Peter Hacker

Last updated

Peter Hacker
Peter hacker bw(1884).jpg
Peter Hacker in 2013
Born
Peter Michael Stephan Hacker

15 July 1939 (1939-07-15) (age 85)
London
Alma mater The Queen's College, Oxford
Era Contemporary philosophy
Region Western philosophy
School Analytic philosophy
Main interests
 Philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, neurophilosophy, Wittgenstein, philosophical anthropology
Notable ideas
The mereological fallacy in neuroscience and the philosophy of mind
Website https://www.pmshacker.co.uk/


Peter Michael Stephan Hacker (born 15 July 1939) [1] 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. [2]

Contents

Professional biography

Hacker studied philosophy, politics and economics at The Queen's College, Oxford, from 1960 to 1963. In 1963–65 he was senior scholar at St Antony's College, Oxford, where he began graduate work under the supervision of H. L. A. Hart. His D.Phil. thesis "Rules and Duties" was completed in 1966 during a junior research fellowship at Balliol College, Oxford.

Since 1966 Hacker has been a fellow of St John's College, Oxford, and a member of the Oxford University philosophy faculty. His visiting positions at other universities include Makerere College, Uganda (1968); Swarthmore College, US (1973 and 1986); University of Michigan, (1974); Milton C. Scott visiting professor at Queen's University, Kingston, Canada (1985); visiting fellow in humanities at University of Bologna, Italy (2009). From 1985 to 1987 he was a British Academy Research Reader in the Humanities. In 1991–94 he was a Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellow. Hacker retired from Oxford in 2006, and was appointed to an emeritus research fellowship from 2006 to 2015, since when he has been an emeritus fellow. He was made an honorary fellow of The Queen's College, Oxford, in 2010. He was a part-time professor of philosophy at the University of Kent at Canterbury from 2013 to 2016. He was appointed to an honorary professorship at the Institute of Neurology at University College, London, for the period 2019–2024.

Philosophical views

Hacker is one of the most important contemporary exponents of the linguistic-therapeutic approach to philosophy pioneered by Ludwig Wittgenstein. In this approach, the words and concepts used by the language community are taken as given, and the role of philosophy is to resolve or dissolve philosophical problems by giving an overview of the uses of these words and the structural relationships between these concepts. Philosophical inquiry is therefore very different from scientific inquiry, and Hacker maintains that: "philosophy is not a contribution to human knowledge, but to human understanding." [3] He believes that empirical observation and research is a categorically distinct kind of activity from conceptual investigation and clarification, even though there is sometimes no sharp dividing line between the two. These are two different kinds of intellectual activity, which may be conducted by the same person (as in the case of Einstein) or by different people. This has led him into direct disagreement [ citation needed ] with "neuro-philosophers": neuroscientists or philosophers such as Antonio Damasio and Daniel Dennett who think that neuroscience can shed light on philosophical questions such as the nature of consciousness or the mind-body problem. Hacker argues that these are indeed problems, only not empirical ones [ citation needed ]. They are conceptual problems and puzzlements that are to be dissolved or resolved by logico-linguistic analysis. It follows that scientific inquiry (learning more facts about humans or the world) does not help to resolve them anymore than discoveries in physics can help to prove a mathematical theorem. His 2003 book "Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience", co-authored with neuroscientist Max Bennett, contains an exposition of these views, and critiques of the ideas of many contemporary neuroscientists and philosophers, including Francis Crick, Antonio Damasio, Daniel Dennett, John Searle, and others.

Hacker in general finds many received components of current philosophy of mind to be incoherent [ original research? ]. He rejects mind-brain identity theories, as well as functionalism, eliminativism and other forms of reductionism. He advocates methodological pluralism, denying that standard explanations of human conduct are causal, and insisting on the irreducibility of explanation in terms of reasons and goals. He denies that psychological attributes can be intelligibly ascribed to the brain, insisting that they are ascribable only to the human being as a whole. He has endeavoured to show that the puzzles and 'mysteries' of consciousness dissolve under careful analysis of the various forms of intransitive and transitive consciousness, and that so-called qualia are no more than a philosopher's fiction.

Since 2005 Hacker has completed an ambitious tetralogy on human nature [ citation needed ]. He conceives of this to be philosophical anthropology – a study of the conceptual forms and relations in terms of which we think about ourselves and our theoretical and practical powers. The first volume The Categorial Framework: a Study of Human Nature surveys the most general concepts: substance, causation, powers, agency, teleology and rationality, mind, body and person. The second, The Intellectual Powers: A Study of Human Nature investigates consciousness, intentionality and mastery of a language as marks of the mind. This is followed by detailed logico-grammatical studies of human cognitive and cogitative powers, ranging from perception through knowledge and belief to memory, thought and imagination. The third volume The Passions: a Study of Human Nature is dedicated to the study of the emotions, ranging from pride, shame, jealousy and anger to love, friendship, and sympathy. It draws extensively on literary, dramatic and poetic sources. The concluding volume The Moral Powers: a Study of Human Nature is concerned with good and evil; freedom, determinism, and responsibility; pleasure and happiness; finding meaning in life and the place of death in life. Hacker's methodology is connective analysis in which the wide range of conceptual and logical features of the relevant subjects is laid bare [ vague ].

