Peter Millican

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Peter Millican
Millican.jpg
Millican in 2005
Full namePeter Jeremy Roach Millican
Country England
Born1 March 1958 (1958-03) (age 65)
Title ICCF Grandmaster (1996)
ICCF   rating 2589 (July 1999)
ICCF   peak rating 2611 (July 1994)

Peter Jeremy Roach Millican [1] (born 1 March 1958) is Gilbert Ryle Fellow and Professor of Philosophy at Hertford College, University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. His primary interests include the philosophy of David Hume, philosophy of religion, philosophy of language, epistemology, and moral philosophy. Millican is particularly well known for his work on David Hume, and from 2005 until 2010 was co-editor of the journal Hume Studies . He is also an International Correspondence Chess Grandmaster, and has a strong interest in the field of computing and its links with philosophy. Recently he has developed a new degree programme at Oxford University, in Computer Science and Philosophy, which accepted its first students in 2012. [2] He currently hosts the University of Oxford's Futuremakers podcast, winning a CASE Gold Award in 2019. [3]

Contents

From 2014 to 2017 he maintained EarlyModernTexts.com, a site which hosts the writings of famous Early Modern writers in a somewhat modified form to make the text simpler to understand. [4]

Education

Peter Millican attended Borden Grammar School in Sittingbourne in Kent, United Kingdom. He read mathematics and then philosophy and theology at Lincoln College, Oxford, from 1976 to 1980. Staying at Lincoln College, Millican took the Philosophy B.Phil in 1982 (with a thesis in Philosophical Logic). Millican later obtained his PhD with a thesis on Hume, induction and probability, and also a research MSc in computer science, while employed at Leeds. [5]

Academic career

After teaching at the University of Glasgow from 1983, Millican was appointed in 1985 to a permanent lectureship at Leeds University, teaching both computing and philosophy. After 20 years at Leeds, in 2005 Millican was appointed as Gilbert Ryle Fellow in Philosophy at Hertford College, Oxford, promoted to reader in early modern philosophy in 2007, and professor of philosophy in 2010. [5] In 2009, he was appointed as the first "David Hume Illumni Fellow" at University of Edinburgh, a visiting position that he occupied during 2010–11. [6]

Research

Millican is best known for his research on David Hume, notably on the development of Hume's philosophy, and on the interpretation of his writings on induction and causation. In a 1995 paper, [7] Millican gave a detailed analysis of Hume's famous argument concerning induction, aiming to reconcile its apparent sceptical thrust with Hume's clear endorsement of inductive science: the previous interpretations that he was attacking had either condemned Hume as an inconsistent sceptic, or denied the scepticism entirely. His 2002 collection included a paper refining his analysis, and arguing against recent revisionary non-sceptical interpretations (particularly those proposed by Don Garrett and David Owen)—this debate is still ongoing in his 2012 paper. The collection also emphasised the distinctive importance of Hume's work in the 1748 Enquiry, [8] with the controversial implication that the Enquiry, rather than the Treatise, should be taken as presenting Hume's definitive perspective on the main topics that it covers.

Millican has published a series of substantial papers with the aim of deciding the so-called "New Hume" debate, which has been the most prominent controversy in Hume scholarship over the last 20 years ("New Humeans" take Hume to be a believer in a form of causation that goes beyond the constraints of his famous "two definitions of cause"). The first of these appeared in a 2007 collection on the debate, [9] the second in the July 2009 issue of Mind, and the third (responding to replies) in a 2010 collection on causation. [10] The Mind paper concludes that "the New Hume interpretation is not just wrong in detail—failing in the many ways documented above—but fundamentally misrepresents the basis, core, point and spirit of Hume's philosophy of causation". [11] A reviewer of the third paper judges that "Millican convincingly argues that none of his opponents' attempts to [answer his criticisms] are plausible. I am not alone in thinking the New Hume debate has run its course; as Millican says at the end of his essay, 'it is time to call it a day' (p. 158)."

Much of Millican's other research, while not itself historical, has focused on Humean topics such as induction, probability, and philosophy of religion, but also on philosophy of language. His most significant non-Humean papers are on the logic of definite descriptions (1990), the morality of abortion (1992), and Anselm's Ontological Argument (2004).". [12]

Philosophy and computing

As an educator, Millican's most distinctive contributions have been on the interface between Computing and Philosophy, devoting most of his career at Leeds to developing the teaching of Computer Science and programming to students in the Humanities. [5] In 2012 he championed a new degree in Computer Science and Philosophy at Oxford University (see Degrees of the University of Oxford). To encourage students in the Humanities to get involved in Computing, Millican has developed a number of user-friendly software teaching systems.

