University of East Anglia

Faculty Member, School of Philosophy

Lecturer

School of Philosophy

About

BPhil (Oxford 1993), DPhil (Oxford 1996), PD (LMU Munich 2002)

Main interests: philosophies of mind and perception, metaphilosophy, Wittgenstein
Further interests: linguistic understanding, classical empiricism, the 'Austro-British' strand of analytic philosophy (incl. Vienna Circle, Wittgenstein, Austin, Ryle)
Current main projects: cognitive epistemology of philosophy, philosophy as therapy, the genesis of concepts of the mind

My current main project is to analyse how non-intentional cognitive processes shape philosophical intuitions and philosophical reflection, and to explore the consequences for philosophical method. In my forthcoming "Treacherous Intuitions" I examine how non-intentional analogical and metaphorical reasoning (guided by 'philosophical pictures') and belief bias effects shaped (i) the 'classical' conception of the mind as a space and organ of inner perception, (ii) the notion of 'secondary qualities', and (iii) the evolution of the latter into sense-datum theories of perception. The results of this exercise in 'cognitive epistemology' vindicate to some extent the practice of philosophy as therapy. In "Philosophical Delusion and its Therapy" (Routledge 2010) and a series of papers I seek to explain where and why a kind of (cognitive) therapy is required in philosophy, analyse extant models of such therapeutic philosophy (due to Wittgenstein and J.L. Austin) and develop methods to practice it.

http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415331791/

Earlier I worked on understanding and semantic knowledge. I identified some serious shortcomings of orthodox compositional approaches to the problem of linguistic creativity and developed a new diagnostic approach (presented in: Linguistic Creativity, Kluwer 2000).

Recent and major papers:

Diseases of the Understanding and the Need for Philosophical Therapy, Philosophical Investigations 34 (1), 2011, pp. 22-54

How to Practice Philosophy as Therapy: Philosophical Therapy and Therapeutic Philosophy, Metaphilosophy 42 (1-2), 2011

Philosophical Pictures and Secondary Qualities, Synthese 171 (1), 2009, pp. 77-110

Wittgenstein’s Non-Cognitivism – Explained and Vindicated, Synthese 162 (1), 2008, pp. 53-84

Philosophical Pictures, Synthese 148 (2), 2006, pp. 469-501

Austin on Sense-Data: Ordinary Language Analysis as ‘Therapy’, Grazer Philosophische Studien 70, 2005, pp. 67-99

A Cognitive Self-Therapy – Philosophical Investigations sections 138-97, in: E.Ammereller & E.Fischer (eds.): Wittgenstein at Work. Method in the “Philosophical Investigations”, London: Routledge, 2004, pp. 86-126

Bogus Mystery about Linguistic Competence, Synthese 135 (1), 2003, pp. 49-75

I gratefully acknowledge support from the German Research Council (DFG, Heisenberg Research Readership 2005-9), the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (Golestan Fellowship 2005/6) and the Collegium Budapest (Senior Research Fellowship 2006/7).

Contact Information