Hacker has frequently collaborated with fellow Oxford philosopher G. P. Baker, and Australian neuroscientist Max Bennett.

Works

Books

  1. Insight and Illusion: Wittgenstein on Philosophy and the Metaphysics of Experience (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1972) ( ISBN   0198243693 , 978-0198243694)
  2. Insight and Illusion – themes in the philosophy of Wittgenstein (extensively revised edition) (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1986) ( ISBN   0-19-824783-4)
  3. 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   0226035263)( ISBN   0226035409), co-authored with G.P. Baker. It was extensively revised in 2009 and published in two parts by Wiley-Blackwell( ISBN   1405199245)( ISBN   1405199253).
  4. Frege : Logical Excavations, (Blackwell, Oxford, O.U.P., N.Y., 1984) ( ISBN   0-19-503261-6) co-authored with G.P. Baker.
  5. Language, Sense and Nonsense, a critical investigation into modern theories of language (Blackwell, 1984) ( ISBN   0-631-13519-7) co-authored with G.P. Baker.
  6. Scepticism, Rules and Language (Blackwell, 1984) ( ISBN   0-631-13614-2) co-authored with G.P. Baker.
  7. Wittgenstein : Rules, Grammar, and Necessity – Volume 2 of an analytical commentary on the Philosophical Investigations (Blackwell, Oxford, UK and Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1985) ( ISBN   0-631-13024-1)( ISBN   0-631-16188-0) co-authored with G.P. Baker. It was extensively revised in 2014 ( ISBN   1-118-85459-4)
  8. Appearance and Reality – a philosophical investigation into perception and perceptual qualities (Blackwell, 1987) ( ISBN   0-631-15704-2)
  9. Wittgenstein : Meaning and Mind, Volume 3 of an Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations (Blackwell, Oxford and Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1990) ( ISBN   0-631-18739-1). It was extensively revised in 2019 and published in two parts by Wiley-Blackwell ( ISBN   1118951808)( ISBN   1118951751).
  10. Wittgenstein: Mind and Will, Volume 4 of an Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations (Blackwell, 1996) ( ISBN   0-631-18739-1)
  11. Wittgenstein's Place in Twentieth Century Analytic Philosophy (Blackwell, Oxford, UK and Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1996) ( ISBN   0-631-20098-3)
  12. Wittgenstein on Human Nature (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1997) ( ISBN   0-7538-0193-0)
  13. Wittgenstein: Connections and Controversies (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2001) ( ISBN   0-19-924569-X)
  14. Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (Blackwell, Oxford, and Malden, Mass., 2003) ( ISBN   1-4051-0855-X), co-authored with Max Bennett. A second edition with 80,000 extra words was released in 2022 (ISBN 978-1119530978)
  15. Neuroscience and Philosophy: Brain, Mind, and Language (Columbia University Press, New York, 2007) ( ISBN   978-0-231-14044-7), co-authored with Max Bennett, D. Dennett, and J. Searle
  16. Human Nature: The Categorial Framework (Blackwell, 2007) ( ISBN   1405147288)
  17. History of Cognitive Neuroscience (Wiley, Blackwell, 2008) ( ISBN   978-1-4051-8182-2), co-authored with Max Bennett
  18. The Intellectual Powers: A study of Human Nature (Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, 2013) ISBN   978-1-4443-3247-6 pb. ed. [4]
  19. Wittgenstein: Comparisons & Context (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013) ISBN   978-0-19-967482-4 [5]
  20. The Passions: A study of Human Nature (Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, 2017) ISBN   978-1-119-44046-8
  21. Intellectual Entertainments: Eight Dialogues on Mind, Consciousness and Thought (Anthem Press, London, 2020) ISBN   1785271520
  22. The Moral Powers: a Study of Human Nature (Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, 2020) ISBN   1119657776
  23. A Beginner's Guide to the Later Philosophy of Wittgenstein: Seventeen Lectures and Dialogues on the Philosophical Investigations (Anthem Press, London & New York, 2024) ISBN   9781839991134

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Dennett</span> American philosopher (1942–2024)

Daniel Clement Dennett III was an American philosopher and cognitive scientist. His research centered on the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of science, and the philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science.

<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.

Metaphilosophy, sometimes called the philosophy of philosophy, is "the investigation of the nature of philosophy". Its subject matter includes the aims of philosophy, the boundaries of philosophy, and its methods. Thus, while philosophy characteristically inquires into the nature of being, the reality of objects, the possibility of knowledge, the nature of truth, and so on, metaphilosophy is the self-reflective inquiry into the nature, aims, and methods of the activity that makes these kinds of inquiries, by asking what is philosophy itself, what sorts of questions it should ask, how it might pose and answer them, and what it can achieve in doing so. It is considered by some to be a subject prior and preparatory to philosophy, while others see it as inherently a part of philosophy, or automatically a part of philosophy while others adopt some combination of these views.

