Gordon Park Baker

Last updated • 2 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Gordon Park Baker (born at Englewood, New Jersey, 20 April 1938; died at Woodstock, Oxfordshire, 25 June 2002) was an American-English philosopher. His topics of interest included Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gottlob Frege, Friedrich Waismann, Bertrand Russell, the Vienna Circle, and René Descartes. He was noted for his collaboration with Peter Hacker and his disagreements with Michael Dummett.

Contents

Biography

Baker was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy, Harvard University (major in mathematics), [1] and, as a Marshall Scholar, at The Queen's College, Oxford, where he intended to read Philosophy, Politics, and Economics but transferred to Literae Humaniores (1960). He pursued his doctorate (1963–70) while teaching at the University of Kent and latterly as a Fellow of St John's College, Oxford.

He was a Trustee of the Waismann Fund.

His other interests included real tennis and the harpsichord.

He was married to Ann Pimlott (1964), with whom he had three sons: Alan, Geoffrey, and Nicholas. Alan is currently a professor of philosophy at Swarthmore College. From 1992 until Gordon Baker's death the philosopher Katherine Morris (Mansfield College, Oxford) was his acknowledged companion.

Bibliography

  1. Wittgenstein : Understanding and Meaning, Volume 1 of an analytical commentary on the Philosophical Investigations (Blackwell, Oxford, and Chicago University Press, Chicago, 1980) ( ISBN   0-631-12111-0) ( ISBN   1-4051-0176-8) ( ISBN   1-4051-1987-X), co-authored with P.M.S Hacker.
  2. Frege : Logical Excavations, (Blackwell, Oxford, O.U.P., N.Y., 1984) ( ISBN   0-19-503261-6) co-authored with P.M.S Hacker.
  3. Language, Sense and Nonsense, a critical investigation into modern theories of language (Blackwell, 1984) ( ISBN   0-631-13519-7) co-authored with P.M.S Hacker.
  4. Scepticism, Rules and Language (Blackwell, 1984) ( ISBN   0-631-13614-2) co-authored with P.M.S Hacker.
  5. Wittgenstein : Rules, Grammar, and Necessity - Volume 2 of an analytical commentary on the Philosophical Investigations (Blackwell, Oxford, UK and Cambridge, Massachusetts USA, 1985) ( ISBN   0-631-13024-1) ( ISBN   0-631-16188-0) co-authored with P.M.S Hacker.
  6. Wittgenstein's Method: Neglected Aspects. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. ( ISBN   978-1405152808), posthumously edited and published by Katherine J. Morris.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ludwig Wittgenstein</span> Austrian philosopher and logician (1889–1951)

Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language.

<i>Philosophical Investigations</i> 1953 work by Ludwig Wittgenstein

Philosophical Investigations is a work by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, published posthumously in 1953.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gottlob Frege</span> German philosopher, logician, and mathematician (1848–1925)

Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege was a German philosopher, logician, and mathematician. He was a mathematics professor at the University of Jena, and is understood by many to be the father of analytic philosophy, concentrating on the philosophy of language, logic, and mathematics. Though he was largely ignored during his lifetime, Giuseppe Peano (1858–1932), Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), and, to some extent, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) introduced his work to later generations of philosophers. Frege is widely considered to be the greatest logician since Aristotle, and one of the most profound philosophers of mathematics ever.

Analytic philosophy is an analysis focused, broad, contemporary movement or tradition within Western philosophy, especially anglophone philosophy. Analytic philosophy is characterized by a clarity of prose; rigor in arguments; and making use of formal logic and mathematics, and, to a lesser degree, the natural sciences. It is further characterized by an interest in language and meaning known as the linguistic turn. It has developed several new branches of philosophy and logic, notably philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of science, modern predicate logic and mathematical logic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthony Kenny</span> British philosopher of Analytical Thomism (born 1931)

Sir Anthony John Patrick Kenny is a British philosopher whose interests lie in the philosophy of mind, ancient and scholastic philosophy, the philosophy of religion, and the philosophy of Wittgenstein of whose literary estate he is an executor. With Peter Geach, he has made a significant contribution to analytical Thomism, a movement whose aim is to present the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas in the style of analytic philosophy. He is a former president of the British Academy and the Royal Institute of Philosophy. He has two sons, Charles James Kenny and Robert Alexander Kenny. He also has four grandchildren.

