Rachael Wiseman

Last updated

Rachael Wiseman is a British analytic philosopher. She has expounded the work of Elizabeth Anscombe and Ludwig Wittgenstein. In 2022, she was short-listed for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, [1] [2] and won the 2022 HWA Non-Fiction Crown Award . [3]

Contents

Life

She lectures at University of Liverpool. [4] [5] [6]

One of the co-founders of the Women in Parenthesis project. [7]

Along with co-author Claire McCumhaill, she has argued that homo sapiens are "metaphysical animals", consciously extending the classic Aristotelian definition of "rational animal" to rebut the materialist anti-metaphysical bias of most 20th century philosophy.

She has correlated the absence of sound ethics and metaphysics in modern thought to the absence of women in philosophy, and has supported the hypothesis of Mary Midgely that both phenomena derive from the fact that most European philosophers have been bachelors.[ citation needed ]

She has argued for rejecting Sydney Shoemaker's reading of an influential passage from Wittgenstein's Blue Book as "Immunity to Error through Misidentification", holding that the passage reflects neither solipsism nor a purely detached stoicism, but rather "an expression of deep concern for the world, for living things, and for oneself as one object among many". She believes that Saul Kripke made a similar misreading in his rule-following considerations, in that both "mistake the interlocutors voice for Wittgenstein's own, and both generate a line of inquiry that is radically misdirected". [8]

Selected publications

References and notes

  1. Elmajdoubi, Halima (2023-02-23). "Metaphysical Animals by Clare Mac Cumhaill & Rachael Wiseman". National Book Critics Circle. Retrieved 2023-08-15.
  2. "Ling Ma, Isaac Butler and Morgan Talty among National Book Critics Circle Award winners". Los Angeles Times. 2023-03-24. Retrieved 2023-08-15.
  3. "Historia interviews: 2022 Non-fiction Crown Award winners Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman – Historia Magazine". www.historiamag.com. Retrieved 2023-08-15.
  4. "Rachael Wiseman - University of Liverpool". www.liverpool.ac.uk. Retrieved 2023-08-15.
  5. "Rachael Wiseman – The Aristotelian Society" . Retrieved 2023-08-15.
  6. "About Rachael Wiseman". The Integrity Project. 2016-04-02. Retrieved 2023-08-15.
  7. "Rachael Wiseman". The Chronicle of Higher Education.
  8. Wiseman 2019, pp. 663, 677.
  9. Elmajdoubi, Halima (2023-02-23). "Metaphysical Animals by Clare Mac Cumhaill & Rachael Wiseman". National Book Critics Circle. Retrieved 2023-08-15.
  10. "Oxford Quartet: The Women Who Took On the Philosophical Establishment (Published 2022)". 2022-06-05. Retrieved 2023-08-15.
  11. "Metaphysical Animals by Clare Mac Cumhaill & Rachael Wiseman and The Women Are Up to Something by Benjamin Lipscomb | Issue 151 | Philosophy Now". philosophynow.org. Retrieved 2023-08-15.
  12. Walsh, John (2023-08-15). "Metaphysical Animals by Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachel Wiseman review — the Oxford women who shook up philosophy". The Times . ISSN   0140-0460 . Retrieved 2023-08-15.

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.

<i>Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus</i> 1921 philosophical work by Ludwig Wittgenstein

The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is the only book-length philosophical work by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein that was published during his lifetime. The project had a broad goal: to identify the relationship between language and reality, and to define the limits of science. Wittgenstein wrote the notes for the Tractatus while he was a soldier during World War I and completed it during a military leave in the summer of 1918. It was originally published in German in 1921 as Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung. In 1922 it was published together with an English translation and a Latin title, which was suggested by G. E. Moore as homage to Baruch Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670).

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">Rosalind Hursthouse</span> New Zealand philosopher (born 1943)

Rosalind Hursthouse is a British-born New Zealand moral philosopher noted for her work on virtue ethics. She is one of the leading exponents of contemporary virtue ethics, though she has also written extensively on philosophy of action, history of philosophy, moral psychology, and biomedical ethics. Hursthouse is Professor Emerita of Philosophy at the University of Auckland and Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Geach</span> British philosopher (1916–2013)

Peter Thomas Geach was a British philosopher who was Professor of Logic at the University of Leeds. His areas of interest were philosophical logic, ethics, history of philosophy, philosophy of religion and the theory of identity.

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.

Logical atomism is a philosophical view that originated in the early 20th century with the development of analytic philosophy. It holds that the world consists of ultimate logical "facts" that cannot be broken down any further, each of which can be understood independently of other facts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Midgley</span> English philosopher (1919–2018)

Mary Beatrice Midgley was a British philosopher. A senior lecturer in philosophy at Newcastle University, she was known for her work on science, ethics and animal rights. She wrote her first book, Beast and Man (1978), when she was in her late fifties, and went on to write over 15 more, including Animals and Why They Matter (1983), Wickedness (1984), The Ethical Primate (1994), Evolution as a Religion (1985), and Science as Salvation (1992). She was awarded honorary doctorates by Durham and Newcastle universities. Her autobiography, The Owl of Minerva, was published in 2005.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philippa Foot</span> English philosopher (1920–2010)

Philippa Ruth Foot was an English philosopher and one of the founders of contemporary virtue ethics. Her work was inspired by Aristotelian ethics. Along with Judith Jarvis Thomson, she is credited with inventing the trolley problem. She was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society. She was a granddaughter of the U.S. President Grover Cleveland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rush Rhees</span> American philosopher (1905–1989)

Rush Rhees was an American philosopher. He is principally known as a student, friend, and literary executor of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. With G. E. M. Anscombe he was co-editor of Wittgenstein's posthumous Philosophical Investigations (1953), and, with Anscombe and G. H. von Wright, he co-edited Wittgenstein's Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics (1956). He was solely responsible for the editing of Philosophical Grammar (1974) and Philosophical Remarks (1975). Rhees taught philosophy at Swansea University from 1940 until 1966, when he took early retirement to devote more time to editing Wittgenstein's works.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. N. Findlay</span> American philosopher

John Niemeyer Findlay, usually cited as J. N. Findlay, was a South African philosopher.

Cynthia Cruz is a contemporary American poet. She is the author of seven published poetry collections, and two works of cultural criticism. She currently teaches classes in the Graduate Writing Program at Columbia University.

<i>Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics</i> 1956 work by philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein

Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics is a book of Ludwig Wittgenstein's notes on the philosophy of mathematics. It has been translated from German to English by G.E.M. Anscombe, edited by G.H. von Wright and Rush Rhees, and published first in 1956. The text has been produced from passages in various sources by selection and editing. The notes have been written during the years 1937–1944 and a few passages are incorporated in the Philosophical Investigations which were composed later.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alice Crary</span> American philosopher

Alice Crary is an American philosopher who currently holds the positions of University Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Faculty, The New School for Social Research in New York City and Visiting Fellow at Regent's Park College, University of Oxford, U.K..

Clare Palmer is a British philosopher, theologian and scholar of environmental and religious studies. She is known for her work on environmental and animal ethics. She was appointed as a professor in the Department of Philosophy at Texas A&M University in 2010. She had previously held academic appointments at the Universities of Greenwich, Stirling, and Lancaster in the United Kingdom, and Washington University in St. Louis in the United States, among others.

Hidé Ishiguro is a Japanese analytic philosopher and emeritus professor at Keio University, Tokyo. She is considered an expert on the philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz on whom she has published many papers. She is also a Wittgenstein scholar.

Mikel Burley is a scholar of religion and philosophy, known for his work on the Hindu and Buddhist traditions.

Clare Mac Cumhaill is an Irish philosopher and historian. In 2022, she was short-listed for the American National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, and won the 2022 HWA Non-Fiction Crown Award .