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

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

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">Patricia Churchland</span> Canadian-American analytic philosopher

Patricia Smith Churchland is a Canadian-American analytic philosopher noted for her contributions to neurophilosophy and the philosophy of mind. She is UC President's Professor of Philosophy Emerita at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), where she has taught since 1984. She has also held an adjunct professorship at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies since 1989. She is a member of the Board of Trustees Moscow Center for Consciousness Studies of Philosophy Department, Moscow State University. In 2015, she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Educated at the University of British Columbia, the University of Pittsburgh, and Somerville College, Oxford, she taught philosophy at the University of Manitoba from 1969 to 1984 and is married to the philosopher Paul Churchland. Larissa MacFarquhar, writing for The New Yorker, observed of the philosophical couple that: "Their work is so similar that they are sometimes discussed, in journals and books, as one person."

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">Hard problem of consciousness</span> Philosophical concept

In the philosophy of mind, the hard problem of consciousness is to explain why and how humans and other organisms have qualia, phenomenal consciousness, or subjective experience. It is contrasted with the "easy problems" of explaining why and how physical systems give a (healthy) human being the ability to discriminate, to integrate information, and to perform behavioral functions such as watching, listening, speaking, and so forth. The easy problems are amenable to functional explanation—that is, explanations that are mechanistic or behavioral—since each physical system can be explained purely by reference to the "structure and dynamics" that underpin the phenomenon.

<i>Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language</i> 1982 exegesis by Saul Kripke

Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language is a 1982 book by philosopher of language Saul Kripke in which he contends that the central argument of Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations centers on a skeptical rule-following paradox that undermines the possibility of our ever following rules in our use of language. Kripke writes that this paradox is "the most radical and original skeptical problem that philosophy has seen to date" (p. 60). He argues that Wittgenstein does not reject the argument that leads to the rule-following paradox, but accepts it and offers a "skeptical solution" to alleviate the paradox's destructive effects.

Neurophenomenology refers to a scientific research program aimed to address the hard problem of consciousness in a pragmatic way. It combines neuroscience with phenomenology in order to study experience, mind, and consciousness with an emphasis on the embodied condition of the human mind. The field is very much linked to fields such as neuropsychology, neuroanthropology and behavioral neuroscience and the study of phenomenology in psychology.

Paul Montgomery Churchland is a Canadian philosopher known for his studies in neurophilosophy and the philosophy of mind. After earning a Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh under Wilfrid Sellars (1969), Churchland rose to the rank of full professor at the University of Manitoba before accepting the Valtz Family Endowed Chair in Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and joint appointments in that institution's Institute for Neural Computation and on its Cognitive Science Faculty.

The philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of the mind and its relation to the body and the external world.

Gordon Park Baker 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quietism (philosophy)</span> View on the purpose of philosophy

Quietism in philosophy sees the role of philosophy as broadly therapeutic or remedial. Quietist philosophers believe that philosophy has no positive thesis to contribute; rather, it defuses confusions in the linguistic and conceptual frameworks of other subjects, including non-quietist philosophy. For quietists, advancing knowledge or settling debates is not the job of philosophy, rather philosophy should liberate the mind by diagnosing confusing concepts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Carruthers (philosopher)</span> American philosopher

Peter Carruthers is a philosopher working primarily in the area of philosophy of mind. He is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Maryland, associate member of Neuroscience and Cognitive Science Program and member of the Committee for Philosophy and the Sciences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alva Noë</span> American philosopher (born 1964)

Alva Noë is an American philosopher. He is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. The focus of his work is the theory of perception and consciousness. In addition to these problems in cognitive science and the philosophy of mind, he is interested in analytic phenomenology, the theory of art, Ludwig Wittgenstein, enactivism, and the origins of analytic philosophy.

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

John Hyman is a British philosopher. He was Professor of Aesthetics at the University of Oxford before being appointed as Grote Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic at University College London in September 2018.

<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. ↑ Europa Publications (2003). International Who's Who of Authors and Writers 2004. Taylor & Francis. p. 224. ISBN   978-1-85743-179-7.
  2. ↑ Cf. Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (Blackwell, 2003); Neuroscience and Philosophy (Columbia University Press, 2007)
  3. ↑ Hacker, P. M. S. (1 April 2001). "An orrery of intentionality" (PDF). Language & Communication. 21 (2): 119–141. doi:10.1016/S0271-5309(00)00016-1. ISSN   0271-5309. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 May 2006.
  4. ↑ "Books | PMSHacker - Philosopher".
  5. ↑ "Books | PMSHacker - Philosopher".
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.