Crispin James Garth Wright is a British philosopher, who has written on neo-Fregean (neo-logicist) philosophy of mathematics, Wittgenstein's later philosophy, and on issues related to truth, realism, cognitivism, skepticism, knowledge, and objectivity. He is Professor of Philosophical Research at the University of Stirling, and taught previously at the University of St Andrews, University of Aberdeen, New York University, Princeton University and University of Michigan.

Ordinary language philosophy (OLP) is a philosophical methodology that sees traditional philosophical problems as rooted in misunderstandings philosophers develop by distorting or forgetting how words are ordinarily used to convey meaning in non-philosophical contexts. "Such 'philosophical' uses of language, on this view, create the very philosophical problems they are employed to solve."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">G. E. M. Anscombe</span> British analytic philosopher (1919–2001)

Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe, usually cited as G. E. M. Anscombe or Elizabeth Anscombe, was a British analytic philosopher. She wrote on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, philosophical logic, philosophy of language, and ethics. She was a prominent figure of analytical Thomism, a Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford, and a professor of philosophy at the University of Cambridge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Brandom</span> American philosopher (born 1950)

Robert Boyce Brandom is an American philosopher who teaches at the University of Pittsburgh. He works primarily in philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and philosophical logic, and his academic output manifests both systematic and historical interests in these topics. His work has presented "arguably the first fully systematic and technically rigorous attempt to explain the meaning of linguistic items in terms of their socially norm-governed use, thereby also giving a non-representationalist account of the intentionality of thought and the rationality of action as well."

Hans D. Sluga is a German philosopher who spent most of his career as professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. Sluga teaches and writes on topics in the history of analytic philosophy, the history of continental philosophy, as well as on political theory, and ancient philosophy in Greece and China. He has been particularly influenced by the thought of Gottlob Frege, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Michel Foucault.

Friedrich Waismann was an Austrian mathematician, physicist, and philosopher. He is best known for being a member of the Vienna Circle and one of the key theorists in logical positivism.

James Ferguson Conant is an American philosopher at the University of Chicago who has written extensively on topics in philosophy of language, ethics, and metaphilosophy. He is perhaps best known for his writings on Wittgenstein, and his association with the New Wittgenstein school of Wittgenstein interpretation initiated by Cora Diamond.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Hacker</span> British philosopher (born 1939)


Peter Michael Stephan Hacker is a British philosopher. His principal expertise is in the philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and philosophical anthropology. He is known for his detailed exegesis and interpretation of the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, his critique of cognitive neuroscience, and for his comprehensive studies of human nature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pierre Hadot</span> French historian and philosopher (1922–2010)

Pierre Hadot was a French philosopher and historian of philosophy specializing in ancient philosophy, particularly Epicureanism and Stoicism.

Warren David Goldfarb is Walter Beverly Pearson Professor of Modern Mathematics and Mathematical Logic at Harvard University. He specializes in the history of analytic philosophy and in logic, most notably the classical decision problem.

This is a list of articles in analytic philosophy.

Brian McGuinness was a Wittgenstein scholar best known for his translation, with David Pears, of the Tractatus-Logico-Philosophicus, and for his biography of the first half of Wittgenstein's life.

Hans-Johann Glock is a German philosopher and professor of philosophy at the University of Zurich.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret MacDonald (philosopher)</span> British analytic philosopher

Margaret MacDonald was a British analytic philosopher. She worked in the areas of philosophy of language, political philosophy and aesthetics.

<i>The New Wittgenstein</i> 2000 book, eds. Alice Crary & Rupert Read

The New Wittgenstein (2000) is a book containing a family of interpretations of the work of philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. In particular, those associated with this interpretation, such as Cora Diamond, Alice Crary, and James F. Conant, understand Wittgenstein to have avoided putting forth a "positive" metaphysical program, and understand him to be advocating philosophy as a form of "therapy." Under this interpretation, Wittgenstein's program is dominated by the idea that philosophical problems are symptoms of illusions or "bewitchments by language," and that attempts at a "narrow" solution to philosophical problems, that do not take into account larger questions of how the questioner conducts her life, interacts with other people, and uses language generally, are doomed to failure.

References

  1. Staff. "Phi Betes Vote", The Harvard Crimson , November 25, 1958. Accessed November 2, 2012. "Phi Beta Kappa elected the Senior Sixteen in its annual fall election last night. Chosen were Gordon P. Baker of Lowell House and Englewood, N.J."