Background
Daughter of a pair of notable Oxford philosophers William Calvert Kneale and Martha Kneale (née Hurst).
(The author compares the philosophies of Quine and Wittgen...)
The author compares the philosophies of Quine and Wittgenstein, seeing how their holistic views of the world coincide. She argues that though they are allied in their sceptism about the possibilities for the assimilation of semantic and psychological concepts to those of the natural sciences and while they are both hostile to a Platonist conception of meaning, they are divided in their views, because of their different interpretations of holism. The conclusion reached is that Wittgenstein's visions of the interdependence of concepts, interests and activities are superior to Quine's epistemology because Wittgenstein's idea of different "forms of life" can free the reader from the conception of "fact" which is implicit in Quine's work and from the unintelligible scepticism about meaning which that conception brings with it.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0631145915/?tag=2022091-20
(Jane Heal argues that central to our ability to arrive at...)
Jane Heal argues that central to our ability to arrive at views about others' thoughts is not knowledge of some theory of the mind but rather an ability to imagine alternative worlds and how things appear from another person's point of view. She then applies this view to questions of how we represent others' thoughts, the shape of psychological concepts, the nature of rationality and the possibility of first person authority. This book is of interest to students and professionals in philosophy of mind and language.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521816971/?tag=2022091-20
Daughter of a pair of notable Oxford philosophers William Calvert Kneale and Martha Kneale (née Hurst).
She was educated at Oxford High School for Girls and New Hall, Cambridge, where she read first History before changing to Philosophy (Moral Sciences) after two years. She also took her Doctor of Philosophy at Cambridge, working on problems in the philosophy of language.
After two years of post-doctoral study in the United States, at Princeton and Berkeley, she was appointed to a Lectureship at Newcastle University. After ten years at Newcastle, she returned to the University of Cambridge as a lecturer in 1986. She was awarded her personal professorship in 1999.
In the same year she became the first female President of Street John's College, Cambridge serving between 1 October 1999 and 2003.
She was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1997. She was also President of the Aristotelian Society from 2001 to 2002.
Heal has written extensively on the philosophy of mind and language.
(Jane Heal argues that central to our ability to arrive at...)
(The author compares the philosophies of Quine and Wittgen...)