The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy

1059 Pages·2008·4.44 MB·English

by  Frank Jackson

Contents Go to page:
Front Matter
[UNTITLED]
Preface
Notes on the Contributors
Moral Philosophy
Meta­Ethics
Michael Smith
Normative Ethics
Julia Driver
Moral Epistemology
Karen Jones
Moral Psychology
R. Jay Wallace
As a Matter of Fact: Empirical Perspectives on Ethics
John M. Doris and Stephen P. Stich
Social and Political Philosophy
Liberalism and Diversity
Linda Barclay
Law
Jeremy Waldron
Democratic Theory
David Estlund
Feminism in Philosophy
Rae Langton
The Feasibility Issue
Geoffrey Brennan and Philip Pettit
Philosophy of Mind and Action
Intentionality
Gabriel Segal
Consciousness
Frank Jackson
Action
Alfred R. Mele
Cognitive Science
Martin Davies
Philosophy of Language
Reference and Description
Scott Soames
Meaning and Understanding
Ian Rumfitt
Truth
Paul Horwich
Pragmatics
Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson
Metaphysics
Causation
Ned Hall
Modality
Lloyd Humberstone
Time
D. H. Mellor
Constitution
Mark Johnston
Epistemology
Knowledge and Scepticism
Timothy Williamson
Perception
M. G. F. Martin
The A Priori
Christopher Peacocke
Philosophy of the Sciences
Scientific Realism
Michael Devitt
Laws
Nancy Cartwright, Anna Alexandrova, Sophia Efstathiou, Andrew Hamilton, and
Ioan Muntean
Philosophy of Biology
Philip Kitcher
The Foundations of Physics
David Albert
End Matter
Index
[UNTITLED]
Oxford Handbooks Online
[UNTITLED]

The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy
Edited by Frank Jackson and Michael Smith
Print Publication Date: Nov 2007 Subject: Philosophy Online Publication Date: Sep 2009
(p. iv)
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Page 1 of 2
[UNTITLED]
Oxford University Press, at the address above
You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover
and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
The Oxford handbook of contemporary philosophy / edited by Frank Jackson
and Michael Smith.
ISBN 978–0–19–924295–5(Hbk.) 978–0–19–923476–9(Pbk.)
1 3 5 7 9 1 0 8 6 4 2
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Preface
Oxford Handbooks Online
Preface

The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy
Edited by Frank Jackson and Michael Smith
Print Publication Date: Nov 2007 Subject: Philosophy Online Publication Date: Sep 2009
Preface
(p. v)
When Peter Momtchiloff invited us to edit The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary
Philosophy we sat down (over a glass of wine, truth be known) and asked ourselves how
best to produce a volume that, while not being an encyclopedia, was not a handbook of
one or another area of philosophy. We wanted a volume that would give readers a sense
of the range and excitement of contemporary analytic philosophy (excluding formal logic)
and would inform them of some of the most interesting recent developments, while being
something they could hold in one hand or maybe cradle in two.
We also wanted a volume that would be a contribution to the subject. With this in mind,
we invited our contributors to take the opportunity to set agendas for future discussions
of the subject matters of their chapters. They were asked to produce chapters that gave a
good sense of the philosophical geography of their assigned topic, but we gave them
maximum flexibility in how to structure their chapters and made it clear that they were
free to focus the discussion on the issues they judged to be most central and to express
their own opinions. We were looking not for a mini-encyclopedia but, if you like, for a
series of very high-quality opinion pieces. We were delighted with the response. Reading
the chapters as they came in was an education in the contemporary philosophical scene
for both of us.
Although we gave our contributors maximum flexibility, we were intrusive when it came
to the topics within the various parts (moral philosophy, social and political philosophy,
philosophy of mind and action, philosophy of language, meta-physics, epistemology, and
philosophy of the sciences). For each part we made a judgement concerning the topics of
most interest and fertility, and of course drew on our knowledge of who was working on
what. For example, in the philosophy of the sciences it seemed to us that realism, laws,
physics, and biology were four topics that stood out for inclusion, and we were delighted
to attract four major players on those topics as contributors. Similar remarks apply to the
other parts.
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Preface
An example of where we drew on our knowledge of who was working on what is the
chapter by John Doris and Stephen Stich, ‘As a Matter of Fact: Empirical Perspectives on
Ethics’. We had heard versions of the challenging ideas in this chapter as presentations.
But in fact most of the invitations to our contributors were prompted in one way or
another by personal acquaintance with their work. There are also a number of chapters
that we knew were in someone's head and that what was needed to make the highly
desirable transfer from head to page was the right invitation.
(p. vi)
There are topics we wish we could have included but could not find room for—or the right
contributor for; and, of course, other editors would have made different choices. That's
life.
Producing this volume has been a lot of work—perhaps rather more than we had
expected. We are very grateful to our contributors for their contributions and in some
cases their extraordinary patience, and to Peter Momtchiloff and Laurien Berkeley of
Oxford University Press.
F. J. and M.S.
Page 2 of 2
Notes on the Contributors
Oxford Handbooks Online
Notes on the Contributors

The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy
Edited by Frank Jackson and Michael Smith
Print Publication Date: Nov 2007 Subject: Philosophy Online Publication Date: Sep 2009
Notes on the Contributors
(p. xi)
DAVID ALBERT is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the MA Program in the
Philosophical Foundations of Physics at Columbia University.
ANNA ALEXANDROVA is a graduate student in the Department of Philosophy andScience
Studies at the University of California, San Diego.
LINDA BARCLAY is a Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at Aarhus University.
GEOFFREY BRENNAN is Professor in the Social and Political Theory Group, Research
School of Social Sciences, at the Australian National University, and holds a part-
time joint position in the Political Science Department at Duke University and
thePhilosophy Department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
NANCY CARTWRIGHT is Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy, Logic
and Scientific Method at the London School of Economics and PoliticalScience,
and the Philosophy Department at the University of California, San Diego.
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Notes on the Contributors
MARTIN DAVIES is Professor of Philosophy at the Australian National University.
MICHAEL DEVITT is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center
ofthe City University of New York.
JOHN M. DORIS is Associate Professor, Philosophy–Neuroscience–Psychology Program
and Department of Philosophy, Washington University in St Louis.
JULIA DRIVER is Professor of Philosophy at Dartmouth College.
SOPHIA EFSTATHIOU is a graduate student in Philosophy and Science Studies at the
University of California, San Diego.
DAVID ESTLUND is Professor of Philosophy at Brown University.
NED HALL is Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University.
ANDREW HAMILTON is a graduate student in Philosophy and Science Studies at the
University of California, San Diego.
PAUL HORWICH is Professor of Philosophy at New York University.
Page 2 of 5
Notes on the Contributors
LLOYD HUMBERSTONE is a Reader in the Philosophy Department, School of Philosophy
and Bioethics, at Monash University.
FRANK JACKSON is visiting Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University and at La
Trobe University.
MARK JOHNSTON is Walter Cerf Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University.
KAREN JONES is a Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of
Melbourne.
PHILIP KITCHER is John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University.
RAE LANGTON is Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Linguistics and
Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
M. G. F. MARTIN is a Professor at University College London.
ALFRED R. MELE is the William H. and Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy
at Florida State University.
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