Barack Obama autobiography

In 2008 and 2009, some Republican commentators advanced claims that used Millican's software to claim Barack Obama's autobiography, Dreams from My Father was written or ghost-written by Bill Ayers. Millican insists the claim is false. In a series of articles in American Thinker and WorldNetDaily, author Jack Cashill claimed that his own analysis of the book showed Ayers' writing style, and backed this up citing analyses by American researchers using Millican's Signature software. In late October 2008, shortly before the presidential election, Republican Congressman Chris Cannon and his brother-in-law attempted to hire Millican to prove Ayers' authorship using computer analysis. Millican refused after they would not assure him in advance that his results would be published regardless of the outcome. [13] [14] [15] [16] After some analysis Millican later criticised the claim, saying variously that he had "found no evidence for Cashill's ghostwriting hypothesis", that it was "unlikely" [17] and that he felt "totally confident that it is false". [15]

Chess career

Millican played chess over-the-board in his youth, and captained Oxford University to victory in the National Chess Club Championship in 1983. [18] He later turned to correspondence chess, becoming British Champion in 1990. [19] This brought him the British Master title, and he then became an International Master in 1993 by winning his Semi-final group in the 19th World Correspondence Championship. With an international rating of 2610 (ranked 31 in the world), Millican was invited to play in the NPSF-50 "super tournament" (the first-ever Category 15 tournament, with an average rating over 2600). [20] By coming fifth—after Ulf Andersson, Gert Jan Timmerman, Joop van Oosterom, and Hans-Marcus Elwert, Millican qualified in 1997 as an International Correspondence Chess Grandmaster. [21] He analysed the Double Muzio chess opening in detail, asserting equality. [22]

Main publications

Related Research Articles

Humeanism refers to the philosophy of David Hume and to the tradition of thought inspired by him. Hume was an influential Scottish philosopher well known for his empirical approach, which he applied to various fields in philosophy. In the philosophy of science, he is notable for developing the regularity theory of causation, which in its strongest form states that causation is nothing but constant conjunction of certain types of events without any underlying forces responsible for this regularity of conjunction. This is closely connected to his metaphysical thesis that there are no necessary connections between distinct entities. The Humean theory of action defines actions as bodily behavior caused by mental states and processes without the need to refer to an agent responsible for this. The slogan of Hume's theory of practical reason is that "reason is...the slave of the passions". It restricts the sphere of practical reason to instrumental rationality concerning which means to employ to achieve a given end. But it denies reason a direct role regarding which ends to follow. Central to Hume's position in metaethics is the is-ought distinction. It states that is-statements, which concern facts about the natural world, do not imply ought-statements, which are moral or evaluative claims about what should be done or what has value. In philosophy of mind, Hume is well known for his development of the bundle theory of the self. It states that the self is to be understood as a bundle of mental states and not as a substance acting as the bearer of these states, as is the traditional conception. Many of these positions were initially motivated by Hume's empirical outlook. It emphasizes the need to ground one's theories in experience and faults opposing theories for failing to do so. But many philosophers within the Humean tradition have gone beyond these methodological restrictions and have drawn various metaphysical conclusions from Hume's ideas.

References

  1. "University of Oxford Calendar: Trinity Term 2022" (PDF). University of Oxford. p. 33. Retrieved 23 April 2022.
  2. "Computer Science and Philosophy". UK: University of Oxford. Archived from the original on 30 March 2013. Retrieved 22 March 2013.
  3. "The Futuremakers Podcast, University of Oxford". Council for Advancement and Support of Education. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
  4. "Early Modern Texts". www.earlymoderntexts.com. Retrieved 10 December 2017.
  5. 1 2 3 "Peter Millican – About Me", 2 November 2008
  6. "News: Millican Appointed Illumni Hume Fellow". University of Edinburgh. 28 April 2009.
  7. Peter Millican (1995). "Hume's Argument Concerning Induction: Structure and Interpretation" (PDF). Routledge. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 January 2009. Retrieved 12 November 2009.
  8. "Reading Hume on Human Understanding". Oxford University Press. May 2002.
  9. "The New Hume Debate: Revised Edition". Routledge. 12 December 2007.
  10. "The New Hume Debate: Revised Edition". Routledge. 8 December 2010.
  11. Millican, Peter (July 2009). "Hume, Causal Realism, and Causal Science". Mind. 118 (471): 647–712. doi: 10.1093/mind/fzp095 . Retrieved 3 August 2020.
  12. "Peter Millican-Research", 2 November 2008
  13. Sarah Baxter (2 October 2008). "Republicans try to use Oxford don to smear Barack Obama". The Sunday Times.
  14. Peter Millican (2 October 2008). "How they tried to tarnish Barack Obama". The Sunday Times.
  15. 1 2 Thomas Burr, "Congressman Cannon questions Obama authorship" Archived 16 May 2009 at the Wayback Machine , Salt Lake Tribune , 11 March 2008 (courtesy link to article lede: "Unable to connect to database server". Archived from the original on 15 July 2011. Retrieved 10 October 2009.)
  16. Obama book under scrutiny", United Press International, 2 November 2008
  17. Peter Millican. "Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father". Archived from the original on 28 June 2009.
  18. "Peter Millican-Chess", 13 November 2009
  19. "British Champions" Archived 18 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine , British Federation for Correspondence Chess, 13 November 2009
  20. NPSF-50 years jubilee Archived 15 December 2009 at the Wayback Machine , Jan van Reek, 13 November 2009
  21. International Grandmasters plus their GM Norms and Related Events Archived 30 June 2009 at the Wayback Machine , International Correspondence Chess Federation, 12 November 2009
  22. Peter Millican: "The Double Muzio", Correspondence Chess no. 102, April 1989, pp. 6–15.
  23. P. J. R. Millican and A. Clark, eds.: Machines and Thought: The Legacy of Alan Turing, Volume 1 . Clarendon Press, 1996. ISBN   978-0-19-823593-4.
  24. P. J. R. Millican and A. Clark, eds.: Connectionism, Concepts, and Folk Psychology: The Legacy of Alan Turing, Volume 2 . Clarendon Press, 1996. ISBN   978-0-19-823594-1.