Philosophy at Cambridge Newsletter of the Faculty of Philosophy Issue 14 May 2017

ISSN 2046-9632

From the Chair Tim Crane

Many readers will know that the British Government’s periodic assessment of research quality in universities now involves an assessment of the ‘impact’ of this research on the world. In the 2014 exercise, demonstrations of impact were supposed to trace a causal chain from the original research to some effect in the ‘outside world’. It’s hard to know how the ‘impact’ approach would have handled with the achievements of Bernard Williams, one of the Cambridge philosophers we have celebrated this year – in his case with a conference in the Autumn of 2016 on Williams and the Ancients at Newnham College, organised by Nakul Krishna and Sophia Connell (pp. 2 & 3). In numerous ways, Williams had an impact in the public sphere, and his work has profound Onora O’Neill has been named the winner of the 2017 Holberg Prize. Photo: Martin Dijkstra implications for our understanding of politics. But it’s hard to see how one could this way is Casimir Lewy, whose life and Central European University in August. trace any of these effects back through work we celebrated at a delightful event at It’s been an exciting period in the Faculty, a simple chain to one or two ideas. Trinity College in February (p. 6). The list of with many new appointments and Another example of a Cambridge philosophers Lewy taught in his 30 years in unprecedented success in acquiring philosopher who is still a leading public Cambridge contains some of the leading research grants. It has been an honour figure is Onora O’Neill, who has made philosophers of the last 50 years; and it is to work in this great university, with its significant contributions in public life, as clear that they owed a vast amount to him. rich tradition in philosophy, stimulating well as developing a distinctive version Surely every philosopher wants their colleagues and wonderful and talented of Kantian moral philosophy. How exactly work to have impact of some kind – the students. The Faculty is very fortunate we should trace the exact connections only question is what this means. The truth to have Rae Langton as my successor between her work in ethics and her work of the matter seems to be that it is hard to as Knightbridge Professor and Chair of on, say, the Leveson Inquiry, is a difficult predict or control which ideas have which the Faculty from 2017. As readers of task, and not obviously the best way specific effects, both inside and outside this newsletter will know, Rae came to to think about her achievements. the academic context. By all accounts, the Cambridge in 2013 after teaching at MIT, Fortunately, this did not bother the forthcoming assessment exercise (in 2021) Edinburgh, Sheffield and Monash. She committee in Norway who awarded her is likely to take a more nuanced approach works on ethics, feminism, Kant, philosophy the prestigious Holberg Prize earlier this to impact. of language, metaphysics and many year. We congratulate Onora on this Speaking personally, I do not expect to other things too. Appointing Rae to the wonderful achievement. be around in Cambridge in 2021, though. Knightbridge Chair – the first woman to One way in which a philosopher can Not only is this my last newsletter as Faculty be appointed to this ancient professorship clearly and indisputably have impact, Chair (a position I have occupied for five – also gives us the opportunity, we hope, though, is through their students. Someone years and a bit), it is also my last term at to expand and enrich the Faculty by making whose lasting legacy can be measured in Cambridge – I move to take up a job at the more junior appointments. Watch this space.

