is known as cognitive courses near the interface between the two subjects. The fourth year artificial intelligence and the of normativity. Philosophical Society has 280 members, many of science. The six disciplines involved were psychology, philosophy, provides the opportunity to study advanced topics and to undertake a they can be Each weekend consists of four lectures, given by whom contribute to the annual Philosophical Society linguistics, computer science, neuroscience, and anthropology. Some more in-depth research project. given their head professional philosophers, and a discussion session. Review and attend the annual Members’ Day. Check commentators regard the conception of cognitive science as having and devote There is plenty of opportunity to socialise with others out their website on: http://oxfordphilsoc.org/ taken place in September 1956, at a meeting at the Massachusetts We expect the degree to appeal to students with broad interests and interested in the subject, and with the speakers. Institute of Technology. mathematical aptitude, who prefer intellectual exploration and discovery all their main Even more people come from abroad to our summer There is no need, therefore, for an Oxford education to learning of established theory. The only firm academic prerequisite for energies to schools. They spend a week living in Rewley House’s in philosophy to end at graduation: if you still hanker It is pleasing to think that in 2016, sixty years on from that conception, the course is study of Mathematics to A-Level (or equivalent), and we philosophy – that comfortable accommodation, taking tutorials, after doing some philosophy come and join us! Oxford will see the first PPL students – and also the first cohort of hope to attract students with broad interests, who might be studying any attending lectures and writing essays so they really students on the four-year course in Computer Science and Philosophy – combination of subjects. is if their life on get to grip with their subject as well as having time to completing their degrees. earth is to be a socialise and explore Oxford. 2012 is 100th anniversary of the birth of Alan Turing, the father happy one and of computing, and there could be no more fitting a time for the www.psy.ox.ac.uk/undergrad/ppl-course No-one has to travel anywhere to do one of our commencement of this new degree. their final destiny online courses. These ten week courses attract after death to students from all over the world. Each is based on www.cs.ox.ac.uk/admissions/ugrad/Computer_Science_and_Philosophy match their life discussions and activities to which all are expected to on earth. contribute. The discussion can get very lively and, as many students have taken all available courses, we Plato, The Republic 498b are busy producing new ones.

6 7 Feature

offices on the south side of that corridor), Philosophy by then having a desperate need for more office space.

The room directly opposite the common room originally functioned as a graduate common room, but in those early days proved redundant to the main common room, and became a photocopying room for the Sub-faculty when we finally acquired our own photocopier. The room in the basement which had housed the mimeograph machine became a computer room for graduates and academic visitors. Later the former graduate common room, then photocopier room, was divided, creating Farewell a small office for the newly established Undergraduate Studies Officer, and a small photocopier room. The graduate students were given a new room made from one quarter of the basement book stack, and this was to 10 MERTOn ST heavily utilized. Having initially not needed all the space in 10 Merton Street, by the mid 1990s Philosophy needed every single bit of it, and more. We were After 36 years in its old home, the Philosophy Faculty moved always short of space for academic visitors, and increasingly we wanted from 10 Merton Street to the Radcliffe Infirmary in summer to provide work and discussion space for the philosophy graduate students. We were offered the Oxford Boys’ High School, on George 2012. The story is told below. Street, which Social Studies was vacating, but the layout of the library space, which had been cobbled together out of the school hall, was bad, and we declined. We were then offered the old Indian Institute, but while the library space was excellent, the office space was poor hilosophy moved from 12 to 10 Merton Street in the summer striking photograph and we demurred again. We then had the idea of building another floor of 1976. 10 Merton Street had been purpose-built for the he had taken of on the building, under a mansard roof, in the development of which History Faculty in 1954-56 (from designs by Sir Hubert Peter Strawson. played a major role. We took a concrete proposal to PWorthington, dating from 1938-9); it was soon to be adapted These became the University, which came back with the estimate that it would cost to our needs and quickly took on much of the shape that will be familiar the nucleus of £1million to build, and that they didn’t have the money. to the readers of Oxford Philosophy who matriculated from the late a photographic 1970s onward. pantheon of In 2005 the University foreclosed this possibility by selling 10 Merton contemporary Street, with a ten-year leaseback, to University College, which had long The jewel in the building’s crown was the Library, which under the Oxford coveted it. We were soon engaged in an intensive process over a three History Faculty’s residency had occupied the whole of the upper floor Philosophers in year period of designing Phase 1 of a Humanities Building and Library of 10 Merton Street, in two reading rooms. However, this proved much the Ryle Room, on the Radcliffe Infirmary site, in which Philosophy, History, English, larger than the space needed for the lending library that the Philosophy established by and Theology were to be housed. The project was ready to go to tender Sub-faculty agreed to establish in order to secure the premises. So John Hyman when when the University suddenly decided to redeploy the money it had instead the Philosophy Library was restricted to the splendid reading he was Curator of earmarked for this project to fill gaps in the budgets for teaching posts in room looking out over Merton Street and the Fellows’ Garden of Merton 10 Merton Street, a the University, primarily but not only in the Humanities Division. This is College, and what had been the northern reading room was partitioned selection of which still said to be a delay rather than cancellation of the project. to provide a large seminar room – or, as it came to be called, the Lecture appeared on the back cover of Oxford Philosophy last year. Room – and a stack room. As time went on we became acutely short of space, and both the Library When it became clear that Phase 1 of the Humanities Building and Even with an undergraduate lending library incorporating philosophy and the Sub-faculty needed the basement. The University moved the Library would not be built anytime soon, the Vice-Chancellor offered The largest room on the ground floor had been used by the History books from Social Studies, the Philosophy Library had no use for the Greek squeezes and the van Houten paintings, and the old basement the Radcliffe Infirmary, which had been earmarked for his office and Library as a map room. It now became a seminar room. One of the basement book stacks, and the University retained them for storage. stack was divided between the Library and the Faculty. The south that of other top University administrators, to the Humanities Division. first acts of the building’s new Management Committee was to instruct A collection of “Greek squeezes” as they were called (i.e., latex side of the basement was refurbished with rolling bookshelves for the The Radcliffe Infirmary was considerably too big for the Divisional the Curator, Justin Gosling, to write to proposing that the impressions of ancient Greek engraved inscriptions) were stored Library, and named the Harré Room, in recognition of Rom Harré’s large Headquarters alone and, following a series of twists and turns, we room be named after him. Gosling’s letter ends: “I have been asked there, and hundreds of paintings left by University benefactor Georges donation of books when he retired. agreed in January 2011 that the Philosophy Faculty and Library would to discover whether you have any reasonable objection?” to which van Houten. The basement stack was also used as the staging area move there in the summer of 2012. On agreeing to move, we also he added, “If not, we shall go ahead; if so we might of course still use for Ruskin School admissions portfolios, a connection that resulted When Philosophy moved into 10 Merton Street there was a seminar obtained an assurance that we will not be required to move again until that name, despite the accidental resemblance to your own, but also in several loan exhibitions for the common room of John Newberry’s room on the north side of the ground floor corridor leading to the newly the new Humanities Building materialises. We anticipate that this may be might not.” Ryle replied, “Dear Gosling, I’m delighted with the idea. I wonderful watercolour views of Oxford buildings until, in the early 1990s, named Ryle Room. After a year it was clear that the Sub-faculty had some time coming, but are delighted by our new home and in no obvious shall always be showing visitors over our new home and pausing for the walls of the common room became home to a splendid suite of no great need for two seminar rooms in addition to the upstairs Lecture hurry to leave. long enough for them to ask ‘And what is this room called?’” A year or engravings by Roger Vieillard interpreting passages from Descartes’ Room, and the smaller one was allocated to , the first two later John Mabbott, Ryle’s long time colleague and friend gave the Discours de la méthode, which came to the Philosophy Sub-faculty Professor of , as a large office in which he could Sub-faculty an excellent photograph he had taken of Ryle, looking up thanks to ’s personal contact with the artist and which consolidate his massive collection of books and offprints held in several This piece is based on a longer article by Daniel Isaacson, University Lecturer in from reading Pepys in a lawn chair in his garden in Islip, which was remained there until our departure (and which – like the collection of locations. When Dana left Oxford, in 1981, Rom Harré moved into that Philosophy of Mathematics and Fellow of Wolfson College, which can be found at http://tinyurl.com/9hdzf67 framed and put up in the Ryle Room. Later donated a Ryle Room photographs – have moved with the Faculty to its new home office, and when Rom retired, it was divided into two (matching the two on the Woodstock Road).

8 8 9 10 Merton Street

10 Merton Street, adjacent to Logic Lane, whence Quine in 1953 presided over the Association of Symbolic Logic.

Inside, a room after Ryle: ‘the brilliant and benevolent leader of Oxford philosophy’; the lights on the walls. Much to follow when sitting, occasionally scratching; Words and (on a good day) in flow.

Upstairs: books, light, space. After five comes the roar on summer afternoons, sixth ‘til eighth. The speaker stops, bemused. Local rituals will endure.

