Peter Hacker
Encyclopedia
Peter Michael Stephan Hacker (born 15 July 1939 in London) is a British philosopher.
His principal expertise is in the philosophy of mind
and
philosophy of language
. He is known for his detailed
exegesis of the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein
,
and his outspoken conceptual critique of cognitive neuroscience
.
from 1960-63. In 1963-65 he was senior Scholar at St. Antony's College, Oxford, where he began graduate work under the supervision of Professor H. L. A. Hart
. His D.Phil thesis "Rules and Duties" was completed in 1966 during a Junior Research Fellowship at Balliol College, Oxford
.
Since 1966 Peter Hacker has been a fellow of St. John's College, Oxford, and of the Oxford University philosophy department. His visiting positions at other universities include Makerere College, Uganda (1968); Swarthmore College
, USA (1973 and 1986); University of Michigan
, USA (1974); Milton C. Scott visiting professor at Queen's University, Kingston, Canada (1985); Visiting Fellow in Humanities
at University of Bologna
, Italy (2009).
From 1985 to 1987 he was a British Academy Research Reader in the Humanities. In 1991-94 he was a Leverhulme Trust
Senior Research Fellow. Peter Hacker retired in 2006, but he has been appointed an Emeritus Research Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford.
by giving an overview of the uses of these words and the structural
relationships between these concepts. Philosophical inquiry is therefore very different from scientific inquiry, and Hacker maintains accordingly that there is a sharp dividing line between the two: "Philosophy is not a contribution to human knowledge, but to human understanding" (quoted from "An Orrery of Intentionality"). This has led him into direct disagreement
with "neuro-philosophers": neuroscientists or philosophers such
as Antonio Damasio
and Daniel Dennett
who think that neuroscience can shed light on philosophical questions such as the nature of consciousness or the mind-body problem. Hacker
maintains that these, like all philosophical problems, are not real problems at all, but mirages arising from conceptual confusion. It follows that scientific inquiry (learning more facts about humans or the world) does not help to resolve them.
His 2003 book "Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience",
co-authored with neuroscientist M. Bennett, contains an exposition of these views, and critiques of the ideas of many contemporary neuroscientists and philosophers, including Francis Crick
, Antonio Damasio
, Daniel Dennett
, John Searle
, and others.
Hacker in general finds many received components of current philosophy of mind to be incoherent. He rejects mind-brain identity theories, as well as functionalism, eliminativism and other forms of reductionism. He advocates methodological pluralism, denying that standard explanations of human
conduct are causal, and insisting on the irreducibility of explanation in terms of reasons and goals. He denies that psychological attributes can be intelligibly ascribed to the brain, insisting that they are ascribable only to the human being as a whole. He has endeavoured to show that the puzzles and 'mysteries' of consciousness dissolve under careful analysis of the various forms of intransitive and transitive consciousness, and that so-called qualia are no more than a philosopher's fiction.
Hacker frequently collaborated with fellow Oxford philosopher G. P. Baker.
His principal expertise is in the philosophy of mind
Philosophy of mind
Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness and their relationship to the physical body, particularly the brain. The mind-body problem, i.e...
and
philosophy of language
Philosophy of language
Philosophy of language is the reasoned inquiry into the nature, origins, and usage of language. As a topic, the philosophy of language for analytic philosophers is concerned with four central problems: the nature of meaning, language use, language cognition, and the relationship between language...
. He is known for his detailed
exegesis of the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947...
,
Comma
A comma is a type of punctuation mark . The word comes from the Greek komma , which means something cut off or a short clause.Comma may also refer to:* Comma , a type of interval in music theory...
and his outspoken conceptual critique of cognitive neuroscience
Cognitive neuroscience
Cognitive neuroscience is an academic field concerned with the scientific study of biological substrates underlying cognition, with a specific focus on the neural substrates of mental processes. It addresses the questions of how psychological/cognitive functions are produced by the brain...
.
Professional biography
Peter Hacker studied philosophy, politics and economics at The Queen's College, OxfordThe Queen's College, Oxford
The Queen's College, founded 1341, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Queen's is centrally situated on the High Street, and is renowned for its 18th-century architecture...
from 1960-63. In 1963-65 he was senior Scholar at St. Antony's College, Oxford, where he began graduate work under the supervision of Professor H. L. A. Hart
H. L. A. Hart
Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart was an influential legal philosopher of the 20th century. He was Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford University and the Principal of Brasenose College, Oxford. He authored The Concept of Law....
. His D.Phil thesis "Rules and Duties" was completed in 1966 during a Junior Research Fellowship at Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College , founded in 1263, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England but founded by a family with strong Scottish connections....
.
Since 1966 Peter Hacker has been a fellow of St. John's College, Oxford, and of the Oxford University philosophy department. His visiting positions at other universities include Makerere College, Uganda (1968); Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College is a private, independent, liberal arts college in the United States with an enrollment of about 1,500 students. The college is located in the borough of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, 11 miles southwest of Philadelphia....
, USA (1973 and 1986); University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, USA (1974); Milton C. Scott visiting professor at Queen's University, Kingston, Canada (1985); Visiting Fellow in Humanities
at University of Bologna
University of Bologna
The Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna is the oldest continually operating university in the world, the word 'universitas' being first used by this institution at its foundation. The true date of its founding is uncertain, but believed by most accounts to have been 1088...