Philosophy at Cambridge page 1 May 2017 Togas and Olives Nakul Krishna

“The legacy of Greece to Western philosophy is Western philosophy.” The audacious first line – of Bernard Williams’ essay, ‘The Legacy of Greek Philosophy’, strikes a characteristic note: considered, unapologetic, magisterial. And yet, as the reader discovers a few sentences in, the aphoristic punchiness is not achieved through exaggeration. Williams goes on to describe, in an account succinct but rich in telling detail, the relation between Greek and later Western philosophy so that his metaphor of a legacy proves to have a precision that A.N. Whitehead’s better- known remark about Western philosophy as “a series of footnotes to Plato” lacks. Legacies can be squandered, but they can also be improved upon, and Williams – a modern philosopher through and through – never looked to the Greeks as sages. Educated at Oxford in the late 1940s in what he once described as “the Detail from The Remorse of Orestes by William-Adolphe Bouguereau. Photo: Wikimedia Commons heyday of analytic confidence”, Williams absorbed an approach to the study of modern world was lamentably Socratic be a different and more sophisticated thing, Greek philosophical texts informed by in its “heightened reflectiveness, self- and it will represent an achievement.” ‘triumphant anachronism’. The view that consciousness, and inwardness”, and A philosopher writing in the late 20th “we should approach the works of Plato these things, Nietzsche had thought, century, Williams assured his Berkeley as though they had appeared in last “it was ... one of the charms, and indeed the audiences that he did not wish to ally month’s issue of Mind” was, of course, power, of the Greeks to have done without.” himself “with those who suspect that the theoretically indefensible. Indeed it was When Williams was invited in the early closing scenes of the Eumenides already barely intelligible; for one thing, the works 1990s to deliver the prestigious Sather display a dangerous weakening toward of Plato could not have made it past the Lectures at the University of California, liberalism.” (This is the scene where the referees. But oddly enough, as Williams Berkeley – later published as Shame and frenzied Furies, figures of vengeance, was the first to admit, the method worked, Necessity (1993) – he had a good deal to are transformed into guardians of justice, producing a generation of philologically say about the Greek philosopher. But his with courts and procedures to go with and philosophically acute scholars real interest was in overturning, with every their new role.) The point wasn’t to do who refused to patronise the texts and argumentative and rhetorical resource away with the achievements of the took them seriously as articulating available to him, a certain ‘Whiggish’ modern world in thought and politics arguments that we might accept or interpretation of history. This interpretation in exchange for some slave-owning, reject on their merits. saw the modern world and its philosophy toga-wearing, olive-eating and largely In the 1970s, Williams’ thinking about as equipped with a set of notions – invented vision of a classical past. The the Greeks underwent a deep shift, in part morality, responsibility and ‘the will’ among point was to give us and our institutions the consequence of his own, increasingly others – that the Greeks had lacked and a more truthful self-understanding, and pessimistic, ideas about what philosophy been the worse off for lacking. learning to see the Greeks aright might could do, in part the consequence of his Williams denied this: the Greeks had all be one way to do that. growing fascination with Nietzsche. The the notions they, or we, needed. A simpler In his writings in the 1990s, Williams Greeks, Nietzsche had more than once philosophy of action, using only the terms came to articulate with a startling remarked, “were superficial – out of available to Homer, could make all the directness the pessimistic reflections profundity”. Nietzsche was not talking necessary distinctions without muddying towards which he had been reaching in of the respectable philosophical Greeks the waters with concerns derived from all his previous work: “human beings are to who took their cue from Socrates and that unfortunate institution, morality some degree a mess”. Given our history took virtue and wisdom as the way to (or, as Williams preferred to say, ‘the – our natural, evolutionary, history as well happiness. The Greeks he most respected morality system’). But one couldn’t as that of the last two or three thousand were the characters and creators of tragedy, regain the pre-Socratic Greeks’ profound years of civilization – “no form of life is history and rhetoric, even the teachers of superficiality just by trying. “That is not likely to prove entirely satisfactory, either rhetoric Socrates maligned as ‘sophists’. possible for us,” wrote Williams, “after so individually or socially”. We will always want For Nietzsche, as Williams put it, the much history: any such attitude for us will more things than we can have, and this is

Philosophy at Cambridge page 2 May 2017 not just a contingent – if unfortunate – how far the existence of a worthwhile life truth about the world, but a necessary for some people involves the imposition truth about beings like us, cursed with of suffering on others.” desires and aspirations that cannot by The ‘we’ is deliberately provocative. It is their nature be jointly satisfied. And to clear enough what the right-on thing to say the extent that we might simplify our is, but to what extent are those convictions desires so that they can be satisfied, our reflected in the lives and lifestyles of those new existence may not be one we can of us living, and sometimes flourishing, recognise as an improvement. under capitalism? What would it be like Life, in other words, will always be a for us to try to live in ways that imposed disappointment to us. This is a tragic suffering on no one? Here, as always, there insight, and Williams’ writings on Greek is the problem to which all of Williams’ work tragedy – in particular, the tragedies of is directed, “of distinguishing what we think Sophocles – took this to be their most from what we think that we think.” And obvious achievement: “to offer a necessary having done that, there is the task of supplement and a suitable limitation to the designing and sustaining institutions tireless aim of moral philosophy to make adequate to our ethical commitments. the world safe for well-disposed people.” In September last year, I had the The world cannot be made altogether occasion to assist Dr Sophia Connell in the safe, or altogether undisappointing, for organisation of a conference at Newnham the kinds of creatures we are. Bernard Williams. College that brought philosophers and If this thought is unappealing to a Photo courtesy of Patricia Williams classicists together to discuss themes in rational mind, Williams thought, so much Williams’ work that concerned the ancient for the worse for rationalism. Where private But even if the world cannot be made world. As Professor M.M. McCabe observed life was concerned, Williams had written in altogether safe, there are ways to arrange in her keynote address, a great deal of an essay from the late 1970s (‘Conflicts of it so that it is safer than the one Greeks Williams’ scholarship is surprisingly elusive. Values’), most of us can survive a certain inhabited – not just vaccinations and The superficial provocation is rarely the level of ‘unresolved conflict’. But public seatbelts, but a set of political institutions point, and even the most straightforward life, with its demands of explicitness, designed to insulate our lives from the worst of his claims can, with a little prodding, transparency, and accountability, is harder kinds of rotten luck. In one of his more reveal hidden depths. His work continues to square with this level of conflict. hopeful reflections – hopeful only by his to provoke, to shock, and to illuminate the Still, no viable politics should try to own pessimistic standards – Williams noted dark corners of modernity and its classical resolve all conflict, because unresolved that modern capitalist societies had nothing past. As he put it in the closing lines of conflict is something we cannot do to be smug about when they reflected Shame and Necessity, he hoped above all without in a life with any ‘density or on the practices of slave-owning societies that “we might move beyond marvelling conviction’. It is, he thought, essential in the past. Just like them, he wrote, “we at [the things that have survived from to any worthwhile life, and a worthwhile recognise arbitrary and brutal ways in which antiquity], to putting them, or bits of them, life – as he wrote in an astonishing remark people are handled by society.... We have to modern uses.” That task continues. that rewards re-reading – is the “kind of the intellectual resources to regard ... the life which human beings lack unless they systems that allow these things ... as unjust, Nakul Krishna is a lecturer in feel more than they can say, and grasp but are uncertain whether to do so, ... partly the Faculty. more than they can explain.” because we have no settled opinion on ...

Wikipedia event on CFI Launch event women philosophers The Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence Wikipedia is disproportionally written by and about men, with (CFI) was formally launched on 19 October 2016 with only around 17% of notable profiles of women. Entries for women an event in the David Attenborough Building in philosophers are often mere ‘stubs’, a few lines of information Cambridge. CFI brings together four of the world’s lacking biographical or philosophical detail. leading universities (Cambridge, Oxford, Berkeley and As part of International Women’s Day the Casimir Lewy Imperial College, London) to explore the implications Library hosted a Wikipedia edit-a-thon in partnership with the of AI for human civilisation. Cambridge Women in Philosophy group to help improve the Talks were given by Professor Stephen Hawking; representation of women philosophers and their ideas on the site. Newnham alumna and AI pioneer Professor Maggie An enthusiastic group of students spent a productive afternoon Boden; the Academic Director of the Centre, Bertrand adding new entries on women philosophers and improving Russell Professor of Philosophy, Huw Price; Zoubin existing ones. Anyone can edit Wikipedia and help to address Ghahramani, Chris Abell, and the Director of the the gender balance and improve the coverage of eminent Leverhulme Trust, Professor Gordon Marshall. women in philosophy.

Philosophy at Cambridge page 3 May 2017 Against marriage: an egalitarian defence of the marriage-free state Clare Chambers

Feminists have long criticised the Belgium, the Nordic countries, Ireland, Spain, form. The positive thesis is an outline of a institution of marriage. Historically, it France, Canada and the USA. In the USA in state in which personal relationships are has been a fundamental site of women’s particular, same-sex marriage has recently regulated, the vulnerable are protected, oppression, with married women having been a fiercely contested and central part and justice is furthered, all without the few independent rights in law. Currently, of political debate, with many states state recognition of marriage or any similar it is associated with the gendered division alternately allowing and forbidding it as the alternative. I call this ideal of a state which of labour, with women taking on the lion’s issue passed between the legislature, the does not recognise marriage ‘the marriage- share of domestic and caring work and judiciary, and the electorate, until the issue free state’. being paid less than men for work outside was settled at the federal level with a In the marriage-free state the term the home. The white wedding is replete with Supreme Court ruling. ‘marriage’ would have no legal significance. sexist imagery: the father ‘giving away’ the If marriage is to exist as a state-recognised The state would not regulate the term, bride; the white dress symbolising the bride’s institution then it must, as a requirement of nor would it provide laws that dealt virginity (and emphasising the importance equality, be available to same-sex couples. specifically with the creation and dissolution of her appearance); the vows to obey the There is a great deal to celebrate in recent of marriages. ‘Marriage’ would be a term husband; the minister telling the husband: moves to widen marriage, and it is hard not like ‘friendship’. It would have meaning, and “You may now kiss the bride” (rather than the to be touched by the scenes of same-sex typically be used to denote a certain sort of bride herself giving permission, or indeed couples rejoicing as they are finally allowed relationship, but that meaning would not initiating or at least equally participating in to marry. But even these welcome reforms be a matter of legal ruling. Like friendship, the act of kissing); the reception at which, do not go far enough. In my latest book I marriage would mean different things to traditionally, all the speeches are given by advocate the end of marriage as a state- different people. Sometimes a friend is a men; the wife surrendering her own name recognised institution. person with whom we share our lives, and taking her husband’s. As the title of the book indicates, Against meeting regularly and sharing social Despite decades of feminist criticism Marriage: An Egalitarian Defence of the situations, attending events together, the institution resolutely endures – though Marriage-Free State presents both a negative holidaying together, discussing all areas not without change. The most significant and a positive thesis. The negative thesis of life. But it is also perfectly acceptable change has been in the introduction of is a critique of the institution of marriage as and meaningful to use the term to denote same-sex marriages and civil unions in it is traditionally understood, and a rejection someone with whom one has only a virtual countries such as the UK, the Netherlands, of the state recognition of marriage in any connection, such as through social media.

Philosophy at Cambridge page 4 May 2017 Similarly, for some people marriage would retains inequality. Marriage is at heart a Against Marriage. The aim of the book is not be much as it is now: a formal, solemnified symbolic institution, one that transmits to settle the question of the ideal content of ceremony bringing with it weighty social and endorses particular social meanings regulation, a task that would merit several meaning and norms. For others, marriage about the nature of love and family and the volumes in and of itself, but rather to might be used casually, to denote a fleeting source of value. These have traditionally propose a form or structure of regulation. commitment or even a commitment to an been sexist and heterosexist, and for many One way to think about the structure of the object or a cause. As with friendship, not all people these traditional meanings continue marriage-free state without being distracted uses of the word ‘marriage’ would succeed to taint the institution, leading them to by dilemmas of regulatory content is to ask in achieving uptake. They would not all seek alternatives such as civil partnership yourself the following questions: make sense to others. But their use would in order to achieve legal protection. For What do I think is the ideal, just way of not conflict with any legal definition. example, the Equal Civil Partnerships regulating unmarried people now, in a Weddings, then, would still take place in campaign calls for different-sex couples to marriage regime? What laws should the marriage-free state. No state ceremony be able to access civil partnerships on the apply to unmarried parents, or unmarried or registration would be involved, but same basis as same-sex couples. cohabitants, or unmarried migrants, or weddings could persist nonetheless. These concerns about marriage’s unmarried property-owners? What The marriage-free state would place no symbolic element must be taken very would it be like if those ideal regulations regulations on where weddings could seriously, as Against Marriage argues in were applied to everyone, regardless of take place, since they would not be legal much greater detail. Still, some may argue marital status? ceremonies: weddings could take place at that the meaning of marriage will eventually The society you envisage will be your ideal home, on a mountaintop, in a swimming shift along with its legal implications. What form of the marriage-free state. The most pool. But weddings could also take place would be wrong with state recognition fundamental aim of Against Marriage is to exactly as they do now, in a marriage of marriage then? The answer is that no convince the reader that she should prefer regime: in churches, temples, synagogues amount of reform can remove another her ideal version of the marriage-free state and mosques; in stately homes and hotels; fundamental inequality of marriage, which to a marriage regime. with receptions and dresses and is between married and unmarried people bridesmaids and speeches. and their families. State-recognised marriage So the marriage-free state would still affords legal protection, official approbation, contain weddings. It would also contain or both to those in certain forms of monogamous, committed sexual relationship and families. In doing so it partnerships, some of which would be makes controversial and divisive claims called marriages by their participants and about value, and sets up structural some of which would not. People would inequalities based on relationship type. introduce each other as husband, wife, It is unjust for people to be given different spouse, partner, lover, friend, just as they legal status regarding matters such as pleased. People could wear rings or not, immigration, taxation, property ownership, change their names or not, call themselves protection for caring work, insurance, Mrs or Miss or Ms. Official documentation pension provision, and next-of-kinship would not distinguish between these titles depending on their ability and willingness other than as needed to respect people’s to participate in a particular family form, and important interests, such as when a doctor to sanctify that relationship with a ceremony might ask how a patient preferred to be that has substantive and controversial addressed while receiving treatment. But symbolic meaning. And it is particularly there would be nothing illegitimate in a problematic to tie children’s life chances to person using marital or non-marital titles. the marital status of their parents. The marriage-free state would not Instead, the state should provide recognise or endorse marriages, but nor default regulation to those participating would it leave relationships and family in relationship practices, regardless of unregulated. In existing marriage regimes whether they have sought a special status there is and must be regulation: to protect for their relationship. The sorts of practices vulnerable parties, to settle matters and that are in need of regulation to protect Clare Chambers is University Senior disputes that must be determinate in the vulnerable and ensure justice include Lecturer at Cambridge and a Fellow law, and to ensure justice. Regulation of but are not limited to parenting, property- of Jesus College. Her latest book personal relationships in the marriage-free ownership, taxation, cohabitation, and Against Marriage: An Egalitarian state aims to ensure equality: between separation. The most basic idea of the Defence of the Marriage-Free State will people within relationships, and also marriage-free state and the simplest way be published by Oxford University between people regardless of whether to understand it is this: the marriage-free Press in July 2017. It is currently or not they are in a relationship of any state starts by working out what would be available for pre-order from the particular kind. the just way to regulate relationships publishers and other booksellers. As already noted, marriage has always between unmarried people, and then Clare was also interviewed about the been deeply gendered, a lynchpin of applies that regulation to everyone. ‘State and Marriage’ on Philosophy patriarchal societies and relations, and thus Of course, I have my own views about 24/7. The podcast is available at: the subject of feminist criticism. But even if the best form of regulation in many areas www.philosophy247.org/podcasts/ marriage is reformed so as to be formally of family life and personal relationships. By marriage-state. equal, regardless or sex or sexuality, it still and large, though, I do not defend them in

Philosophy at Cambridge page 5 May 2017 Casimir Lewy. Images courtesy of Trinity College Remembering Casimir Lewy

On 10 February 2017 the Faculty held Tractatus. Indeed, the world needs Cambridge, Trinity College’s Great Court, a memorial event at Trinity College somebody who understands the Tractatus.” and the very thought of the possibility in honour of Casimir Lewy. He was a I thought I had made a complete hash of of being a student here, and it was in this Fellow at Trinity for more than 30 the interview but nonetheless, I completed state of reverence that I rapped on his door. the essay and sent it to Casimir a few “Come in!” he said with a gentle warbling years, and died in 1991 aged 71. months later. Within a week I received voice, so I did, and he invited me in to sit Talks were given by emeritus a reply saying I had an unconditional near him. The conversation that followed professors Simon Blackburn and offer of a place. As you might imagine, surprised me in part, as it was clear towards Edward Craig, and a number of his many people, especially academics and the end of this interview that he had few former students attended. Two of philosophers, find it hard to believe that doubts I would get a degree, but it was not Lewy’s students share their memories a Fellow of Trinity College would offer a this that concerned him. It was because of him below: place to a hopeless dyslexic (long before I was a mature student and he wanted it became fashionable) on the strength to know what my plans would be post- In 1975 I applied to read philosophy at of a botched interview and one essay. Cambridge, were the offer to be made. I told Trinity College. I was making a mature I have a feeling I was a slight him in all truthfulness that getting a degree student application and had no O or A disappointment to Casimir as I developed had been a target for me for many years, levels nor any other qualifications (I was an interest in Continental philosophy. and that achieving this would help lay to horribly dyslexic), so I believed my chances However, I pretty much got over that and rest that almost visceral need I had had at of getting a place were just about zero. went on to get a PhD on the philosophical the time. I said, if it meant I would return To my surprise I was asked to attend an problems of artificial intelligence research back to my Engineering roots, then so be it, interview with Casimir Lewy. (again, long before it became fashionable). but I knew I would be a different person. I was extremely nervous during the My gratitude to Casimir is perhaps greater And so it was. I took the entrance exam, interview, in no small part due to Casimir’s than some, for he had more faith in me was offered a place at Trinity College and ability to reveal my patchy understanding than I had in myself. got my BA degree (a 2:1) in 1985. Then of philosophy. I did not think I had made Dr Keith H. Tayler (Trinity 1976) followed a PhD in Computer Science in a good impression on him, but he did say 1991, and a life in post-doctoral academic I should go away and write an extended I matriculated at Trinity College in 1982 and research in Artificial Intelligence, now essay on a philosophical topic of my read Philosophy. Casimir Lewy was my first spanning over 25 years. I will always have a choosing. Director of Studies. I was a mature student debt of gratitude to Cambridge, the Faculty Having spent a few months wading and came up to Trinity at the age of 30 of Philosophy and of course Casimir Lewy through the Tractatus, I said I would send years old. Prior to this I was a time-served for helping me on my way. him 25,000 words on it within two months. Engineering Patternmaker having worked Dr David A. Randell (Trinity 1982) “Ha ha”, he said, gesturing towards me in the foundry industry and ‘on the bench’ with a shaking hand, “Do you think you for 12 years and had applied to Trinity whilst Recordings of the talks given at this understand the Tractatus?” For some reason a student at Coleg Harlech where I was event are available from: http://sms.csx. that I can only now put down to youthful reading Philosophy and Psychology. cam.ac.uk/collection/2419526. If you ignorance, I replied “Yes, I think I do”. “Ooh I can remember my interview with have a memory of Casimir Lewy to share good”, Casmir grinned back, “the College Casimir Lewy very clearly. I was not alone, we’d be delighted to hear from you! needs somebody who understands the I am sure, by being bowled over by