Anon

An Undergraduate View

ituated moments from every first year It seems apt that 10 Merton Street was not comfortable place for anyone to talk, grab a philosopher’s most hated road, Logic referred to as ‘The Philosophy Library’. Whilst 20p cup of coffee, and have a browse through SLane, the Philosophy Faculty managed serving the functions of a place where books the day’s newspapers. In Trinity Term, the to provide a relaxing retreat from the fast could be borrowed – it soon became so much Faculty became even more inviting due to its paced, stressful, day-to-day life of an Oxford more to those who knew and loved it. In fact, homely garden. There the few benches for student. A traditionally picturesque Oxford ‘The Philosophy Family’ would seem a more reading and philosophising took you away building, the Philosophy Faculty was in the appropriate name. Librarians said ‘hi’ and were far from any reminder of The Logic Manual perfect place; right behind the lectures in Exam up for a chat, whilst the oval room provided to the intellectual corners of a summer’s day. Schools and opposite Christ Church meadows a dinner table-like environment for studying. , Plato, and John Stuart Mill would where thoughts could be collected in the lush From undergraduates to the mythical creatures have loved it. open spaces whilst on a soothing solitary stroll. of All Souls, the common room served as a Emily Cousens (3rd year PPE)

10 11 Essay religious impulse was linked to an ethic of educated men dedicated to the service and generation of students out on their way to practical involvement, and how philosophy education of those less fortunate than they, this public service both in this country and in was as often preached as it was taught. was a suggestion that appealed to many who the various corners of Britain’s empire, no “The school of Green (wrote the philosopher had heard Green’s message; the call resulting more than Green was Caird a conservative R.G.Collingwood) sent out into public life a in the establishment in 1884 of just such a spokesperson for the status quo. He was, for stream of ex-pupils who carried with them the settlement in Whitechapel, East , example, an outspoken critic of both the Boer Oxford and conviction that philosophy, and in particular the named Toynbee Hall, after Green’s pupil who War and the University’s conferment of an philosophy they had learned at Oxford, was an had died the previous year. honorary degree upon Cecil Rhodes, making important thing, and that their vocation was to public his dissent from the establishment in the put it into practice…. Through this effect on the Through its association with Green, Balliol pages of The . British Idealism minds of its pupils, the philosophy of Green’s became the very heart of the British Idealist school might be found, from about 1880 to movement, a position cemented by its election Bill Mander is Fellow of Harris Manchester College. about 1910, penetrating and fertilizing every part in 1893 of the philosopher Edward Caird as the He is the author of An Introduction to Bradley’s Metaphysics (1993) and British Idealism, of the national life” (An Autobiography, p.17). new Master (in succession to Jowett) a position A History (2011). Bill Mander he held until 1907. Caird had himself been Green’s conviction that it was not enough to a student at Balliol, shortly after Green with hat Oxford has a pre-eminent development, both intellectual and moral. In philosophy prize was up in his memory think but that one must also act, inspired his whom he was a close friend and philosophical tradition in philosophy few could this light the individual could be understood which, now in the form of a scholarship for followers, such as the young Arnold Toynbee confrere, and then briefly a fellow at Merton deny, and in illustration thoughts only as part of a larger social whole, and graduates working in ethics, the Philosophy who went to live and work with the poor in the before returning home to Glasgow, so his T might turn to the later middle ages society itself as an organism properly aiming at Faculty continues to administer to this day. East End of London, with such zeal as to lead appointment was very much a continuation of (to , William of Ockham and John the ‘common good’. him to an early death and give the movement the Oxford Idealist tradition. Certainly Caird Wycliffe) or the seventeenth century (to John Though opting in the end for the life of an its first ‘martyr.’ And when, in 1883 Samuel maintained and developed Green’s ethic of Locke, Robert Boyle, and John Norris) or more Elected to the Whites Chair of Moral academic, it is significant that the alternative Barnett gave a lecture at St John’s College social service, but while his own inspiring recently the ‘ordinary language’ tradition of Philosophy in 1878, Green died of blood occupation which Green considered was entitled ‘Settlements of University Men in Great Lay Sermons no doubt sent a the last century (to J.L. Austin, Gilbert Ryle poisoning in 1882 at the relatively young that of a dissenting minister, for throughout Towns’ in which he suggested that the lives and Peter Strawson). Few, however, would age of 46, yet in his short career he exerted his career his concerns never ventured far of the poor might be helped by the setting think of the late Victorian era – 1870s and an immense influence. Bernard Bosanquet, from those that might in the broadest sense up in the inner cities communes of university 1880s – and yet this period was arguably the R.L.Nettleship, William Wallace, F.H. Bradley, be called ‘religious’. His position was never highest watermark in Oxford’s philosophical A.C. Bradley, John MacCunn, D.G. Ritchie, orthodox, however; indeed his motivation was reputation, a time when virtually all the most J.H. Muirhead, Arnold Toynbee, H.H. Joachim to find a form of belief that could preserve what able philosophers in the country were Oxford were all pupils of his; and this small knot of was of in religion without compromising trained. Oxford philosophers – the School of Green the rational conclusions to which he felt that as it was often called – between themselves modern science, scholarship and philosophy The reasons why this time of great renown dominated the philosophical scene for some pointed. has been largely forgotten are not hard to thirty years. find, for the Edwardian reacted harshly The institution of the lay sermon – the against the age that came before it and One of the most interesting aspects to this metaphysically uplifting and morally perhaps nowhere more so than in philosophy, story is that while Green’s influence was motivating address – to which where a new school of thinking arose – within immense, it was transmitted not through several of the Idealists were attached, whose shadow the modern discipline still falls his writings – which were few, difficult and illustrates clearly both how the – which so defined itself in opposition to its nearly all posthumous – but rather through predecessors as to virtually erase them from his teaching and the force of his character. memory. But this amnesia is to be regretted, Indeed, the University and the wider city itself not least because the philosophy which Oxford took Green to its heart as it has perhaps no advanced at that time was one with wide and other of its academics, and on the day of his practical appeal, a vital counter example to funeral the Mayor and Corporation, together the perennial accusation that philosophy is an with two thousand people, processed (through essentially narrow, technical and impractical torrential rain) from the council chambers to pursuit. Balliol and thence to St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on Walton Street where he was buried. A moral The chief figure of this movement was T.H.Green, who first entered Balliol as a student in 1855, becoming a Fellow in 1860. Encouraged by Jowett, he made use of Kantian and Hegelian , which until that point had largely been ignored as ‘dangerous,’ developing an idealist world view in which God, or as he called it the ‘eternal ,’ was to be of as a immanent throughout reality and, in particular, gradually manifesting itself in the process of human

12 13 The day when we can write philosophy Essay as if the division between ‘analytic’ and ‘Continental’ no longer has any institutional Ready for “ purchase is now a more realistic aspiration. Deconstruction? or most of the 20th century, not only the evaluative of religion, was used to denote all the major philosophical to the idea of ‘Continental’ philosophy. But philosophy departments in the ethics, politics and aesthetics, but also the schools or movements that held sway in the it was never really a purely descriptive” Stephen Mulhall discusses and questions English-speaking world appeared metaphysical propositions and projects of the continent of Europe (primarily in Germany category; anyone trained (as I was) within the F to believe that they had to Western philosophical tradition. So philosophy and France) from the death of Kant (at the philosophical culture that deployed it knew that the basis for the division between ‘analytic’ choose between two very different traditions could justify its own continued beginning of the nineteenth century) to the it was a term of disapprobation, and at the limit and ‘Continental’ Philosophy or approaches to the subject, called the only by restricting itself to winnowing out present day. It thus includes German Idealism a term of abuse. For it tended to be assumed ‘analytic’ and the ‘Continental’, with most the meaningless from the meaningful, and (especially Hegel), Marxism, Nietzsche, (and not always without justification, or at least choosing to see themselves as ‘analytic’. analysing in further detail the logical structure (from Kierkegaard to Sartre provocation) that ‘Continental’ philosophers not And yet, a moment’s examination of these of scientific propositions. and Camus), Phenomenology (from Husserl only did not do philosophy ‘our’ way, they did labels is enough to raise suspicions about the to Heidegger, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty), it in such a way as to threaten the integrity of usefulness of this division. For they define one Political developments in Europe during Critical Theory (especially the work of Adorno, the subject: their querying of the significance approach in terms of allegiance to a certain the 1930s led many of the leading logical Horkheimer and Habermas), Deconstruction of logical theory was taken as a rejection of method (that of analysis of language), and positivists to flee to America, thereby (Derrida), and so on. ‘Analytic’ philosophy rational standards, and their willingness to the other in terms of a geographical location: embedding their version of analytic could usefully be compared with any one of speak metaphysically was taken as a willing compared this to an attempt philosophy into this new cultural context, these schools or movements, each of which is embrace of obfuscation and nonsense. to divide all cars into front-wheel drive and just as Wittgenstein began to criticise held together by certain shared commitments; ‘Continental’ philosophy was thus a kind of Japanese. This peculiar cross- the of the Tractatus and but it makes no sense at all to compare it anti-philosophy, what Plato would have called also obscures the fact that many of the most develop a wholly new way of engaging with all of them – as if there were some set of ‘sophistry’. Little wonder that passions were so influential members of the ‘analytic’ tradition in philosophical inquiry. In his later work, commitments that every one of them shared. deeply stirred not long ago, when Cambridge came from Continental Europe. How could epitomised in the posthumously published University proposed to award an honorary such a patently misbegotten dichotomy have Philosophical Investigations (1953), he So it’s not at all surprising that ‘Continental’ degree to Derrida, and many of the members taken on such powerful institutional and cultural regarded philosophical clarity (whether about philosophers never identified themselves as of the Philosophy Faculty there led a campaign life? language or about whatever language might such; rather like the idea of a ‘Continental against it. itself be about) as something to be attained by breakfast’, the idea of ‘Continental’ philosophy The ‘analytic’ tradition took off at the end of means of a careful of our ordinary is one used primarily by those outside the Nowadays, passions run less high. Anglo- the nineteenth century in Cambridge from practices of employing words. Wittgenstein’s cultures to whose products it refers. It is, in American philosophy retains a real concern revolutionary developments in logical theory later work in this way seemed to dovetail short, essentially an invention of ‘analytic’ for plainness, rigour and clarity of expression; initiated by Frege and Russell, which were with that of J.L. Austin in Oxford, and brought philosophers, and applies to anything and but it is far more aware of the historical then applied (with the help of G.E. Moore about the brief hegemony of what became everything in the post-Kantian philosophical specificity of its ‘analytic’ influences and so and Wittgenstein) to the field of philosophy. known as ‘ordinary language philosophy’. scene that is not ‘analytic’ philosophy far more likely to question that movement’s These philosophers believed that their new Its dominance was ultimately ended by the (including those few British and American basic commitments – with the result that work analytical tools not only provided a better importation from America (in the 1960s and philosophy departments who stubbornly in moral and political philosophy is flourishing, understanding of the nature of valid inference, 1970s) of arguments and ideas associated maintained a ‘Continental’ allegiance). Since metaphysics is once more an intellectually but also revealed the fundamental structure of with Quine and Davidson, ideas that were Moore and Russell’s founding of ‘analytic’ serious enterprise, and a plurality of methods language and thought; and this in turn revealed themselves both developments of and critical philosophy had involved them in a campaign is evident. As a result, a generation of Anglo- that perennial philosophical problems about the reactions to the earlier American importation of against versions of Hegelian Idealism which American philosophers has emerged whose nature of reality were confusions based on a , and that put in question any had controlled the academic high ground in members find it easier to draw useful ideas misunderstanding of our means of representing attempt sharply to distinguish the normative Oxford and Cambridge for decades, sensitivity and approaches from the various ‘Continental’ that reality. structure of language from its empirical content to ‘Continental’ influences was always likely traditions without either feeling (or risking – a distinction without which it appeared that to linger. And it’s true that many ‘Continental’ accusations) that they have betrayed their Wittgenstein’s version of these ideas, neither logical positivism nor ordinary language philosophers did (although each in different calling. The day when we can write philosophy presented in the Tractatus Logico- philosophy could continue to defend its ways) reject commitments central to the as if the division between ‘analytic’ and Philosophicus (1921), led a group of methods. And at this point, ‘analytic’ philosophy ‘analytic’ tradition – by questioning the priority ‘Continental’ no longer has any institutional philosophers calling themselves the Vienna began to fragment into a diverse array of of logical analysis, by pursuing avowedly purchase is certainly not yet here; but at least it Circle to create the movement known as different projects. metaphysical (and so purportedly meaningless) is now a rather more realistic aspiration. ‘logical positivism’. They held that a projects or taking them seriously enough to could be meaningful only if it were possible The story of ‘analytic’ philosophy is relatively engage in critical dialogue with them (and so in principle to verify it (and so to falsify it). easy to summarize (however crudely) because presenting the history of the subject as an The propositions of natural science passed it makes sense to regard it as a distinctive essential context for its current work), or by Stephen Mulhall is Professor of Philosophy and this test, and the propositions of mathematics school or movement – a collective enterprise aligning philosophy more with the humanities Fellow of New College. His publications include: and logic were also acceptable since they held together by shared commitments and social theory than with the natural Heidegger and Being and Time (1996), Wittgenstein’s articulated analytic (that is, they to certain methods and doctrines which sciences. Private Language (2006), and The Wounded Animal: J.M.Coetzee and the Difficulty of Reality (2009). were true by virtue of the meanings of their developed over time, but only within certain constituent terms); but all other kinds of limits. But no such story can be told of In that sense, there is a minimal (although proposition failed it and so were condemned ‘Continental philosophy’, because that label essentially negative) descriptive content as meaningless. This condemnation included

14 15 With his family. Lady Ann Dummett passed away in February 2012. A joint memorial service was held in New College Obituary Chapel in June 2012.

