Oxford Philosophy
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
OXFORD 2016–17 PHILOSOPHY 22 8 18 6 20 12 7 OXFORD 2016-17 PHILOSOPHY 24 6 28 14 4 Welcome from the Chair of the Faculty Board Edward Harcourt CONTACT US CREDITS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 5 News and Obituaries Oxford Philosophy Editors James Knight The editors would like to thank the 6 Appointments Faculty of Philosophy Paul Lodge following people for their kind help 7 New Books Radcliffe Humanities and assistance: Radcliffe Observatory Quarter Art Direction Keiko Ikeuchi 8 Philosophy of Physics 1984-2017 Revisited Harvey Brown Woodstock Road & Design www.keikoikeuchi.co.uk Evan Davis Oxford, OX2 6GG Jo Kay 12 The Future of the Humanities Dominic Scott UK Photography Keiko Ikeuchi Amy Lamb 14 How To Think Morally Alison Hills p5 (Derek Parfit) WikiCommon email: [email protected] 16 The Bounds of Sense: Fifty Years On Anil Gomes p23 Chris Field Views expressed in this publication are tel: +44 (0)1865 276926 pp24-25 supplied by the author not necessarily those of the Faculty of 18 The Philosophy of Iris Murdoch Mark Hopwood Philosophy or the University of Oxford. 20 The Tools of Metaphysics Ted Sider In conversation with Evan Davis For news, events and further 22 Get Out of Your Comfort Zone information, please visit: 24 Moral Decisions on the Front Line of Humanitarian Aid John Foran www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk CONTENTS 26 Funding the Future 2 | Oxford Philosophy Oxford Philosophy | 3 WELCOME FROM THE CHAIR OF THE FACULTY BOARD NEWS A History of the Infinite Oxford Philosophy success in the QS world Rankings In September 2016 Adrian Moore presented a ten-part radio series The Faculty of Philosophy is delighted to have come on BBC Radio 4 entitled ‘A History first in the UK and Europe and second in the world of The Infinite’. Adrian told the in the QS World Rankings for 2017. The QS World story of evolving conceptions of University Rankings are an annual league table that good first-year lecture should only to read ahead in this magazine: Dominic the infinite over the past two and comprehensively critique the world’s top universities in a wide range of subject areas, paying special probably contain a few jokes to keep Scott on the World Humanities Report, John a half thousand years. All aspects attention to research and reputation. The rankings are the audience on their toes. The great Foran on applied ethics and Médecins Sans of the topic were covered: the based upon academic reputation, employer reputation Aadvantage of this mode of communication Frontières; and, perhaps most importantly philosophical, the mathematical, and research impact. is that once the lecturer has thought up in the light of Beckett’s article, more or less the scientific, and the theological. the jokes, they can be allowed to – how the entirety of PPEist Evan Davis’s career – Each programme included interviews with experts in the field. shall I put it? – mature: that is, one can tell the tale tells itself. The first four programmes were concerned with the remarkable the same jokes several years running and changes in the conception of the infinite between the time of still raise a laugh, for the simple reason that This year the Faculty welcomed two new the early Greeks and the early modern period. The next three no two first-year audiences are ever the postholders (see page 3) and will also be covered some of the extraordinary mathematical results same. Not so for the readership of Oxford losing no less than six of our number to concerning the infinite, including the discovery that some Philosophy. So half way through year three retirement. Between now and the Faculty’s infinities are bigger than others. In the final three programmes of my tenure as Chair of the Faculty Board, celebration of them in Trinity Term I may Adrian shifted his attention the cosmos and our place in it, colleagues feeling sorry for themselves at attempt to add up the dizzying number of turning to questions about the existential significance of our the prospect of delivering yet another set Oxford years they account for between understanding of the infinite. of undergraduate lectures might spare a them, not only in distinguished service as thought for the author of this Introduction. Faculty members but also, in some cases, The broadcasts can be accessed on bbc.in/2pAsOUl In any case, we may soon be quits. If ‘lecture as graduates and indeed as undergraduates. capture’ takes off, as it is set to do – for over In any case, we wish them all well and hope OBITUARIES 21s, that means recording the lectures and very much that our send-off will be no more making them available online – audiences than an au revoir. will be able to replay the same lecture over Derek Parfit (1942-2017) and over, jokes and all. So philosophers be This year also sees a reorganization by the Derek Parfit, who was a Fellow of All Souls College and a member of the Oxford Faculty of warned: your jokes from now on may have to government of the way in which the AHRC Philosophy for most of his adult life, died unexpectedly on 1 January 2017 at the age of 74. be very sharp indeed. (Arts and Humanities Research Council) He had recently completed the third of the projected four volumes of On What Matters. On awards graduate scholarships, which will completing that third volume, he had returned to working on issues in population ethics, a Some readers may have seen Andy lump Oxford together with Cambridge and branch of ethics that he developed almost single-handedly in the 1970s. Some of his new Beckett’s highly critical, but partial, and the Open University, and force all three work in this area will appear in print within the year. Parfit’s first published paper, “Personal ill-informed article in the Guardian about universities to provide matched funding to Identity,” appeared in 1971 and instantly secured his reputation in philosophy. Throughout the remainder of that decade, the manuscripts of his work on progress, which formed the PPE (23rd February). As I say year in year out unlock any AHRC award. Funding for graduate basis of his book, Reasons and Persons (1984), circulated widely among philosophers and to audiences of sixth-formers thinking of students has been one of the Faculty’s helped to shape the way an entire generation of moral philosophers approached their work. applying to Oxford, there is a great deal more biggest concerns for some time, and we are At the time of his death, Parfit was generally regarded as one of two or three greatest living to Philosophy at Oxford than just PPE – no worried the new regime may make things philosophers and was almost universally regarded as the greatest living moral philosopher. less than seven other joint schools, in fact, even worse. Financial support from readers thanks to the recent addition of Computer would of course be most welcome for any Science and Philosophy. Anyone inclined to of the Faculty’s operations, but there is doubt the capacity of the philosophically no worthier and at this moment no more Pamela Sue Anderson (1955-2017) trained to contribute to the contemporary urgent cause than the funding of graduate Pamela Sue Anderson, Professor of Modern European Philosophy of Religion and Fellow of Regent’s Park College, lost her two year battle with cancer in March 2017, aged 61. In the world should note the deepening scholarships, essential as they are to ensure philosophy of religion in general, and in feminist philosophy of religion in particular, Pamela collaborations over the last twelve months that the distinguished past and present of was an international figure whose work broke important new ground. In her early writing she between the Faculty and the Future of Oxford philosophy are matched by an equally was concerned with the detection and correction of gender biases, both in the philosophy of Humanity Institute, which thanks to bright future. religion and in religion itself. Her later work explored the idea of vulnerability, especially the successful funding bids and the generosity vulnerability that is manifest in profoundly transformative experiences such as critical illness Edward Harcourt of donors now employs two core Faculty or bereavement. Among her many published works were two influential books, A Feminist Fellow of Keble College members – Hilary Greaves and Will MacAskill Philosophy of Religion (1997) and Revisioning Gender in Philosophy of Religion (2012). She – full-time on projects related to population also co-authored, with Jordan Bell, Kant and Theology (2010), and at the time of her death ethics and the philosophical foundations of was working on a book on the French philosopher Michèle Le Dœuff. effective altruism. Indeed doubters need (This text is adapted from a longer obituary by Pamela’s friend and Oxford Faculty member Adrian Moore for the Guardian - https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2017/mar/24/ pamela-sue-anderson-obituary) 4 | Oxford Philosophy Oxford Philosophy | 5 APPOINTMENTS NEW BOOKS Wayneflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy: Ofra Magidor A Critical Introduction to Properties (Bloomsbury, 2016) Sophie Allen (Harris Manchester College) Ofra Magidor completed a BSc in Philosophy, Mathematics, and Computer Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. She moved to Oxford in 2002, where she completed What do blue things have in common? Or electrons? Or planets? Distinct things appear to share a BPhil and DPhil in Philosophy. Between 2005 and 2007 she was Junior Research Fellow properties; but what are properties and what is the best philosophical account of them? A Critical in Philosophy at Queen’s College, Oxford and between 2007 and 2015 CUF lecturer at the Introduction to Properties introduces different ontological accounts of properties, exploring how their University of Oxford and Fairfax Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Balliol College, Oxford.