Philosophy at Cambridge page 6 May 2017 The meaning of religion New Directions Tim Crane Project Alexander Greenberg

What is it to think about something? This apparently simple question raises many issues. For example, it seems a truism that when someone thinks, there is something they are thinking about. But some of the things we think about exist and some don’t. Furthermore, there are truths and falsehoods about the non-existent things we think about. For example, it is true that Vulcan was postulated by Le Verrier, and false that it was postulated by Stephen Hawking. But this creates a puzzle, because Vulcan doesn’t exist, and so is not part of reality. How can there be truths about things that are not part of reality? This problem is often discussed in linguistic or logical terms. For example, it’s often thought to be a problem specifically raised by non-referring names (e.g. ‘Vulcan’) or by how so-called Most philosophical discussions of religious that you belong to, not just something you negative existentials (e.g. ‘Vulcan does belief focus on the question of its truth, and believe. How should we incorporate these not exist’) can be true. But this linguistic contemporary philosophers (in this country features into a full picture of religious belief? and logical machinery can distract us at least) have tended to press a rigorously In my forthcoming book, The Meaning of from what’s really at issue. The real atheist answer. The question of the meaning Belief, I try and answer this question, by problem of non-existence is primarily of religious belief, rather than its truth, is returning to some classic works of writers about how the human capacity for perhaps less discussed in recent analytic like Durkheim and William James. I argue thought enables us to think about philosophy. But this question – what does it that although religions tend to involve an things that don’t exist. really mean to be a religious believer? – is explicit cosmological element, this is not This is an example of the approach surely as important as the question of truth. the totality of the religious world view. of the New Directions in the Study Some may say this is not a philosophical This world view should rather be seen as of the Mind project, led by Tim Crane, question – and of course they are right that a combination of two attitudes. One is and supported by The John Templeton one cannot speculate about the nature of what I call the ‘religious impulse’, a sense of Foundation. It has aimed to move religious belief in a purely a priori manner. the transcendent, of there being more to it beyond the logical and linguistic But we can speculate nonetheless, as many all than just this. The other is an attitude of machinery that often dominates atheist philosophers and scientists have identification with other people: belonging philosophical debates about the done, and the fact that our speculation to a historical tradition, and making sense of mind. We have instead concentrated should be constrained by the empirical facts the world through ritual and custom as an on studying the mental phenomena does not stop it from being philosophical. expression of this tradition. My claim is that of thought and consciousness And given the centrality of the the link between these two attitudes is themselves, and the role they play phenomenon of religious belief in the world given by the phenomenon of the sacred: in our mental lives, in a creative today, atheists should be interested in what sacred objects, words and rituals point reinterpretation of Husserl’s rallying it means as much as what (if any) of it is true. towards a supposed transcendent reality, cry, “Back to the things themselves!”. Recent atheist discussions of religion while in religious practices they also link So far, the project has involved two have tended to treat it as if it were chiefly believers to those in the past and present workshops, one on consciousness and a theory of the universe, or a cosmology, who share their belief. In my book I argue one on intentionality, and a series of combined with some moral precepts that these ideas form the basis of a more seminars. We still have some upcoming perhaps relating to life after death. Two realistic picture of religious belief than that events taking place in Cambridge. things are hard to fit into this picture of provided by many atheists. Tim Crane will be giving a public religion: first, the fact that at the heart of lecture, Is the Mind a Physical Thing?, most religion is a collection of practices on 17th May, and our project’s capstone (only one of the Five Pillars of Islam, for The Meaning of Belief: Religion from event, The Human Mind Conference, example, is a cosmological claim); and an Atheist’s Point of View will be takes place 27th-29th June. Do come second, that religions essentially involve published by Harvard University along! For more details, visit community with others – as Émile Press in the Autumn of 2017. www.newdirectionsproject.com. Durkheim put it, a religion is something

