Christopher Peacocke
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Christopher Arthur Bruce Peacocke (born 22 May 1950) is a British philosopher known for his work in
philosophy of mind Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are addre ...
and
epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Episte ...
. His recent publications, in the field of epistemology, have defended a version of rationalism. His daughter, Antonia Peacocke, is also a philosopher, now at Stanford University, specialising in philosophy of min


Biography

Son of the British theologian and biochemist
Arthur Peacocke Arthur Robert Peacocke (29 November 1924 – 21 October 2006) was an English Anglican theologian and biochemist. Biography Arthur Robert Peacocke was born in Watford, England, on 29 November 1924. He was educated at Watford Grammar School fo ...
, he was educated at
Magdalen College School, Oxford Magdalen College School (MCS) is a public school (English independent day school) in Oxford, England, for boys aged seven to eighteen and for girls in the sixth form. It was founded by William Waynflete about 1480 as part of Magdalen College, ...
, and
Exeter College, Oxford Exeter College (in full: The Rector and Scholars of Exeter College in the University of Oxford) is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England and the fourth-oldest college of the un ...
, where he read philosophy, politics and economics as an undergraduate, winning both the Webb Medley Prize in Economics and the Henry Wilde Prize in Philosophy in 1971, and graduated with a first class degree. Later that year he was awarded a
Kennedy Memorial Trust Kennedy Scholarships provide full funding for up to ten British post-graduate students to study at either Harvard University or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Susan Hockfield, the sixteenth president of MIT, described the schol ...
scholarship to study at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
. He then continued at Oxford, gaining a BPhil (1974) and DPhil (1979) in philosophy, the latter under the supervision of
Michael Dummett Sir Michael Anthony Eardley Dummett (27 June 1925 – 27 December 2011) was an English academic described as "among the most significant British philosophers of the last century and a leading campaigner for racial tolerance and equality." He wa ...
. He was visiting lecturer at
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
, 1975-6, and in 1975 elected to a fellowship at
All Souls College, Oxford All Souls College (official name: College of the Souls of All the Faithful Departed) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Unique to All Souls, all of its members automatically become fellows (i.e., full members of t ...
. He was the
Susan Stebbing Lizzie Susan Stebbing (2 December 1885 – 11 September 1943) was a British philosopher. She belonged to the 1930s generation of analytic philosophy, and was a founder in 1933 of the journal ''Analysis.'' Stebbing was the first woman to hold a p ...
Professor of Philosophy at
King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...
from 1985 to 1989 and
Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy The Waynflete Professorships are four professorial fellowships at the University of Oxford endowed by Magdalen College and named in honour of the college founder William of Waynflete, who had a great interest in science. These professorships are s ...
at
Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
from 1989 to 2000, at which time he moved to
New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...
(NYU). He joined the philosophy department at
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 2004, where he is now Johnsonian Professor of Philosophy. In 2007 he was named to the
Richard Wollheim Richard Arthur Wollheim (5 May 1923 − 4 November 2003) was a British philosopher noted for original work on mind and emotions, especially as related to the visual arts, specifically, painting. Wollheim served as the president of the British So ...
chair in philosophy at
University College, London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...
, where he taught in the third (summer) term each year until 2015. He lives with his wife and he has two adult children. He is also visiting professor of philosophy at
New College of the Humanities New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
.


Philosophical work

Of his earlier work, he is perhaps best known for the first chapter of his 1983 book, ''Sense and Content'', entitled "Sensation and the Content of Experience." In this chapter, Peacocke defends the claim that perceptual experience, over and above its intentional content, has certain "sensational properties". He gives three different examples of visual scenarios where intentional content alone cannot capture every aspect of the experience. Those aspects which elude intentional content are thought to be the sensational properties of the experience. Some of those who defend
qualia In philosophy of mind, qualia ( or ; singular form: quale) are defined as individual instances of subjective, conscious experience. The term ''qualia'' derives from the Latin neuter plural form (''qualia'') of the Latin adjective '' quālis'' () ...
have used these examples as evidence of their existence. Several philosophers have criticized these examples ( Michael Tye,
Fred Dretske Frederick Irwin "Fred" Dretske (; December 9, 1932 – July 24, 2013) was an American philosopher noted for his contributions to epistemology and the philosophy of mind. Biography Born to Frederick and Hattie Dretske, Dretske first planned to be ...
), claiming that the supposed extra quality can indeed be captured in terms of intentional content. In ''Sense and Content'', Peacocke assumed that the intentional content of mental states is exclusively conceptual content, i.e. the content is such that the subject of the state needs to possess all the concepts that specify the intentional content in question. From about 1986 and onwards, Peacocke abandoned this assumption, arguing that some mental states, in particular perceptual experiences and representational states implicated in subpersonal information processing (for example, in the subconscious parsing of heard speech), have non-conceptual intentional content. Peacocke is now often seen as a leading proponent of this notion of non-conceptual intentional content. In his 1992 book ''A Study of Concepts'', Peacocke gives a detailed exposition of a philosophical theory of concept possession, according to which the nature and identity conditions for concepts may be given, in a non-circular way, by the conditions a thinker has to satisfy in order to possess the relevant concepts. The theory is a version of a so-called "conceptual" or "inferential role" theory of concepts.


Articles

* ''Understanding logical constants: a realist's account'' (1987),
British Academy The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars span ...
lecture. * "Truth Definitions and Actual Languages." In: Gareth Evans and
John McDowell John Henry McDowell, FBA (born 7 March 1942) is a South African philosopher, formerly a fellow of University College, Oxford, and now university professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Although he has written on metaphysics, epistemology, ...
, eds., ''Truth and Meaning: Essays in Semantics'',
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, 1976.


Books

* ''Holistic Explanation: Action, Space, Interpretation'', Oxford University Press, 1979. * ''Sense and Content'', Oxford, 1983. * ''Thoughts: An Essay on Content'', Blackwell, 1986. * ''A Study of Concepts'', MIT, 1992. * ''Being Known'', Oxford, 1999. * ''The Realm of Reason'', Oxford, 2003. * ''Truly Understood'', Oxford, 2008. * ''The Mirror of the World: Subjects, Consciousness, and Self-Consciousness'', Oxford, 2014. *''The Primacy of Metaphysics'', Oxford, 2019.


References


External links


Homepage at Columbia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Peacocke, Christopher 1950 births Living people 20th-century British philosophers 21st-century British philosophers Analytic philosophers Harvard University alumni Kennedy Scholarships Columbia University faculty People educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford Academics of King's College London Academics of University College London Alumni of Exeter College, Oxford Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford Waynflete Professors of Metaphysical Philosophy Fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford