Ralph C. S. Walker | |
|---|---|
 Ralph Walker during a speech in 2012 | |
| Born | 2 June 1944 |
| Alma mater | McGill University Balliol College, Oxford |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Analytic philosophy |
Main interests | Kantianism · Ancient Philosophy · Coherence Theory of Truth · Moral Philosophy |
Ralph Charles Sutherland Walker (born 2 June 1944) is a philosopher at Magdalen College, Oxford and an expert on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant.
Walker received his secondary education at Aberdeen Grammar School, Selwyn House School and Trinity College School. [1] He was then educated at McGill and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar at Balliol College, before entering academia as a fellow at Merton College in 1968. He moved to Magdalen in 1972, where he has worked since. From 1984–85, he served as the Junior Proctor, with disciplinary oversight for the University. From 1993–2003 he was a delegate to Oxford University Press and from 2000–2006 he was Head of the Humanities Division at Oxford, one of the most senior posts at the University. [2] In 2009, he retired from the position of Vice-President of Magdalen College. Until his retirement from the position of Senior Tutor in Philosophy at Magdalen in 2012, he lectured in the Faculty of Philosophy, normally on Kant. Upon his retirement, he was made an Emeritus Fellow of Magdalen College. [3]
Roger Scruton called Walker's book Kant "clear and scholarly" and the “‘positive’ rejoinder" to the “‘objective’ interpretation" of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason , The Bounds of Sense , by P. F. Strawson, [4] who had already been at Magdalen when Walker started his work there and remained a fellow until 1987. Walker's later book, Kant and the Moral Law, was released in 1998 and has been translated into a number of languages. His most recent work, Objective Imperatives: An Exploration of Kant's Moral Philosophy, was published in 2022. Apart from focusing on Kant, Walker has also made contributions to the Coherence Theory of Truth.
Journal articles and papers by Ralph Walker can be found at JSTOR and philpapers. See below for a selection of his papers:
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Nicholas Rescher is a German-American philosopher, polymath, and author, who has been a professor of philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh since 1961. He is chairman of the Center for Philosophy of Science and was formerly chairman of the philosophy department.
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John Alexander Smith was a British idealist philosopher, who was the Jowett Lecturer of philosophy at Balliol College, Oxford from 1896 to 1910, and Waynflete Professor of Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy, carrying a Fellowship at Magdalen College in the same university, from 1910 to 1936. He was born in Dingwall and died in Oxford.
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Transcendental Humanism in philosophy considers humans as simultaneously the originator of meaning, and subject to a larger ultimate truth that exists beyond the human realm (transcendence). The philosophy suggests that the humanistic approach is guided by “accuracy, truth, discovery, and objectivity” that transcends or exists apart from subjectivity.
Kant is a 1982 book by the English philosopher Roger Scruton, in which the author provides an introduction to Kant's philosophy.l, Heidegger and Wittgenstein among others.
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