New Developments in Analytic Philosophy Research Cluster
About the ResearchThis research cluster provides a focus for research and publications on philosophical questions using the methods of analytic philosophy. Analytic philosophy investigates a diverse range of philosophical questions, but is unified by both the fundamental nature of the questions it asks, and the method which it employs to provide answers to those questions. These questions include: What is the relationship between language and reality? What is the relationship between biological and cultural evolution? Must a realist about scientific entities also be a realist about mathematical and other entities? What, if anything, makes moral statements true? Key areas for investigation within the cluster include, but are not limited to: the philosophy of science, the philosophy of biology, the philosophy of mathematics, metaphysics, epistemology, normative ethics, and meta-ethics. Coordinator
Researchers
Research ProjectsThe Logic of ImperativesCharles Pigden and Josh Parsons Can a command follow from other commands? Surely yes. But there is a problem: in logic, the concept of following from is defined in terms of truth and falsity, and commands cannot be true or false. Our project is to solve this problem by developing and exploring new conceptions of what it is for one command to follow from others. This has implications for ethics, as moral judgements are often assimilated to commands. This project will contribute to New Zealand's strong tradition of research in logic and ethics, areas of core importance to philosophy. We expect to produce four journal articles and possibly a book from this project. Towards A Unified Science of ReligionJames Maclaurin and Greg Dawes The belief in gods, demons, and other supernatural agents is a persistent feature of human culture, which cries out for explanation. In the last twenty-five years explanations of religion have reached a new level of sophistication. We now have a range of different scientific theories of religion, in cognitive science, anthropology, and evolutionary psychology, drawing upon a significant body of empirical data. This conference, sponsored by the New Developments in Analytic Philosophy Research Cluster, and organised by James Maclaurin and Greg Dawes, will bring together researchers from these different disciplines and different theoretical perspectives, to explore the possibility of a unified science of religion. Metaphysics and the Representational FallacyIn this book Heather Dyke argues that metaphysics should (and on the whole does) take itself to be concerned with investigating the nature of reality, and she suggests that the ontological significance of language has been grossly exaggerated in the pursuit of that aim. One of the most widely used methodologies in metaphysics involves taking ordinary language about the world as our starting point and asking what that, or some modified version of it, can tell us about the way the world is. She calls this methodology into question, arguing that it is a fallacy to argue from features of language to conclusions about the nature of reality, one that is widely committed. She calls it the representational fallacy. The book was published in October 2007.
Theism and ExplanationGreg Dawes In both history and the natural and social sciences, no proposed explanation that appealed to a divine action would be taken seriously. The creationist and intelligent design movements of today question this stance, arguing that it arises from nothing more than atheist prejudice. In this book, published by Routledge in 2009, Greg Dawes examines and rejects this claim, arguing that the methodological naturalism of the sciences is well founded. Even if appeal to a divine agent could be shown to have explanatory force, there would still be reason to prefer a natural (as opposed to supernatural) explanation. What is Biodiversity?James Maclaurin (with Kim Sterelny, ANU and Victoria University of Wellington) James Maclaurin co-authored, with Kim Sterelny (Victoria University at Wellington and the Australian National University), this book, published by Chicago University Press. They argue that biological diversity is mistakenly seen as a property of interest only to conservation biologists. Their contrary view is that biological diversity is crucial to explanation and prediction in a wide variety of areas in the life sciences (including ecology, taxonomy, and evolutionary theory) but that this breadth of application has led to confusion regarding its proper characterisation and theoretical deployment. It was published in 2008. This work was the product of a Marsden Grant. Hume, Is and Ought and Hume, Motivation and VirtueCharles Pigden Charles Pigden is currently editing (and contributing to) two books to be published by Palgrave Macmillan: Hume, Is and Ought, and Hume, Motivation and Virtue. Both books are based on papers delivered at the conference on Hume, Motivation, Is and Ought held at Otago in January 2003. Hume's famous No-Ought-From-Is passage is one of the most talked-about single paragraphs in the entire history of philosophy and continues to be the focus for meta-ethical debate in the analytic tradition down to the present day. In Pigden's view No-Ought-From-Is is true but trivial since it is simply an instance of the conservativeness of logic, the thesis that in a valid deductive argument, you cannot get out what you have not put in. Hume, Is and Ought , is largely devoted to this issue and will contain papers by several leading researchers in this field. It is due out in 2010. Hume's 'Motivation Argument' is, if anything, even more discussed than No-Ought-From-Is and constitutes one of the chief themes of Hume on Motivation and Virtue. The big debate in analytic meta-ethics is whether the fact that moral beliefs have motivational force implies that they lack a truth-value. Pigden argues that it does not, whilst others argue that it does. This book came out in December 2009.
