Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford
Encyclopedia
The Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford, was founded in 2001. Previously it was a sub-faculty of the Faculty of Literae Humaniores
(which had been founded in 1913). Despite this, the teaching of philosophy at Oxford dates back to mediaeval times, while the faculty can boast 150 fulltime philosophers, building on the established tradition of Oxford philosophy. It is part of Oxford's Humanities Division
. It is currently ranked 2nd in the world by the Philosophy Gourmet report. It is ranked first in the UK by the Complete University Guide, Guardian , Times and Independent .
Some of the world's greatest philosophers have studied or taught at Oxford, including William of Ockham
, John Locke
, Jeremy Bentham
and Thomas Hobbes
, and in more recent times Amartya Sen
, Peter Strawson, Alfred Ayer
, Gilbert Ryle
, Isaiah Berlin
, Bernard Williams
, Thomas Nagel
and Elizabeth Anscombe.
Other philosophers (e.g. Thomas Nagel
and Noam Chomsky
have been brought to Oxford to lecture at its named lectures, such as the John Locke Lectures
and the Gareth Evans Memorial Lectures.
Oxford has these chairs in philosophy:
(list incomplete)
Literae Humaniores
Literae Humaniores is the name given to an undergraduate course focused on Classics at Oxford and some other universities.The Latin name means literally "more humane letters", but is perhaps better rendered as "Advanced Studies", since humaniores has the sense of "more refined" or "more learned",...
(which had been founded in 1913). Despite this, the teaching of philosophy at Oxford dates back to mediaeval times, while the faculty can boast 150 fulltime philosophers, building on the established tradition of Oxford philosophy. It is part of Oxford's Humanities Division
Humanities Division, University of Oxford
The Humanities Division is one of the four Divisions into which the activities of the University are grouped. Each Division has a Head and an elected board. The current Head is Professor Sally Shuttleworth. It has received considerable praise for its work at the forefront of digitising the Humanities...
. It is currently ranked 2nd in the world by the Philosophy Gourmet report. It is ranked first in the UK by the Complete University Guide, Guardian , Times and Independent .
Some of the world's greatest philosophers have studied or taught at Oxford, including William of Ockham
William of Ockham
William of Ockham was an English Franciscan friar and scholastic philosopher, who is believed to have been born in Ockham, a small village in Surrey. He is considered to be one of the major figures of medieval thought and was at the centre of the major intellectual and political controversies of...
, John Locke
John Locke
John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
, Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism...
and Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury , in some older texts Thomas Hobbs of Malmsbury, was an English philosopher, best known today for his work on political philosophy...
, and in more recent times Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen, CH is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members...
, Peter Strawson, Alfred Ayer
Alfred Ayer
Sir Alfred Jules "Freddie" Ayer was a British philosopher known for his promotion of logical positivism, particularly in his books Language, Truth, and Logic and The Problem of Knowledge ....
, Gilbert Ryle
Gilbert Ryle
Gilbert Ryle , was a British philosopher, a representative of the generation of British ordinary language philosophers that shared Wittgenstein's approach to philosophical problems, and is principally known for his critique of Cartesian dualism, for which he coined the phrase "the ghost in the...
, Isaiah Berlin
Isaiah Berlin
Sir Isaiah Berlin OM, FBA was a British social and political theorist, philosopher and historian of ideas of Russian-Jewish origin, regarded as one of the leading thinkers of the twentieth century and a dominant liberal scholar of his generation...
, Bernard Williams
Bernard Williams
Sir Bernard Arthur Owen Williams was an English moral philosopher, described by The Times as the most brilliant and most important British moral philosopher of his time. His publications include Problems of the Self , Moral Luck , Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy , and Truth and Truthfulness...
, Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel is an American philosopher, currently University Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University, where he has taught since 1980. His main areas of philosophical interest are philosophy of mind, political philosophy and ethics...
and Elizabeth Anscombe.
Other philosophers (e.g. Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel is an American philosopher, currently University Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University, where he has taught since 1980. His main areas of philosophical interest are philosophy of mind, political philosophy and ethics...
and Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
have been brought to Oxford to lecture at its named lectures, such as the John Locke Lectures
John Locke lectures
The John Locke Lectures are a series of annual lectures in philosophy given at the University of Oxford. They are one of the world's most prestigious academic lecture series, comparable to the Gifford Lectures given in Scottish universities...
and the Gareth Evans Memorial Lectures.
Oxford has these chairs in philosophy:
- White's Professor of Moral Philosophy (founded in 1621)
- The Waynflete Professorship of Metaphysical Philosophy (founded in 1859)
- The Wykeham ProfessorWykeham ProfessorThe University of Oxford has three statutory professorships named after William of Wykeham.-Logic:The Wykeham Professorship in Logic was established in 1859, although it was not known as the Wykeham chair until later...
of Logic (founded in 1859) - The Nolloth Professorship of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion (founded in 1920).
- The Wilde Professor of Mental PhilosophyWilde Professor of Mental PhilosophyThe Wilde Professor of Mental Philosophy is an academic of the University of Oxford.The position was initially established as a readership and was converted to a professorship in 2000, on the recommendation of the Literae Humaniores Board and with the concurrence of the General Board.According to...
(founded in 2000). - Professorship in Ancient Philosophy
Notable Members
- Nick BostromNick BostromNick Bostrom is a Swedish philosopher at the University of Oxford known for his work on existential risk and the anthropic principle. He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics...
