Human Nature: The Categorial Framework

by P.M.S. Hacker

This major new study by one of the most penetrating and persistent critics of philosophical and scientific orthodoxy, returns to Aristotle in order to examine the salient categories in terms of which we think about ourselves and our nature, and the distinctive forms of explanation we invoke to render ourselves intelligible to ourselves.

Genres: Philosophy

344 pages, Hardcover

First published August 24, 2007

About the author

Peter Hacker was born in London in 1939. He read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at The Queen's College, Oxford from 1960-63, obtaining a Congratulatory First Class degree. He was elected to a graduate studentship at St Antony's College, Oxford, where he remained from 1963-65, writing a doctoral dissertation under the supervision of H.L.A. Hart on the subject of 'Rules and Duties'. In 1965 he was elected to a Junior Research Fellowship at Balliol College. In 1966 he completed his doctorate and was granted the D. Phil.

He became a Tutorial Fellow at St John's College in 1966, a post he held until his retirement in 2006, when he was appointed to an Emeritus Research Fellowship at St John's. He was College Librarian 1986-2006, and Keeper of the College Pictures 1986-1998. In 2010 he was elected to an Honorary Fellowship at The Queen's College, Oxford.

He was a visiting lecturer at Makere College, Uganda (1968), a visiting professor at Swarthmore College, Pa., U.S.A (1973), a visiting professor at University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, U.S.A. (1974), a Milton C. Scott Visiting Professor, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario (1984). He was elected to a British Academy Research Readership in Humanities 1985-7. In 1986 he was again a visiting professor for a semester at Swarthmore College, Pa., U.S.A. He was elected to a Leverhulme Senior Research Fellowship (1991-4). From 1992 to 2010 he served as a member of the Rothschild Fellowships Academic Committee, Yad Hanadiv, Jerusalem. He was a visiting fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation at Bellagio, Italy in 2006. He was a visiting research fellow at the University of Bologna for a semester in 2009. In 2013 he was appointed Professor of philosophy at the University of Kent at Canterbury for three years.

He is an associate editor of Philosophical Investigations, and of Wittgenstein Studies. From 1997 to 2003 he was an associate editor, 20th century philosophers - Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. From 1998 to 2003 he was a Trustee of the Wittgenstein papers and Member of the Committee of Editors; since 2003 he has been a member and Secretary of the Advisory Committee of Wittgenstein Editors.

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't have to finish this book to tell you that it's awful, though I will finish it soon, against my better judgment, since I'm working through it with a reading group. If the kind of philosophy that turns you on is dry distinction driven conceptual analysis with little attention or notice of philosophy or science in the past thirty years, then this book is for you. The author has decided that contemporary analytical philosophy has been infected by a Cartesian disease and 'scientism', a position that I'm not against and to which people like McDowell offer compelling alternatives. But notice my use of the term 'decides,' there is no argument, no acknowledgment of alternative positions, and the little arguments he offers against positions are unmotivated dismissals. I had yet to read a philosophy book I have gotten as little from as this book.

[Joshua Stein · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hacker is a legend in ordinary language philosophy, and for those who are interested in the influence of that sort of Ox-Bridge form of philosophy this book will certainly be of interest. For the rest of us, for those who were raised in the American tradition or who have continental leanings or otherwise just generally don't think highly of the semantically oriented analysis, the value of the book is somewhat more questionable. That isn't to say that it can't be useful, it can't bring about insights, but there are limitations on how interesting the discussions of our conceptual world can be when the method of assessment seems primarily semantic.

[Mark]

"Read 1st chapter 26 Nov 2010 / got via ILL"--Culling Amazon wishlist 27 February 2019