Researcher ProfilesDr Colin Cheyne is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy. Colin studied mathematics at the University of Otago and then taught high school mathematics for some years. He returned to the University of Otago and completed a series of degrees in philosophy before joining the Philosophy Department in 1992. His research is mostly in epistemology and the philosophy of mathematics. Associate Professor Greg Dawes is a member of both the Department of Philosophy and the Department of Theology and Religion. Greg gained his first graduate degree at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome before returning to New Zealand to complete a PhD in Biblical Studies at the University of Otago. He has recently completed a second PhD, in the philosophy of religion, while continuing to teach in both Religious Studies and Philosophy. He has a particular interest in the methodological naturalism or (more precisely) the methodological atheism of the modern sciences. Associate Professor Heather Dyke is based in the Department of Philosophy. Heather studied philosophy at the University of Leeds. The focus of much of her research to date has been the philosophy of time. She is an advocate of the new B-theory of time, according to which there is no distinction between past, present and future, and time does not flow, even though our temporal language seems to suggest otherwise. She is interested in other issues of contemporary concern in metaphysics, for example, modality, causation, and identity. She is also pursuing a new interest in issues in applied ethics. Dr James Maclaurin is an Assoicate Professor and Head of the Department of Philosophy. James studied at the University of Otago before leaving to pursue a career in acting. He later returned to study, first at Victoria University of Wellington and later at the Australian National University. He has taught at the Australian National University, the University of Melbourne and Victoria University of Wellington. James's main research interests are in Philosophy of Biology (where he has written on innateness, fitness, theoretical morphology and biological diversity) and more generally in Philosophy of Science (particularly natural kinds and laws of nature). He is also interested in related metaphysical issues, such as possible worlds (as a basis for probability and similarity) as well as non-reductive materialism.
Associate Professor Andrew Moore is based in the Department of Philosophy. Andrew studied at the University of Canterbury before taking up a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford. He chairs the National Ethics Advisory Committee and is a member of other policy committees that advise the Minister of Health. He is also a member of an externally funded research project on biotechnology and ethics. His research and publications are on ethics, political philosophy, ethics and public policy, and practical ethics. Professor Alan Musgrave is the Chair of the Department of Philosophy. Alan was educated at the London School of Economics, where with Imre Lakatos he edited Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, one of the most influential collections of essays in recent philosophy of science. He came to Otago as Head of Department in 1970. His chief interests are the theory of knowledge and the history and philosophy of science. Alan's book Common Sense, Science, and Scepticism forms the basis of the introductory course in epistemology. Dr Josh Parsons is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy. Josh studied at the Australian National University before taking up the Gifford Post-doctoral Fellowship at the University of St. Andrews, and then an Arche Fellowship, also at St. Andrews. He has also taught at the University of California, Davis. Josh has worked on a number of issues in metaphysics, including on the nature of time, properties, and infinity. He also works in ethical theory, where he defends a version of person-affecting morality. Dr Charles Pigden is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy. Charles graduated from Kings College, Cambridge in 1979, then spent five years studying in Australia before first coming to Otago as a postdoctoral fellow in 1986. After briefly teaching at Massey, he returned to Otago as a lecturer in 1988. Charles has published on a wide range of subjects from the analytic/synthetic distinction through conspiracy theories to the existence (or otherwise) of abstract objects. He is a 'Russell scholar' having edited Russell on Ethics (1999) and contributed the chapter on ethics to the Cambridge Companion to Bertrand Russell. His chief interest is in ethics, particularly meta-ethics. Charles is a defender of the error-theory with a special interest in Hume and the Is/Ought Question.
Postgraduate ResearchRecently completed and current research by Masters and PhD students linked to the research cluster: PhD
Masters
Selection of Recent PublicationsBooksDawes, Gregory W. Theism and Explanation. Routledge Philosophy of Religion Series. New York, NY: Routledge, 2009. Moore, A. J. Ethical Guidelines for Intervention Studies, National Ethics Advisory Committee, Wellington: Ministry of Health, November 2009, pp. vi, 37. ISBN 978-0-478-33907-9 (print). Musgrave, A. E. Secular Sermons, Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2009 Maclaurin, J. and K. Sterelny, What is Biodiversity? Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008 Dyke, H. Metaphysics and the Representational Fallacy. New York: Routledge, 2007 Moore, A .J. Ethical Guidelines for Observational Studies: Observational Research, Audits, and Related Activities, National Ethics Advisory Committee (Chair, Andrew Moore), Wellington, Ministry of Health, December 2006, pp. vi, 29. ISBN 0-478-29921-4 (Book). Moore, A. J. Ethical Values for Planning for and Responding to a Pandemic in New Zealand: A Statement for Discussion, National Ethics Advisory Committee (Chair, Andrew Moore), Wellington, Ministry of Health, July 2006, pp. vii, 53. ISBN: 0-478-30015-8 (Book). Edited BooksCharles R Pigden ed. (2009) Hume on Motivation and Virtue, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan Heather Dyke ed. (2009) From Truth to Reality: New Essays in Logic and Metaphysics, New York: Routledge. Colin Cheyne and John Worrall (eds) (2006) Rationality and Reality: Conversations with Alan Musgrave. Dordrecht: Springer Book ChaptersDyke, H. (2009) Introduction. In Heather Dyke (ed.) From Truth to Reality: New Essays in Logic and Metaphysics, New York: Routledge, 2009. Musgrave, A. E. Critical Rationalism, Explanation and Severe Tests. In Error and Inference: Recent Exchanges on the Philosophy of Science, Inductive-Statistical Inference, and Reliable Evidence. D. Mayo and A. Spanos (eds). Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press (2009). Musgrave, A. E. Experience and Perceptual Belief. In Rethinking Popper (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science). S. Parusnikova and R. S. Cohen (eds). Dordrecht: Springer Science and Business Media (2009), 5-19. Musgrave, A. E. Pleonastic Platonism. In From Truth to Reality: New Essays in Logic and Metaphysics. H. Dyke (ed). New York: Routledge (2009), 66-84. Musgrave, A. E. ‘Popper and Hypothetico-Deductivism’, in S. Hartmann (ed), Handbook of the History of Logic, Volume 10: Inductive Logic, Elsevier (2009), 201-230. Pigden, C. (2009) 'Introduction' in Pigden (ed.) Hume on Motivation and Virtue (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) pp. 1-29 Pigden, C. (2009) 'If Not Non-cognitivism Then What? ' in Pigden (ed.) Hume on Motivation and Virtue (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) pp. 80-104 Pigden, C. (2009) ‘A Niggle at Nagel’ in Sandis, Constantine ed. (2009) New Essays on the Explanation of Action, (Houndmills, Palgrave Macmillan) pp. 220-241
Refereed Journal ArticlesCheyne, C., 'A Paradox of Justified Believing.' Ratio 22: 278-290 (2009) Maclaurin, James (2009), "Against Reduction: A critical notice of Molecular models: philosophical papers on molecular biology by Sahotra Sarkar", Biology and Philosophy. Available online at www.springerlink.com. Parsons, J. (2009) “Assessment contextual indexicals”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy. Available online at http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all?content=10.1080/00048400903493530 Dyke, H. (2007) 'Words, Pictures and Ontology: A Commentary on John Heil's From an Ontological Point of View', SWIF Philosophy of Mind Review 6: 31-41 Dyke, H. (2007) 'Tenseless/Non-Modal Truthmakers for Tensed/Modal Truths', Logique et Analyse 199: 269-87 Cheyne, C. & Pigden, C. Negative truths from positive facts. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 84: 249-265 (2006) Maclaurin, J. (2006). 'The Innate / Acquired Distinction'. The Philosophy of Science: An Encyclopedia. F. Pfeifer and S. Sarkar. New York, Routledge: 394-400 Parsons, J. 'Negative truths from positive facts?', Australasian Journal of Philosophy 84.4 pp. 590--602 (2006) Parsons J. 'Topological drinking problems', Analysis 66.2 pp. 149--154 (2006) EventsConferenceTowards a Unified Science of Religion, February 2010 (Website: http://www.otago.ac.nz/philosophy/USR_Home.html) Keynote speakers: David Sloan Wilson (Binghamton University), Jesse Bering (Queens University, Belfast) and Harvey Whitehouse (University of Oxford)
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