Philosophy at Cambridge page 7 May 2017 People Student Prizes Joshua Gottlieb (St Edmund’s) was awarded the Matthew Buncombe Staff news prize for best overall achievement Professor Emerita, Onora O’Neill was Angela Breitenbach gave a TEDx talk in in the MPhil. The Craig Taylor prize awarded the Norwegian Holberg Prize for May 2016 on ‘Can theories be beautiful?’. for best performance in the Tripos outstanding contributions to research in It is available from: https://youtu.be/ went to Christopher Masterman the arts and humanities for her influential ZZE3m6wbccI. (Peterhouse) for Part IB, and Jack role in ethical and political philosophy. Harding (Trinity) for Part II. Prof Tim Crane gave the 2017 EJ Lowe Appointments lecture at the University of Durham and will give the Frege lectures in Tartu Dr Chris Cowie has a permanent University, Estonia in June 2017. He recently Lectureship at Durham University starting appeared on the BBC Philosopher’s Arms in September 2017. Future Events programme in a discussion of whether Dr Sophia Connell has been appointed Jaffa Cakes are cakes or biscuits. It is to a permanent Lectureship at Birkbeck Routledge Lecture in Philosophy available here: www.bbc.co.uk/news/ College, London. 26 May 2017 magazine-38985820 Prof Peter Singer (Princeton and Dr Arif Ahmed was promoted to Reader We are delighted that a number of our Melbourne Universities) will give a in philosophy. recent graduates have been appointed public lecture on ‘The Point of View Dr Tim Button was promoted to a Senior to academic posts. Nora Heinzelmann of the Universe: Defending Sidgwick’s Lectureship. In January 2017 he gave a has been appointed to an assistant Ethics’. Bookings can be made from public lecture at the Royal Institute of professorship at the Ludwig Maximilians the Faculty website. Philosophy called ‘I disappear’. It is available University of Munich, Germany. Ali Boyle at: https://youtu.be/sUMi6vkMnNs has been appointed as Junior Research Alumni Festival 2017 Prof Rae Langton gave many talks Fellow at Trinity Hall. 23 September 2017 including the Knox Lecture at St Andrews, Georgie Statham has been appointed Dr Clare Chambers will give a talk the Kissel Lecture in Ethics at Harvard to a Polonsky Postdoctoral Fellowship, entitled ‘Should the state recognise University, the Annual Royal Institute of at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. marriage?’. Further details will be Philosophy Lecture and the Mind Lukas Skiba has been appointed to available from: Association Lecture in Cambridge. one-year Postdoc at the University of www.alumni.cam.ac.uk. Dr Clare Chambers became a Trustee Hamburg. Shyane Siriwardena has of the charity Genital Autonomy, which a 2-year Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Cambridge Festival of Ideas 2017 campaigns against the unnecessary genital University of Leeds. Carlo Rossi has a 16 October – 29 October 2017 cutting of children. She is also a member 2-year International Postdoctoral Research Please see the Festival website: of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics Fellowship at Cambridge; and Dan www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk Working Party on Cosmetic Procedures, Brigham has been appointed as Teacher for further details. which is due to report this summer. of Philosophy at St Paul’s School, London. Information about other forthcoming events is available from the Faculty website: www.phil.cam.ac.uk/events.

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Philosophy at Cambridge page 8 May 2017