- John BroomeJohn Broome (philosopher)John Broome is a British philosopher and economist. He is currently the White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford....
- Harvey BrownHarvey Brown (philosopher)Harvey R. Brown, is a philosopher of physics. He is professor of philosophy at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, as well as a Fellow of the British Academy....
- David Charles
- Roger CrispRoger CrispRoger Stephen Crisp is Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at St. Anne’s College, Oxford. He holds the university posts of Professor of Moral Philosophy and Uehiro Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy. His work falls principally within the field of ethics, in particular metaethics, normative ethics, and...
- A. C. GraylingA. C. GraylingAnthony Clifford Grayling is a British philosopher. In 2011 he founded and became the first Master of New College of the Humanities, a private undergraduate college in London. Until June 2011, he was Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London, where he taught from 1991...
- John HawthorneJohn HawthorneJohn Hawthorne is the Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at Oxford University, though he continues to teach on a visiting basis at Princeton University...
- Terence IrwinTerence IrwinTerence Irwin is a scholar and philosopher specializing in ancient Greek philosophy and the history of ethics Terence Irwin (born 21 April 1947, in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland) is a scholar and philosopher specializing in ancient Greek philosophy and the history of ethics Terence Irwin (born 21...
- Brian LeftowBrian LeftowBrian Leftow is the Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at Oriel College, Oxford, succeeding Richard Swinburne, who retired in 2002. Leftow's research interests include metaphysics, medieval philosophy, and philosophical theology. He is a graduate of Grove City College,...
- Stephen MulhallStephen MulhallStephen Mulhall is a philosopher and Fellow of New College, Oxford. His main research areas are Ludwig Wittgenstein and post-Kantian philosophy.-Life:...
- Derek ParfitDerek ParfitDerek Parfit is a British philosopher who specializes in problems of personal identity, rationality and ethics, and the relations between them. His 1984 book Reasons and Persons has been very influential...
- Janet Radcliffe RichardsJanet Radcliffe RichardsJanet Radcliffe Richards is a British philosopher who has written about feminism and bioethics.She was Lecturer in Philosophy at the Open University 1979-1999, and Director of the Centre for Bioethics and Philosophy of Medicine at University College London until 2007...
- Gonzalo Rodríguez PereyraGonzalo Rodríguez PereyraGonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra is a British Philosopher born in Argentina. He is currently a lecturer at the University of Oxford, where he has the title of Professor of Metaphysics, and a Tutorial Fellow at Oriel College....
- Julian SavulescuJulian SavulescuJulian Savulescu is a Romanian-Australian philosopher and bioethicist. He is Uehiro Professor of Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford, Fellow of St Cross College, Oxford, Director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, and Head of the Melbourne–Oxford Stem Cell Collaboration,...
- Roger ScrutonRoger ScrutonRoger Vernon Scruton is a conservative English philosopher and writer. He is the author of over 30 books, including Art and Imagination , Sexual Desire , The Aesthetics of Music , and A Political Philosophy: Arguments For Conservatism...
- Richard SorabjiRichard SorabjiRichard Rustom Kharsedji Sorabji CBE, FBA is a British historian of ancient Western philosophy and Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at King's College London. He has written his own 'Intellectual Autobiography' in his Festschrift: R. Salles ed., Metaphysics, Soul and Ethics in Ancient Thought , 1-36...
- Ralph C. S. WalkerRalph C. S. WalkerRalph Walker is a leading academic at Magdalen College, University of Oxford, where he has been from 1972. 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...
- Timothy WilliamsonTimothy WilliamsonTimothy Williamson is a British philosopher whose main research interests are in philosophical logic, philosophy of language, epistemology and metaphysics....
Past members
- Sir Geoffrey WarnockGeoffrey WarnockSir Geoffrey James Warnock was a philosopher and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University. Before his knighthood , he was commonly known as G. J. Warnock.- Life :...
- Mary Warnock, Baroness Warnock
- Christopher PeacockeChristopher PeacockeChristopher Arthur Bruce Peacocke is a philosopher especially known for his work in philosophy of mind and epistemology...
- Ronald DworkinRonald DworkinRonald Myles Dworkin, QC, FBA is an American philosopher and scholar of constitutional law. He is Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law and Philosophy at New York University and Emeritus Professor of Jurisprudence at University College London, and has taught previously at Yale Law School and the...
- Amartya SenAmartya SenAmartya Sen, CH is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members...
- Peter GeachPeter GeachPeter Thomas Geach is a British philosopher. His areas of interest are the history of philosophy, philosophical logic, and the theory of identity.He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford...
- Colin McGinnColin McGinnColin McGinn is a British philosopher currently working at the University of Miami. McGinn has also held major teaching positions at Oxford University and Rutgers University. He is best known for his work in the philosophy of mind, though he has written on topics across the breadth of modern...
- Michael AyersMichael AyersMichael Ayers may refer to:*Michael D. Ayers, journalist*Michael R. Ayers , British philosopher...
- Simon BlackburnSimon BlackburnSimon Blackburn is a British academic philosopher known for his work in quasi-realism and his efforts to popularise philosophy. He recently retired as professor of philosophy at the University of Cambridge, but remains a distinguished research professor of philosophy at the University of North...
(list incomplete)