Gideon Rosen (born 1962) is an American philosopher. He is a Stuart Professor of

Philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

and the chair of the philosophy department at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

, where he specializes in

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

philosophy of mathematics The philosophy of mathematics is the branch of philosophy that studies the assumptions, foundations, and implications of mathematics. It aims to understand the nature and methods of mathematics, and find out the place of mathematics in people's ...

, and

ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns m ...

Education and career

Rosen graduated from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1984 and obtained his Ph.D. at Princeton in 1992, under the supervision of

Paul Benacerraf Paul Joseph Salomon Benacerraf (; born 26 March 1931) is a French-born American philosopher working in the field of the philosophy of mathematics who taught at Princeton University his entire career, from 1960 until his retirement in 2007. He wa ...

. He taught at the

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

for several years before joining the Princeton faculty in 1993. He has served as chair of Princeton's Council of the Humanities and director of the Behrman Undergraduate Society of Fellows.

Philosophical work

In 1990 Rosen introduced modal fictionalism, a popular position on the ontological status of possible worlds. He is the co-author of ''A Subject with No Object'' (Oxford University Press, 1997), a contribution to the philosophy of mathematics written with Princeton colleague

John P. Burgess John Patton Burgess (born 5 June 1948) is an American philosopher. He is John N. Woodhull Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University where he specializes in logic and philosophy of mathematics. Education and career Burgess received his Ph.D ...

. His recent work in metaphysics is about the concept of ground. In

moral philosophy Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ma ...

, Rosen argues for a new variety of skepticism about moral responsibility, separate from the traditional dilemma posed by the

compatibilism Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are mutually compatible and that it is possible to believe in both without being logically inconsistent. Compatibilists believe that freedom can be present or absent in situations for re ...

(

incompatibilism Incompatibilism is the view that a deterministic universe is completely at odds with the notion that persons have free will, the latter being defined as the capacity of conscious agents to choose a future course of action among several available ...

) problem. According to Rosen, there is an epistemic problem for positive judgments of responsibility: such judgments are never justified because they are necessarily under-evidenced in a certain way, due to the nature of

normativity Normative generally means relating to an evaluative standard. Normativity is the phenomenon in human societies of designating some actions or outcomes as good, desirable, or permissible, and others as bad, undesirable, or impermissible. A norm in ...

and normative ignorance.

Selected articles

*"Modal Fictionalism," ''Mind'' 99 (1990): 327-354. *"What is Constructive Empiricism?" ''Philosophical Studies'' 74 (1994): 143-178. *"Modal Fictionalism Fixed," ''Analysis'' 55 (1995): 67-73. *"Nominalism, Naturalism, Epistemic Relativism," ''Noûs'' 35 (2001): 69-91. *"Culpability and Ignorance," ''Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society'' 103 (2002): 61–84. *"Kleinbart the Oblivious and Other Tales of Ignorance and Responsibility," ''Journal of Philosophy'' 105 (2008): 591-610. *"Metaphysical Dependence: Grounding and Reduction," in B. Hale & A. Hoffmann (eds.), ''Modality: Metaphysics, Logic, and Epistemology'' (Oxford University Press, 2010). *"Culpability and Duress: A Case Study," ''Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume'' 88 (2014): 69-90.

References

External links

Interview with Gideon Rosen at New York Times Opinionator Blog
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rosen, Gideon 20th-century American philosophers 21st-century American philosophers Columbia College (New York) alumni Princeton University faculty Princeton University alumni 1962 births Living people Analytic philosophers Metaphysicians