ichael Dummett was a staunch advocate of Indeed, Dummett seemed to be constitutionally at universities around the world. He gave “analytic” philosophy, the fundamental tenet incapable of undertaking anything half- several of the most prestigious lecture series in of which he took to be that “the philosophy heartedly. Not only was similar commitment philosophy, including the lectures Mof language is the foundation of all other manifest in the way he lived out his at in 1976 and the Dewey philosophy”. He also once characterised it as “post- Christianity (he converted to Catholicism lectures at Columbia University in 2002. He Fregean philosophy”, the 19th-century German philosopher when he was a young man) and in the was elected a fellow of the British Academy in having done as much as anyone to treat the tireless way in which he opposed racism in 1968, later settling his differences and being re- in this way. Much of Dummett’s all its forms, there was even evidence of it elected in 1995. In 1966 he chaired the Oxford own work was accordingly devoted to the interpretation in his recreational interest in the history of Committee for Racial Integration, of which he and exposition of Frege’s ideas, and he will be as well card games. had been a founder member the previous year. remembered for his exegesis of Frege as he will for his own In 1966–67 he was a member of the executive seminal contributions to analytic philosophy. Dummett was uncompromising in his committee of the Campaign Against Racial convictions. This often led to bruising Discrimination, and in 1970–71 chairman of the Frege held that the way in which the words in a encounters with opponents. But Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants. combine reflects the structure of the thought that the sentence although his opposition to another expresses. In the sentence “Michael smokes,” a proper person’s views could occasionally His first major publication, Frege: Philosophy name combines with a verb so as to express the thought that spill over into opposition to that other of Language (1973), appeared when he was at a particular person, Michael, indulges in a particular activity, person, his sole motivation was a the comparatively ripe age of 48. One reason smoking. This thought is true if Michael does in fact smoke, and desire to see truth prevail. why it had not appeared earlier was that he had false otherwise. made a conscious decision to pursue what he He also took great pleasure in the good conceived as his duty to oppose the racism that On this apparently innocuous and simple basis, Frege erected things in life, and had a wonderfully had become manifest in Britain. He completed Dummett’s many non-philosophical an elaborate set of ideas that have had an immense influence. infectious sense of humour. He was the book when he reluctantly concluded that publications included books on immigration, Nevertheless, Dummett believed that Frege made certain always a generous and inspirational he no longer had any significant contribution to Catholicism, cards, and voting procedures assumptions concerning truth and falsehood that could be teacher. He never lectured twice on make to the fight and felt justified in returning (he devised the Quota Borda system of voting), called into question. Frege allowed for the possibility of a exactly the same material, preferring to to “more abstract matters of much less as well as Grammar and Style for Examination thought that was neither true nor false. An example would be maintain as much freshness as possible importance to anyone’s happiness or future”. Candidates and Others (1993), the culmination the thought that Father Christmas smokes. Given that there in his delivery. It was impossible to hear He commented in the book’s preface on the of his relentless fight against low standards of is no such person as Father Christmas, then neither is there him lecture and not to have a profound deep shock of having discovered, some years literacy. That fight occasionally found amusing anything to make this thought true or false. But Frege was sense of thought in action. He would previously, that Frege himself, whom he had expression in his other work. His last book on not in the least reluctant to admit that a thought could be pace up and down, cigarette in hand, always revered “as an absolutely rational man”, Frege included a delicious footnote in which, true or false without our having any way of telling which. An pausing periodically to formulate in his was a virulent racist. “From [this discovery],” he having forestalled a possible misunderstanding example might be the thought that Plato would have enjoyed own mind how best to proceed, referring wrote, “I learned something about human of one of the sentences in the main text, smoking. This is what caused Dummett to pause. only occasionally, if at all, to his notes. which I should be sorry not to know; perhaps he went on to lament the fact that the only The upshot would always be a beautifully something about Europe, also.” Several other reason for the note was that few writers or He did not see how we could understand a sentence structured and wonderfully conceived books on Frege followed: The Interpretation of publishers nowadays “evince a grasp of the without having some way of manifesting our argument in which ideas about the most Frege’s Philosophy (1981), a defence of the distinction between a gerund and a participle”. understanding. And he did not see how we could manifest abstract topics were seamlessly woven main ideas of the earlier book; Frege and Other He continued, with characteristic tetchiness: this without being able to tell whether the thought together. Philosophers (1991), a collection of essays; “People frequently remark that they see no expressed was true or false. So the assumption that a and Frege: Philosophy of Mathematics (1993), point in observing grammatical rules, so long given thought could be true or false even though we had In supervisions with his graduate students, the long-awaited sequel to the first book, which as they convey their . This is like no way of telling which – an assumption that Dummett he was similarly intent on the issues, but with Dummett had originally intended to publish saying that there is nothing wrong with using called “realism” concerning the thought – was immediately an additional determination to see what his along with it as a single volume. a razor blade to cut string, so long as the problematical. students were getting at. He inspired not string is cut. By violating the rules, they make only great philosophy but great affection. He also wrote Elements of it difficult for others to express their meaning Not that Dummett flatly denied this assumption; his point (1977), on the intuitionist school in logic and without .” was only that it needed justification. He was issuing a Born in London, Dummett was educated mathematics; The Logical Basis of Metaphysics challenge. Although the challenge was something close to at Sandroyd school in Wiltshire; (1991), a systematic of his own most Some readers of Dummett would say that it a lifelong crusade, he undoubtedly retained a sympathy for Winchester College; and Christ Church, basic ideas; The Origins of Analytic Philosophy was ironic that he was so preoccupied with realism. It was as if he was engaged in a continual internal Oxford, where he graduated with a first (1993), in which he emphasised the significance style, since his own prose left much to be struggle with himself. Furthermore, it is hard to escape the in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics of Frege to the analytic movement; Truth and desired. It is true that his sentences often Michael Dummett feeling that this in turn had something to do with his deep in 1950, having served in the Royal the Past (2004), in which he applied some of displayed a rather unwieldy complexity. But religious convictions, many of which may well have had a Artillery and Intelligence Corps in India his basic ideas to claims that we make about they also displayed an acute sensitivity to realist cast which the philosopher in him found problematical. and Malaya from 1943 to 1947. Upon the past; Thought and Reality (2006), in which the structure of the thoughts that they were 1925-2011 graduating, he was elected to a fellowship he set out his views about anti-realism; and intended to convey; and that fact, combined It is certainly true that, although he rarely made explicit at All Souls, Oxford. He remained there The Nature and Future of Philosophy (2010), with the precision with which Dummett chose contributions to the philosophy of religion, what he did write until 1979, when he was elected to the in which he gave a succinct account of his his words, meant that there was a real clarity was often motivated by religious concerns. One topic about Wykeham Professorship of Logic and a conception of his discipline. about his writing, however lacking it might which he wrote a great deal, for example, was the possibility of fellowship at New College. He retired in have been in facility. The writing was in some Sir Michael Dummett, who died last year backward causation. Certainly, his interest in this derived from 1992. He received the Lakatos award in Many of his numerous articles were respects like the man – marked by honesty aged 86, was one of the greatest British an interest in the efficacy of retrospective prayer. the philosophy of science in 1994, was anthologised in Truth and Other Enigmas and integrity, though it could at times be awarded the Rolf Schock prize for logic and (1978) and The Seas of Language (1993). The difficult. philosophers of the 20th century. He was No one who witnessed Dummett engage in debate could philosophy in 1995, was knighted in 1999, reverence with which he approached Frege’s also an international authority on tarot fail to be struck by the passion with which he upheld his and was awarded the Lauener prize for an ideas, and the irritation and puzzlement with Michael Anthony Eardley Dummett, philosophical views. Nor could anyone who came into outstanding oeuvre in analytical philosophy which he often approached the ideas of other philosopher, born 27 June 1925; died 27 cards, a campaigner for racial justice, professional contact with him fail to be struck by the passion in 2010. philosophers, prompted one reviewer of the December 2011 and a devoted family man. with which he defended all that was precious to him in collection Frege and Other Philosophers to academia. In 1984, for example, he resigned from the British Throughout his career he held numerous remark that Dummett seemed to regard the A. W. Moore, Professor of Philosophy and Academy, partly because of his belief that it had failed in its additional academic posts, including a parallel between the title of that collection and Fellow of St Hugh’s College (by permission of duty to defend universities against funding cuts. Readership in the Philosophy of Mathematics the earlier collection Truth and Other Enigmas ) at Oxford and various visiting positions “as more than just a parallel”.

Visconti-Sforza Tarot Cards 16 17 Transatlantic Tributes Master Class Shortly after his death the New York Times New York University and the University of Aberdeen blog, Opinionator, ran a series of reflections Philosophers are chiefly and smoking incessantly using on Dummett’s life and work assembled by remembered for what they a cigarette holder which, along Professors Ernie Lepore of Rutgers University wrote, but my personal memory with the pens, he lodged between and Simon Critchley of The New School. We of Michael Dummett is of a very his fingers – we waited for him to reprint a sample below. challenging but very supportive put one of the pens in his mouth supervisor and a superb lecturer. and take a drag, or inadvertently In 1971 I was lucky enough to extinguish his cigarette with a attend one run of the course spurt from the eraser, but it never that subsequently became happened. A Half Century his 1977 book Elements of Intuitionism. Dummett liked to The lectures contained a Professor Emeritus, Harvard University use the then newfangled white wealth of detail, both technical I met Michael Dummett in 1960, were important, and calling boards, on which he wrote using and philosophical. Dummett’s when I elected to spend the first them “important” is a huge variously colored water-soluble erudition was remarkable – his months of some leave at Oxford. understatement. Still more With pens, erasing by means of a undergraduate background had That was the beginning of a recently our philosophical contraption that combined the been in PPE, and his grasp friendship that lasted more than trajectories began to diverge No Shortage of Problems qualities of a water pistol with of logic and mathematics had 50 years, and the news of his again, and I am saddened that a square of blotting paper. He been almost entirely self-taught. death was devastating. At the there won’t be more exchanges Columbia University and University College, London lectured with an extraordinary But my abiding memory is of beginning we differed strongly in between us. fluency, hardly ever referring the passion of his delivery, the philosophy (I began my stay at Wittgenstein once complained literature, and I’ll assume you’ve to his notes, at the same determination to get things right, Oxford by giving a lecture titled Apart from realism and that Russell suffered from “loss read it too: so just write new stuff time producing highly legible, and the sense he radiated of the “Do True Sentences Correspond antirealism, our discussions of problems.” No one could say for me each week.” multicolored text on the board deep interest of the issues and to Reality” that was about as far touched on many topics, Smoke and Milk that about Michael Dummett. almost as fast as he could the huge importance of thinking from Dummettian views as it is including the importance of Tim Crane He identified new problems, The gap between Michael’s speak it, spraying, smudging about them well. possible to go); later, when I was fighting racism, an area in University of Cambridge and they were always deep. His theory and his practical life was and erasing as he went along, writing what became Reason, which Michael was exemplary, treatment of the justification of a reliable source of pleasure to Truth and History, I came very not just as a thinker, but as a I met Michael Dummett only take off his shoes before joining deduction initiated discussions his friends. He published original much under his influence. There human being. In addition to our once, though I don’t think he the procession. This intense, continuing to this day. Depth and contributions to the theory of were still disagreements, but he philosophical conversations, met me. I was in a pub in Oxford uncompromising seriousness is intensity were also present in voting; yet he designed a system told me that the important thing Michael’s loving nature, and his sometime in the 1980s, and also manifest in his philosophical his philosophical conversation. for a Wardenship election in was that another philosopher total informality are what I best Dummett came in and asked writing. He devoted the same energy to Oxford that permitted – and he respected recognized that remember. Michael Dummett the barman for “40 Benson discussion with students as he produced – massive tactical the questions he had raised cared about ideas, he cared & Hedges, please” in a real Those who knew him say he had did to his public engagements voting. He published a book about people, he cared about smoker’s voice. I recognized a jovial side too. When I saw him with his famous contemporaries on writing style in philosophy, society, and he rightly connected him, of course: I was a graduate in that pub many years later, I Quine and Davidson. He an enterprise described by one caring about any one of the three student in philosophy and a real was waiting to be served while was unstinting with his time. philosopher as comparable to and caring about the other two. philosophy nerd. the barman found Dummett his I sometimes appeared at his Attila the Hun producing a book cigarettes. Dummett pointed home expecting an hour’s on etiquette. But his anti-racism But I also recognized him to a on the bar that said supervision session, stayed for work, and efforts on behalf of because when I was a child I “draught milk.” “Draught milk? lunch, talked philosophy while immigrants, was effective and used to attend the same church Is that a joke?” he cackled. Michael drove his wife to the much admired. as he did. I was brought up I smiled enthusiastically, but station, and returned for more, Catholic and my family went to was completely lost for words. leaving only at dusk. I visited Michael in Oxford the Dominican priory (Blackfriars) It was only later that I learned four years ago, and he told in Oxford. Blackfriars was the story of how Dummett had His well-intentioned advice could me that he had written his last politically liberal but liturgically met Wittgenstein at Elizabeth be formidable. He told me, as piece of philosophy. I took the conservative, a combination Anscombe’s house in Oxford. a 22 year-old, at the start of a opportunity to say he should which I think suited Dummett. Wittgenstein had only said one series of supervisions on Frege, be pleased about what he had I have memories of him as a thing to him: “Do you know on whose work he was then written in his life. He replied, rather frightening figure, with where the milk is?” Dummett did the world expert: “I know the “Yes, I certainly am!” his huge head and white hair not know. stained yellow at the front. What sticks in my mind is that on I like the fact that these two Good Friday, when there was the meetings over milk linked me traditional “veneration” (kissing) to Dummett, and Dummett to The tributes reprinted here are courtesy and copyright of the New York Times. of the cross, Dummett would Wittgenstein. The entire series appeared at: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/remembering-michael-dummett

18 19 Focus Time Line 1913-2013: 100 Years of Philosophy of Psychiatry

Publication of Karl Jaspers’s Allgemeine Psychopathologie 1913 J. L. Austin points to psychopathology as a rich resource for philosophers 1957 Right on Carl Hempel makes a key contribution to modern psychiatric classifications 1959 Anti-psychiatrists challenge empiricist medical conceptions of mental disorder Oxford philosophers (Glover, Farrell, 1960s Quinton and Wilkes) publish in philosophy Four psychiatrists (Fulford, Gillett, Hundert and Oxford Philosophy and of psychiatry Reznek) complete philosophy DPhils 1970/80s First national conference, The Atom in the Philosophy of Psychiatry Mind, Rhodes House, Oxford 1990 First European conference held at St Catherine’s College 1991 1994: First issue of Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology (PPP) 1994 by Bill (K.W.M.) Fulford First Academic Department and Chair Q (at Warwick University) 1995

First International Conference (in Spain) s we approach next year’s centenary of the publication of other institutions that were launched at this time. The McDonnell-Pew 1996 First joint conference of clinicians, philosophers and Karl Jaspers’ Allgemeine Psychopathologie it is fitting that we seminars, in bringing together for the first time philosophers not only with service users (Dallas) should celebrate the many contributions of Oxford philosophy neuroscientists and clinicians but also with service users, were a vital 1997 to the rapidly expanding field of philosophy of psychiatry. ‘proof of product’ for practice: and Faculty members have continued to First joint research (McDonnell-Pew Centre for A Cognitive Neuroscience, Oxford) play leading roles in the increasingly dynamic interplay between theory 1999 John Campbell, Martin Davies and others start There is much to celebrate. At the time of writing no fewer than fifteen and practice by which the philosophy of psychiatry has come to be publishing on delusion Faculty members are currently working in areas directly or indirectly characterised. Values-based Practice developed - Fulford, 2000 relevant to psychiatry and its underpinning sciences; a successful DPhil Woodbridge, Williamson (Sainsbury Centre, London) scholarship generously funded by the Laces Trust; the publication of All this has not come out of the blue. Martin Davies in his article in OUP book series launched (International the 50th volume in the OUP book series, International Perspectives the 2011 edition of this magazine reminded us of Oxford philosophy’s 2001 Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry) in Philosophy and Psychiatry (the Oxford Handbook is due out next century-long tradition of inter-disciplinary work between philosophy and year); the appointment of a Mellon Career Development Fellow; and our psychology. It was natural therefore that if the philosophy of psychiatry Department of Health take up 2002 recently announced summer school with the Department for Continuing were to emerge anywhere, Oxford would be in the thick of it. But Values-based Practice Education in Mind, Value, and Mental Health. given Jaspers’ strong lead, it is perhaps surprising that (Continental 2003 phenomenology aside) contact between philosophy and psychiatry Oxford Textbook of Philosophy and National and international groups proliferate There is much to celebrate also in our track record. As the timeline for much of the 20th century was to say the least sporadic. So, the 2004 opposite indicates, present and past Faculty question is, why? Why Oxford and why in the Psychiatry published members have played key roles at each 1970s/1980s? 2006 Tim Bayne (working on delusion and self-deception) stage in the progress of the new field. Brian joins St Catherine’s College Farrell, Jonathan Glover, R.M. Hare, Rom Part at least of the answer is suggested by 2007 Harré, Bill Newton-Smith, Kathleen Wilkes the recent work of two American sociologists, The Oxford Centre for Neuroethics and Mary and Geoffrey Warnock were all in No fewer than fifteen Brian Uzzi and Jarrett Spiro, on the social established First Laces DPhil Scholarship awarded at the start in the 1970s and 1980s with path- context of creativity. Most creativity research 2008 finding publications and as supervisors of no Faculty members has focussed on the psychology of individual Several international seminars less than four psychiatrists who completed genius. Uzzi and Spiro showed that, 2008 in philosophy of psychiatry held Oxford doctorates over this period. These are currently working important as individual genius undoubtedly in Oxford and other Oxford philosophers went on to is, creative individuals rarely flourish unless 2010 Hanna Pickard awarded Department of make vital contributions to kick starting the in areas directly or they are part of a social group with the Appointment of Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Health contract for prison officer training expansion of the field in the 1990s through appropriate amount of a they Philosophy of Psychiatry, Matthew Parrott 2012 their generous support for the academic and indirectly relevant christened ‘Q’.

EDITED BY First International Oxford Summer School in Philosophy and KWM FulForD

american MarTIn 2012

to psychiatry and its The Oxford Handbook of DavIEs rIcharD The Oxford Handbook of Psychiatry. Three workshops on philosophy of psychiatry in GIpps Publication of GEorGE GrahaM John PH il saDlEr Philosophy and Psychiatry collaboration with the Mental Health Foundation. GIovannI sTanGhEllInI O TIM underpinning sciences. s 2013

OPH y ThornTon

The Oxford Handbook of PHilOsOPHy and PsycHiaTry 20 21 Q in Action

Q is essentially a measure of inter- Q is a measure of The appropriate level of Q also nicely Seminar Series Summer School connectedness or social intimacy: too little explains the truly exponential expansion of inter-connectedness and creativity falls inter-connectedness the philosophy of psychiatry in the 1990s. apart for lack of checks and balances; too As the time line indicates many and diverse or social intimacy: too Meaning and Mindedness: Philosophy and Psychiatry: much inter-connectedness and creativity groups and individuals around the world, Encounters between Philosophy Mind, Value, and Mental Health disappears into a black hole of mutual working in-group but also out-group, were and Psychoanalysis self-validation. Q thus requires a Goldilocks little and creativity falls important here. The philosophy of psychiatry balance of in-group connectedness and out- apart; too much and has indeed been remarkable (if in no other Tavistock Clinic, London St Catherine’s College, Oxford group openness. ways) for the extent to which instead of November 2012 - June 2013 14 - 19 July 2013 creativity disappears. breaking up into tribal factions, it has held Q certainly describes the best of Oxford together as a collegial venture. Yet attention philosophy. The Goldilocks balance was to Q also carries a warning. For the very Presented by the Faculty of Philosophy evident in the 1970s and 1980s in the success of philosophy of psychiatry, with its and the Department for Continuing openness shown by Faculty members to DPhil students from Psychiatry; remarkable expansion into so many and disparate areas, renders it now Education, this event will explore the institutionally too there were strong links between Philosophy and vulnerable to falling apart from lack of cohesive inter-connectedness. Edward Harcourt areas in which the Michael Gelder’s (at the time recently established) Department of Electronic networking may help to restore the Goldilocks balance. But Fellow of Keble College and ethics come into contact with issues Psychiatry. The inter-disciplinary McDonnell-Pew seminars, similarly, one way or another, what is now needed, so Uzzi and Spiro’s model concerning mental health. were co-hosted with Warwick University and the Institute of Psychiatry suggests, is a node, a centre, a hub. It is our hope and expectation that Three years ago I gave able to work together in a in London. The current Faculty is again good on Q with many individuals Oxford has the right amount of Q to be that place. a talk at the Institute of different way. That is the working out-group as well as in-group and with established institutional Psychoanalysis in London. point of the Meaning and partners representing expertise both in core scientific areas and at the At least one person in the Mindedness seminar, funded The summer school will be led by members cutting edge of contemporary mental health policy and practice. audience – consultant initially by the Wellcome Trust of Oxford’s Faculty of Philosophy: psychiatrist Sarah Majid – and the third series of which Martin Davies must have been listening will begin in the autumn. Bill Fulford because she got in touch Some of the most interesting Edward Harcourt afterwards and asked if I topics in moral psychology had any ideas for some – irrationality, the emotions, interdisciplinary work we psychic conflict, autonomy, International guest speakers include: might do together at the empathy – are topics on Chris Frith (UCL) Profile Tavistock Clinic, where which both philosophers and George Graham (Georgia State University) she was then also a psychoanalysts have much Terence Irwin () psychotherapist in the Adult to say. Giovanni Stanghellini (University of Chieti) Department. My answer was Bill (K.W.M.) Fulford is value theory on which his first Africa he launched the INPP an enthusiastic ‘yes’. The seminar, which has Distinguished Research Fellow book, Moral Theory and Medical (International Network for been addressed by several in the Uehiro Centre for Practical Practice, is based. He went on Philosophy and Psychiatry) from On the whole philosophy and Oxford philosophers including To register your interest in this summer school Ethics, University of Oxford, to become a leading figure in Cape Town in 1995 which has psychoanalysis meet on a Anita Avramides and Hanna please email [email protected] and Emeritus Professor of the development of the teaching supported a series of annual very unequal footing, with Pickard, aims to get them Residential and non-residential options are available. Philosophy and Mental Health and research infrastructure of international conferences philosophers the students and to say it in one another’s in the University of Warwick philosophy of psychiatry. He (www.inpponline.org). psychoanalysts the objects presence, in a language Medical School. He is also a set up the first institution-based Building on his DPhil and of study. Understandably intelligible beyond their own Visiting Professor at the Institute academic organization (The subsequent work in philosophical psychoanalysts tire quite professional constituency of Psychiatry in London and in Royal College of Psychiatrists value theory Bill has developed quickly of being someone – and to try and make the Faculty of Health Sciences Philosophy Group), the first ‘chair’ a skills-based approach to else’s laboratory animals so something usable by both at Pretoria University. He held (the Philosophy and Ethics of working with complex and the ‘interdisciplinary’ study professions out of what an Honorary Consultant post in Mental Health (PEMH) teaching conflicting values in health care soon gets carried on with happens next. the Department of Psychiatry and research programme at called values-based practice. only philosophers present. and a Fellowship by Special Warwick University) and the first As a Special Advisor to the Investigations of this kind Election at St Cross College until DPhil scholarship, the Laces Department of Health in London, have also tended to be Meaning and Mindedness: his retirement from clinical work Scholarship in the Faculty of Bill led on the development of limited to methodology (‘is Encounters between earlier this year. Philosophy in Oxford. He is values-based practice in key psychoanalysis a science?’) Philosophy and Bill Fulford Founder Editor of the journal, areas of policy and practice in or the credentials of this or Psychoanalysis will run at the While a Lecturer in the University PPP – Philosophy, Psychiatry mental health. With colleagues at that psychoanalytic . Tavistock Clinic, part of the Department of Psychiatry in the & Psychology, and of the OUP Warwick he is currently extending These are not bad things to Tavistock and Portman NHS 1970s Bill completed a DPhil book series IPPP – International the approach to other areas of investigate, but good answers Foundation Trust, London, with Mary and Geoffrey Warnock Perspectives in Philosophy and healthcare (see go.warwick. to them were given some time from November 2012-June and RM Hare on of Psychiatry. With colleagues ac.uk/values-basedpractice). ago (for example by Brian 2013, usually on the last disorder and philosophical in America, and South Farrell) and their continued Friday of the month. hogging of the airwaves has obscured the possibility For further details see: that psychoanalysts and www.tavistockandportman. philosophers might also be ac.uk/cpd15

22 23 The altruistically minded Feature should take positions of power and wealth – 80,000 Hours exactly those positions High Impact Ethical Careers Charity that aren’t normally Will Crouch regarded as ‘ethical’ – of the so that they have more Wise “Make a .” That’s a common slogan in the public discourse around power to do good. Over the past few years, recent Oxford Philosophy DPhil and current Postdoctoral Research Fellow, ‘ethical’ careers. But it’s an odd slogan, in Toby Ord, and current DPhil student Will Crouch have been at the forefront of two initiatives that two ways. First, it doesn’t tell you to make a combine philosophical reflection with their enthusiasm for promoting charitable giving. positive difference – literally speaking, one can make a difference by killing someone; but that doesn’t make murder ethical. (I that. Some ten times as effective again, a society of members who have made a should note, though, that the British army Giving What We Can and the very best are ten times as effective lifetime pledge to donate at least 10% of advertises itself with the slogan ‘make as this. By donating to the most effective their income to wherever they each think it a difference’ – perhaps exploiting this interventions, one’s money can achieve can do the most to help people in developing loophole.) Second, and more importantly, ten thousand times the benefit that it countries. Our volunteers also perform the ‘a’ seems strange. When there are so would achieve if spent on the less effective research on the ethics of poverty and on many ways to ‘make a difference’ in the interventions, and more than ten thousand which charities are the most effective, world, shouldn’t we focus on what’s best? times as much benefit if spent on oneself. sharing this with the public and advising I tried to take this question seriously, and governments and NGOs. asked myself: what careers enable one to I had always been interested in ethics for make the most difference? Toby Ord the purpose of finding out how to live my Two years later, Giving What We Can has life and so this combination of philosophical more than 200 members, pledging to donate As part of my research at Oxford, I began and empirical research on poverty led me to a combined £46 million over their careers. giving lectures on the topic and wrote a In Michaelmas of 2004 I stood change my behaviour. I decided to donate While our members and volunteers come paper addressing this question. What I apprehensively in the foyer to the all of my income above a fixed threshold to from all walks of life, academic philosophy is had to say was somewhat controversial. Philosophy Faculty, reading through the list help people living in developing countries. very well represented, including particularly Most ethical careers advice involves of BPhil examination questions that had just As I talked with my fellow students about prominent members such as encouraging graduates to work for charities been pinned to the noticeboard. Amidst a this decision, several of them thought that and Thomas Pogge, as well as a host of or environmentally-minded firms, through group of very theoretical questions for the this was the right response to the compelling members and active volunteers from the which one is directly helping others. In Ethics paper, was the following: theoretical arguments and decided to join JCRs, MCRs, and SCRs of Oxford. I think general, however, these are relatively low- me in this endeavour. that Giving What We Can serves as an paying jobs, in which one has little influence; ‘Ought I to forego some luxury whenever I example of what philosophers can achieve and so one effect of this advice is that it’s positive difference you would make as a pursuing tech entrepreneurship, generally can and thereby enable someone else’s life I honed these ideas during my BPhil when putting theory into practice, and I hope the self-interested and ruthless that take professional philanthropist would not have with a pledge to donate 50% or more of their to be saved?’ and DPhil, and founded an organization that many others will join in, or develop positions of power and wealth in society. I happened anyway. earnings. Some are seeking positions of called Giving What We Can, dedicated to their own initiatives around other important argued that the altruistically minded should influence, such as within politics. Others are Phrased so, it seemed difficult to deny. effectively fighting poverty. At its core it is philosophical ideas. take positions of power and wealth – exactly I found that many students, as well as pursuing high value research. However, I could see the connection to Peter those positions that aren’t normally regarded those at the Oxford Careers Service, got Singer’s work on the ethics of global poverty. as ‘ethical’ – so that they have more power excited about this idea of a ‘high impact’ A question I often get asked is: what about We in rich countries often spend money on to do good. In particular, I argued that ethical career. So I founded an organization, my path? Can philosophy be a high impact luxuries that could instead be used to save one could do far more good by pursuing a called 80,000 Hours (roughly the number ethical career? Perhaps surprisingly, I think it people’s lives in poor countries. Is it wrong to lucrative career in the City and donating a of hours we typically spending working can. We know very little about what the best do so? Does this imply that we are morally substantial proportion of one’s earnings – a in life), in order to provide a community ways of doing good in the world are. We required to have no luxuries in our lives? route I call ‘professional philanthropy’ – than for those that wished to pursue such a know that we face many problems – climate by working in the charitable sector. This career. The organization turned out to be change, global poverty, animal suffering – I chose this as one of my two Ethics might seem surprising. But, by working in far more successful than I had expected. but very little work has been done on how to questions and as I answered it, I was the City, you’ll typically earn enough that There was a major launch in Oxford and a prioritise these problems in order to find out drawn into the wider discussion on the you can pay for several charity workers to succession of events; I was interviewed by what is most important; and even less has ethics of global poverty. I also explored the take your place. And, importantly, if you John Humphrys on the Today program and been done on how one can most effectively academic research on the effectiveness don’t become that charity worker, someone featured on BBC news on-line; and I was lead an altruistic life. As a philosopher one of aid to see how strong the empirical else will take that job instead of you, doing invited by Peter Singer to speak for his class can address these questions and others of premise was. It turns out that there are very the same good work that you would have on Practical Ethics at Princeton. equal importance; and, especially at Oxford, wide discrepancies in the effectiveness done. But if you decide against professional one has the ability to spread these ideas of different aid interventions. Some philanthropy, then, though another worker 80,000 Hours now has over 80 members, among the brightest young minds in the interventions are ten times as effective as will take your place, they will likely donate all of whom are putting these ideas into country. It’s a powerful opportunity. others. Some are ten times as effective as far less than you would have done. So the practice. Some are entering the city or

24 25 Lectures

New World Philosophical Idealism in America

Kenneth P. Winkler, 2012 Isaiah Berlin Visiting Professor in the History of Ideas, Atells us about the series of lectures that he delivered.