, Italy (2009).
From 1985 to 1987 he was a British Academy Research Reader in the Humanities. In 1991-94 he was a Leverhulme Trust
Leverhulme Trust
The Leverhulme Trust was established in 1925 under the will of the First Viscount Leverhulme, William Hesketh Lever, with the instruction that its resources should be used to support "scholarships for the purposes of research and education."...
Senior Research Fellow. Peter Hacker retired in 2006, but he has been appointed an Emeritus Research Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford.
Philosophical Views
Peter Hacker is one of the most powerful contemporary exponents of the linguistic-therapeutic approach to philosophy pioneered by Ludwig Wittgenstein. In this approach, the words and concepts used by the language community are taken as given, and the role of philosophy is to resolve or dissolve philosophical problemsby giving an overview of the uses of these words and the structural
relationships between these concepts. Philosophical inquiry is therefore very different from scientific inquiry, and Hacker maintains accordingly that there is a sharp dividing line between the two: "Philosophy is not a contribution to human knowledge, but to human understanding" (quoted from "An Orrery of Intentionality"). This has led him into direct disagreement
with "neuro-philosophers": neuroscientists or philosophers such
as Antonio Damasio
Antonio Damasio
Antonio Damasio is David Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Southern California, where he heads USC's Brain and Creativity Institute and Adjunct Professor at the Salk Institute. Prior to taking up his posts at USC, in 2005, Damasio was M.W...
and Daniel Dennett
Daniel Dennett
Daniel Clement Dennett is an American philosopher, writer and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science. He is currently the Co-director of...
who think that neuroscience can shed light on philosophical questions such as the nature of consciousness or the mind-body problem. Hacker
maintains that these, like all philosophical problems, are not real problems at all, but mirages arising from conceptual confusion. It follows that scientific inquiry (learning more facts about humans or the world) does not help to resolve them.
His 2003 book "Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience",
co-authored with neuroscientist M. Bennett, contains an exposition of these views, and critiques of the ideas of many contemporary neuroscientists and philosophers, including Francis Crick
Francis Crick
Francis Harry Compton Crick OM FRS was an English molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist, and most noted for being one of two co-discoverers of the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953, together with James D. Watson...
, Antonio Damasio
Antonio Damasio
Antonio Damasio is David Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Southern California, where he heads USC's Brain and Creativity Institute and Adjunct Professor at the Salk Institute. Prior to taking up his posts at USC, in 2005, Damasio was M.W...
, Daniel Dennett
Daniel Dennett
Daniel Clement Dennett is an American philosopher, writer and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science. He is currently the Co-director of...
, John Searle
John Searle
John Rogers Searle is an American philosopher and currently the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley.-Biography:...
, and others.
Hacker in general finds many received components of current philosophy of mind to be incoherent. He rejects mind-brain identity theories, as well as functionalism, eliminativism and other forms of reductionism. He advocates methodological pluralism, denying that standard explanations of human
conduct are causal, and insisting on the irreducibility of explanation in terms of reasons and goals. He denies that psychological attributes can be intelligibly ascribed to the brain, insisting that they are ascribable only to the human being as a whole. He has endeavoured to show that the puzzles and 'mysteries' of consciousness dissolve under careful analysis of the various forms of intransitive and transitive consciousness, and that so-called qualia are no more than a philosopher's fiction.
Hacker frequently collaborated with fellow Oxford philosopher G. P. Baker.
Papers available on the web
- Analytic Philosophy: Beyond the linguistic turn and back again, in M. Beaney ed. The Analytic Turn: Analysis in Early Analytic Philosophy and Phenomenology (Routledge, London, 2006)
- Passing by the Naturalistic Turn: on Quine's cul-de-sac, Philosophy 2006
- Scott Soames's Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, critical notice, Philosophical Quarterly 2006
- Of knowledge and of knowing that someone is in pain, in A. Pichler and S. Säätelä eds., Wittgenstein: The Philosopher and his Works ((The Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen, Bergen, 2005)), pp. 203–235.
- Substance: Things and Stuffs, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 2004, pp. 41–63.
- Of the ontology of belief, in Mark Siebel and Mark Textor ed. Semantik und Ontologie (Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt, 2004), pp. 185–222.
- The conceptual framework for the investigation of the emotions, International Review of Psychiatry, Vol.16, No. 3 (August 2004), pp. 199–208
- Is there anything it is like to be a bat?, Philosophy 77, 2002, pp. 157–74.
- Wittgenstein and the Autonomy of Humanistic Understanding, in R. Allen and M. Turvey eds., Wittgenstein: Theory and the Arts (Routledge. London, 2001), pp. 39–74.
- An Orrery of Intentionality, in Language and Communication, 21(2001), pp. 119–141.
- When the Whistling had to Stop, in D.O.M. Charles and T.W. Child eds. Wittgensteinian Themes: Essays in Honour of David Pears (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2001).
- Was he Trying to Whistle it? in A. Crary and R. Read eds. The New Wittgenstein (Routledge, London, 2000), pp. 353–88.
- Wittgenstein, Carnap and the New American Wittgensteinians, Philosophical Quarterly 53 (2003), pp. 1 –23.