Listen to the lectures at www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/lectures/isaiah_berlin_lectures

t is well-known that at the turn of the T.H. Green's time absolute idealism has been real strengthened me in two convictions: it He used continuous creation – or, more of the Force; if it sees in human philosophy, particularly in Kant, all three twentieth century, Oxford was awash decidedly in the ascendent at Oxford. It is gave me metaphysical and philosophical precisely, the successiveness of what we action only the necessary issues of a foreign returned to the argument from continuous in philosophical idealism. It's less in the ascendent at my own university of grounding for the idea of a personal God, now call a body's temporal parts – to argue impulse? The doctrine that God is the only creation or successive existence and gave it a Iwell-known that the same was true of Harvard." In view of idealism's turn-of-the- and it gave me a metaphysical basis for the that bodies have what he called "a merely Substance, which is Pantheism, differs little new, more everyday hero: not the arbitrary will universities and colleges in the United States. century predominance, it isn't surprising that at dignity and worth of all human personality." dependent ." "There is no identity or from the doctrine that God is the only active of an omnipotent God, but (to quote Bowne) In 1950, the historian Henry Steele Commager first, pragmatists on both sides of the Atlantic, In between Edwards and King, my lectures oneness in the case," he maintained, "but what power of the universe. For what is substance the "constitutive and synthesizing intelligence" called "almost the official most notably Oxford's F.C.S. Schiller, put examined Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry depends on the arbitrary constitution of the without power?" of the human mind – a mind to which the philosophy of America." He may have been pragmatism forward as a form of idealism – David Thoreau, Josiah Royce, and the two Creator; who by his sovereign establishment argument could not be re-applied (or so they all right about mid-century America, but for almost what they called personal idealism. leading personalists of the turn of the twentieth so unites these successive new effects, that he Channing's successors, Emerson among them, insisted), because its existence, in their view, 250 years before that, if America had an official century: Borden Parker Bowne (the teacher of treats them as one, by communicating to them sought an idealism that allowed for free and did not lie in succession. philosophy, it was idealism. And at the turn of My Berlin lectures were an exploration of King's teacher Edgar Sheffield Brightman), and like properties, , and circumstances; independent human spirits. Hence Emerson, the twentieth century in particular, idealism the idealist tradition in America, from its George Holmes Howison, the first professor and so, leads us to regard and treat them as in "all [his] lectures, ... taught," as he said, Coming to terms with the relationship between was, as one well-placed observer put it, "in the beginnings in the early eighteenth century (in of philosophy at the University of California, one." (Princeton philosopher Mark Johnston "one doctrine, ... the infinitude of the private the finite and the infinite was the great struggle ascendant everywhere." It was in 1913 that the unpublished papers of the young Jonathan Berkeley. has aptly called this "identity voluntarism.") man." (This is a fair summary of what came to of American idealism. Royce, who quoted Harvard's Josiah Royce came to Manchester Edwards, a student at the puritan college in This is an argument for the diminished reality be known as Transcendentalism.) But many Emerson's "Brahma" approvingly, was another College to deliver his Hibbert Lectures. He was New Haven whose reaction to Locke's Essay Here I can do no more than give a rough or insubstantiality of body. But it can just as of Emerson's academic readers in the late philosopher who struck Bowne and Howison an absolute idealist entering friendly territory, concerning Human Understanding was much indication of one theme that ran through easily be used to establish the diminished nineteenth century – Bowne, Howison, and as a pantheist. I will leave the last word to him, and you might suppose that his time in Oxford the same as the reaction of the young George several of my lectures: the idealist or body- reality of finite spirit, as readers of Edwards Felix Adler (a Columbia University professor not because it settles anything, but because was a relief of sorts from pragmatist Harvard. Berkeley) to its petering out – at least within shattering consequences of the doctrine of came to realize. Like William Ellery Channing, of social ethics who was himself a Hibbert it expresses an aspiration that is, despite But most of Royce's Harvard colleagues were what was, by then, "professional" philosophy continuous creation. Most of us first encounter the greatest figure in early nineteenth-century Lecturer at Oxford in 1923) – were unhappy its paradoxicality, not that hard to share. (It idealists too. In Plato's famous battle of gods – in the middle of the twentieth. "Petering out" the doctrine as readers of Descartes. "A Unitarianism (Emerson called him "our with Emerson's blurry conception of the finite was shared, for example, even by his critic and giants, they stood with the gods, using may not be the best description, because there lifespan," Descartes wrote in the Third Bishop"), they thought that by exalting God, and the infinite. They saw Emerson himself Howison.) I want, Royce told a friend, to abstract argument to shatter the bodies that was something glorious in its ending. The last Meditation, "can be divided into countless Edwards had too much diminished man. as a pantheist. (It was an interpretation "become infinite in my own way." were, according to their opponents in the party of the idealists I talked about – the final link parts, each completely independent of the "Calvinism will complain of being spoken of as encouraged by Emerson's most widely quoted of the giants, the only true . (Harvard's in a continuous chain of Boston University others, so that it does not follow from the fact an approach to Pantheism," Channing wrote. piece of writing, the poem "Brahma," which graduate students were a different story. As teachers and students that began in the 1870's that I existed a little while ago that I must exist "It will say that it recognizes distinct minds from began: "They reckon ill who leave me out; one of their idealist teachers complained, they – was Martin Luther King, who wrote in his now, unless there is some cause which as it the Divine. But what avails this, if it robs these When me they fly, I am the wings; I am the Kenneth P Winkler is Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. He is the author of Berkeley: An had been corrupted by William James.) It was intellectual autobiography that "personalism" were creates me afresh at this moment – that minds of self-determining force, of original doubter and the doubt, And I the hymn the Interpretation (1989) and numerous articles on James, not Royce, who felt isolated among his (as the Boston version of idealism was known) is, which preserves me." Jonathan Edwards activity; if it makes them passive recipients Brahmin sings.") Well-schooled in German philosophers from the early modern period. fellow faculty. As he told the Oxford audience remained his "basic philosophical position." He was a fiercely imaginative metaphysician and at his own Hibbert Lectures, delivered in wrote that "personalism's insistence that only the greatest English-language writer, before 1908, "I have an impression that ever since personality – finite and infinite – is ultimately G.E. Moore, of analytical philosophical prose.

26 27 Student Life With both similarities and differences A Year in the suffer from this, some, including mine, do. It along the way, Oxford college that is to be found in Germany, is a great regret that it was all too slowly that perhaps in mainland Europe (although the I became aware of the rich wealth of interest I had a great time écoles normales supérieures come closer in Mist in and knowledge of Kant that is on offer in some respects). In a palatial building that rises the Oxford philosophical community, with the and I significantly resplendent from the banks of the river Isar DPhil student, Andrew Stephenson, result that only very recently have I managed to improved my just east of Munich city centre – a building that writes about studying at the Stiftung contrive a situation in which we come together language skills is today also host to the state parliament – it Maximilianeum in Munich, Germany. on a regular basis. Arriving at LMU this kind of houses the very best Bavarian students and integration, which can be so fruitful, stimulating and the breadth can boast Werner Heisenberg as an alumnus. and pleasurable, occurred more or less The Stiftung runs exchange programmes immediately and automatically. and depth of my with The Queen’s College, Merton (through n October 2010 I arrived in Munich freshness of doing something so entirely system. It is very different from ours. One philosophical whom my own connection with the Stiftung as a visiting student at the Stiftung different from philosophy – hard thinking is example of this is the organization of Another notable difference, though one I was initially organized), St John’s, Balliol, . Maximilianeum in association with minimal in the day-to-day practice of language departments into Lehrstühle – subject-specific am much more ambivalent about, is the understanding and New; the ENS in Paris, Salamanca in ILudwig Maximilians University. And learning and answers abound that enjoy chairs. This ensures that those working in requirement in the German system that Spain and Pavia in Italy. It is independent here, speaking both academically and universal consensus. Above all, the joy of similar areas within a given department are not immediately after the doctoral thesis, if one is from the universities but very well respected personally, I spent one of the most rewarding becoming acquainted with another culture, so only aware of each other’s existence but often to become eligible to apply for any permanent detrimental such a requirement must surely indeed. It is not itself a teaching institution, and transformative years of my life. similar and yet so different from one’s own. share the same work space. In my experience position, one must complete what is in effect a be to the importing of young talent from providing merely accommodation and board in things are rather more haphazard in Oxford. second thesis – the Habilitation, slightly longer other countries. accordance with the terms laid down in 1852 Spending time on the continent during In Bavaria this involves exactly what is This is not to say that collective research and on a different topic. This seems like the by King Maximilian II, though it does run a graduate school is not something that is advertised: beer, sausages, Lederhosen (I doesn’t occur here. Of course it does and very antithesis of analytic philosophy’s move A word is now due about my actual host variety of language courses and a philosophy particularly common among philosophy honestly own a pair), and mountains. But it there are many fantastic examples. But it is not towards specialism and the article-based institution, the Stiftung Maximilianeum. discussion circle as well as sport and social students at Oxford. Perhaps this is because also involves much more: music, comedy, something that is built in to the very structure dissemination of research, not to mention how For it is in fact the closest thing to an events. All in all, a great, eclectic, historic place so many of us come from abroad anyway, architecture, and the German university of the Faculty, and while some areas do not to be. Just like a college. perhaps it is because analytic philosophy is still seen as primarily an Anglophone discipline. So, with both similarities and differences along Whatever the reason, bucking this trend offers the way, I had a great time and I significantly clear attractions. What initially attracted me improved my language skills and the breadth was the opportunity it provided for learning a and depth of my philosophical understanding. foreign language. In my case I had a curricular More concretely, my time in Germany and motivation for doing so, namely my interest the interests I developed while there led quite in Kant. I had some German from school and directly to the position I now hold, which is from weekly classes with the Oxford University Laming Junior Fellow at The Queen’s College. Language Centre. Enough to understand This is a JRF-type position reserved for those basic translational and etymological issues whose studies are somehow connected to concerning Kant’s technical vocabulary, by a living foreign language. It is not normally no means enough to read his works in the given to philosophers. With the job market as original or to partake actively in philosophical it is now and the astronomically competitive conversation. And yet I had already discovered conditions at the level of permanent positions one highly significant instance of the dangers inevitably trickling down to infect the post- of approaching the history of philosophy in doctoral level positions, any widening of translation. The most central term of art in the eligibility can be enormously valuable. It Critical system, ‘Erkenntnis’, has traditionally certainly was for me. been rendered into English as ‘knowledge’. But unlike knowledge, Erkenntnis is not necessarily However, having said all this by way of factive. I needed to know more. extolling the virtues of spending a year abroad – and I really cannot say enough in this vein And of course it almost goes without saying – I feel I must briefly draw attention to one – ‘almost’ though not quite, since native potential pitfall, which is that of becoming English speakers are notoriously guilty distant from one’s supervisor. This happened of forgetting it – that learning a foreign to me and it takes time and effort to set right. language is enormously valuable regardless To a certain extent it is inevitable. To a certain of such specific applications. The amount extent it can be offset by all the new people one learns about one’s own language. The there are to talk to. But no-one other than intellectual gratification to be found in grasping yourself knows your thesis like your supervisor grammatical rules or developing a feel for and the more they have to say about it the the flexible conventions of syntax. The sheer better it will be.

28 29 Bookshelf

Recent scholarship from Oxford philosophers

John Hawthorne John Hawthorne and David Manley offer an Jessica Moss Jessica Moss presents a new – and John Broome John Broome examines climate change in A. W. Moore In this book Adrian Moore is concerned with (with David Manley) original treatment of the semantic phenome- Aristotle on the controversial – interpretation of Aristotle’s Climate Matters: an invigorating new way. As he considers the The Evolution of the history of metaphysics since Descartes. The Reference Book non of reference and the cognitive phenome- Apparent Good moral psychology: one which greatly restricts Ethics In a Warming moral dimensions, he reasons through what Modern Metaphysics: Taking as its definition of metaphysics ‘the (OUP, 2012) non of singular thought. Part I argues against (OUP, 2012) the role of reason in ethical matters, and gives World universal standards of goodness and justice Making Sense of most general attempt to make sense of the idea that either is tied to a special relation an absolutely central role to pleasure. She (W. W. Norton, 2012) require of us. His conclusions challenge and Things things’, it charts the evolution of this enterprise of causal or epistemic acquaintance. Part II argues that on Aristotle’s view things appear enlighten. Eco-conscious readers may be (CUP, 2012) through various competing conceptions of its challenges the alleged semantic rift between good to us, just as things appear round or surprised to hear they have a duty to offset all possibility, scope and limits. Adrian’s study definite and indefinite on the one small, in virtue of a psychological capacity their carbon emissions, while policy makers refutes the tired old cliché that there is some hand, and names and demonstratives on the responsible for quasi-perceptual phenomena will grapple with his analysis of what is owed unbridgeable gulf between analytic philosophy other. Drawing on recent work in linguistics like dreams and visualization: phantasia to future generations. Climate Matters is an and philosophy of other kinds. It also and philosophical semantics they explore (‘imagination’). Once we realize this, Jessica essential contribution to one of the paramount advances its own distinctive and compelling a more unified account of all four types of suggests, we can use his detailed accounts issues of our time. conception of what metaphysics is and why it expression according to which none of them of phantasia and its relation to perception and matters, exploring how it can help us to cope paradigmatically fits the profile of a referential thought to gain new into some of the with continually changing demands on our term. most debated areas of Aristotle’s philosophy. humanity.

David Wallace David Wallace provides a new account of the W. J. Mander Bill Mander has written the first ever synoptic Frank Arntzenius Frank Arntzenius presents a series of radical Volker Halbach At the centre of the traditional discussion The Emergent Everett (or ‘many worlds’) interpretation of British Idealism: A history of British Idealism, the philosophical Space, Time and new ideas about the structure of space and Axiomatic Theories of truth is the question of how truth is Multiverse: Quantum quantum theory. If the point of science is to History school which dominated English-language Stuff (OUP, 2012) time. Along the way, he examines some of Truth defined. Recent research, especially with the Theory according tell us how the world works and what it is like, (OUP, 2011) philosophy from the 1860s through to the non-standard views about the structure of (CUP, 2011) development of deflationist accounts of truth, to the Everett quantum theory seems to fail to do this. Indeed early years of the following century. Offering spacetime and its inhabitants, including the has tended to take truth as an undefined Interpretation it seems to make crazy claims: particles are in detailed examination of the origins, growth, idea that space and time are pointless, the primitive governed by axioms, while (OUP, 2012) two places at once; cats are alive and dead at development, and decline of this mode of idea that quantum mechanics is a completely the liar paradox and cognate paradoxes pose the same time. The Everett interpretation takes thinking, Bill restores to its proper place local theory, the idea that antiparticles are problems for certain seemingly natural axioms the apparent craziness seriously, and asks, this now almost wholly forgotten period of just particles travelling back in time, and the for truth. Volker Halbach examines the most ‘what would such a world be like?’ The answer: philosophical history, and provides a full-length idea that time has no structure whatsoever. important axiomatizations of truth, explores at the macroscopic level, it would be constantly history of this vital school for those wishing to The main thrust of the book, however, is that their properties and shows how the logical branching into copies. David offers a clear fill a gap in their knowledge of the history of there are good reasons to believe that spaces results impinge on the philosophical topics and up-to-date survey of work on the Everett British Philosophy. other than spacetime exist, and that it is the related to truth. interpretation in physics and in philosophy of existence of these additional spaces that allows science, and at the same time provides a self- one to reduce all of physics to geometry. contained and thoroughly modern account of it.

T. J. Mawson How can we be free if everything is determined Katherine Morris: Katherine Morris leads the reader through Marianne Talbot: An introductory text which clearly explains : A Guide by factors beyond our control, stretching back Starting with an overview of the development of the Bioethics: An bioethical theories and their philosophical Back to School for the Perplexed in time to the Big Bang? The only alternative to Merleau-Ponty thought of Merleau-Ponty, one of the Introduction foundations. Over 250 activities introduce (Continuum, 2011) determinism seems to be indeterminism, but (Continuum, 2011) most important philosophers of the 20th (CUP, 2012) topics for personal reflection, and discussion In additon to their more scholarly works, isn’t this to admit a randomness that hinders century. With coverage of the full range of points encourage students to think for us from being the authors of our actions? Merleau-Ponty’s ideas and his relationship themselves. Each chapter features boxes Oxford philosophers often write more Tim Mawson’s introductory book looks at to major influences such as Husserl, providing factual information and outlining the accessible books. Readers may enjoy how much of the structure of our everyday Heidegger and Sartre, the book explores philosophical background, along with detailed judgments can survive the arguments behind his contributions to phenomenology, case studies. Accompanying podcasts by the brushing up their philosophy with three such thoughts, including an up-to-date existentialism, , objective author, along with a range of extra resources recent offerings. overview of the contemporary debates. thought and his vision of human reality for students and instructors, are available at and the crucial concept of the lived-body. www.cambridge.org/bioethics.

30 31 Oxford Philosophy

www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk