Academic CV

Last updated on 1 June 2022

Rupert Read
Department of Philosophy
School of Philosophy, Politics and Languages
University of East Anglia
Norwich
NR4 7TJ
United Kingdom

Email

r [dot] read [at] uea [dot] ac [dot] uk

Websites

Areas of specialisation

  • Ecological and Political Philosophy (including critiques of Rawlsian liberalism, and work on the Precautionary Principle)
  • Philosophy of Language (Special focus on Wittgenstein)
  • Philosophy of the Sciences (including philosophy of the environmental sciences, of the ‘social sciences’, and philosophy of mental health/illness)
  • Philosophy and Film (especially film and literature as philosophy)

Education

  • Advanced Certificate of Higher Education Practice, University of East Anglia (UEA), Norwich 1998-1999.
  • Ph.D in Philosophy, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA, 1988-95. Practices without Foundations?: Sceptical readings of Wittgenstein and Goodman. Rutgers University, NJ. Supervisor: Barry Loewer. Successful thesis defence: Ap. 27 ’95; Degree awarded Oct. 2 ’95.
  • First Class B.A. Honours in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, Oxford University, Balliol College, 1984-87.

Honours / awards

  • Visiting Fellowship for the Spring and Summer terms of 1991 at the European University Institute, Fiesole, Italy.
  • Admission with S.C.T. Tuition Grant to Summer School of Criticism and Theory, Dartmouth Coll., NH, 1992.
  • Excellence Fellowship, Rutgers Univ., 1988-91, 1992-93.
  • U.K. Director, Society for Philosophy and Geography, 1995-8.
  • Associate Editor, Philosophy and Geography, 1995-2005.
  • Co-organiser of the annual Mind and Society Seminars at Manchester and Cambridge, since 1997 (funded by the British Academy since 2000 (and also by the Mind Association in 2003)).
  • Invited speaker and participant, N.E.H. Summer Seminar on ‘Philosophy and Psychopathology’, Cornell U., Ithaca NY, 1998.
  • Guest Editor, Ethnographic Studies, Issue 3 (1998).
  • A.H.R.B. award for funding for travel to ‘Forgiveness: Traditions and Implications’ Conference, Tanner Humanities Center, Utah, Easter 2000.
  • Appointed to Editorial Board of Philosophical Psychology, 2000-.
  • Accepted into membership of Institute of Learning and Teaching, 2000.
  • Visting Scholar, University of Chicago Philosophy Dept., Winter Quarter 2001.
  • Arts and Humanities Research Board Research Leave Award Aug.-Dec. 2001.
  • Conference Organiser, ‘The legacy of Thomas Kuhn: new work’, UEA, August 30 2002 (Conference supported by Analysis Trust, MIND, and the British Society for the Philosophy of Science).
  • British Academy award funding closed conference on ‘Accounting for literary language: an international interdisciplinary symposium on Wittgenstein and literature’, UEA, September 1/2 2002.
  • Promotion to Senior Lecturer, UEA, Spring 2003.
  • AHRB research funding as co-investigator on the project, ‘The role of the concept of ‘social practice’ in philosophy and sociology of maths’. (Co-awardees: Wes Sharrock, Christian Greiffenhagen), 2004-5.
  • Appointed to Cambridge Wittgenstein Archive Advisory Board, 2004-.
  • Appointed to Editorial Board of the International Journal of Green Economics 2005-2009.
  • Appointed Associate Editor of Philosophical Investigations 2005-.
  • Invited to be PhD External Examiner in Uppsala, Finland, 2006.
  • Promotion to Reader, UEA, Summer 2007.
  • Guest Editor, special issue of Eco-Politics, 2009.
  • Invited to be (and appointed) an affiliate Faculty member of the British Centre for Literary Translation, UEA, 2010-.
  • Invited to join (and appointed to) the Steering Group for a research project on ‘Institutional mechanisms for the future’ at the World Wildlife Fund, 2010-2012.
  • Invited to join (and appointed to) the Board of Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, 2011-.
  • Conference Organiser, Tenth Annual Meeting on Environmental Philosophy, International Society for Environmental Ethics, 12-14 June, 2013, UEA, UK (Conference supported by MIND, Aristotelian Society and The Analysis Trust; first time Conference was ever in the UK).
  • Appointed an Earth Systems Governance Fellow, 2014.
  • Included as a Fellow in the successful major Centre for Understanding Sustainable Prosperity ESRC bid, 2015.
  • Principal Investigator, AHRC Research Network award on ‘Valuing nature’, 2016-2018. Follow-on funding was awarded for the bid ‘Taking the debate on nature’s value to the valuers’, 2019 (AHRC reference: AH/S00517X/1).
  • Shortlisted for International Society for Environmental Ethics’ Andrew Light Award for Public Philosophy.
  • Plus numerous further ‘small’ grants for Conferences convened at UEA, at the Cambridge Wittgenstein Archive, and at Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan Universities. Won from MIND, the Aristotelian Society, the British Society of the Philosophy of Science, the Association for Social and Legal Philosophy, etc…

Manuscript Referee

Manuscript referee for:

  • For Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie
  • British Journal for the History of Philosophy
  • British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
  • Capitalism Nature Socialism
  • Contemporary Political Theory
  • CRISPP
  • Dialectica
  • Ethical
  • Theory and Practice
  • History of the Human Sciences
  • HOPOS
  • Hume Studies
  • Inquiry
  • International Journal of Philosophical Studies
  • International Studies in the Philosophy of Science
  • Journal of Philosophical Research
  • Pacific Philosophical Quarterly
  • Philosophical Investigations
  • Philosophical Psychology
  • Philosophical Quarterly
  • Philosophy East and West
  • Philosophy of the Social Sciences
  • Philosophy Psychology Psychiatry
  • Political Theory
  • Rethinking History
  • Social Studies of Science
  • Sustainable Development
  • Synthese
  • Theoria
  • Theory Culture and Society

Book proposals and manuscripts for:

  • Routledge
  • OUP
  • Polity
  • Palgrave MacMillan
  • Ashgate
  • Brill
  • Lexington Books
  • Blackwell’s

Teaching

Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Reader in Philosophy, School of Philosophy, University of East Anglia, 1997 onwards.

Units taught:

  • Philosophy and Other Subjects
  • Political Philosophy
  • Philosophy of religion
  • Wittgenstein and twentieth century
  • Analytical Philosophy
  • Philosophy of the Sciences
  • Philosophy of religion
  • Philosophy and Literature
  • Philosophy of Religion
  • Advanced Philosophical Problems (dissertation unit)
  • Introduction to Philosophy (part)
  • Philosophy of Politics and Economics
  • Advanced Philosophy of Social Science (MA course)
  • Michel Foucault
  • Philosophical issues in Feminism
  • Aesthetics (part)
  • Film and Literature as Philosophy
  • Mental Health
  • Nietzsche and twentieth century Continental Philosophy
  • Critical theories of the Modern Self (MA course, part)
  • Advanced Literature and Philosophy (MA Course, part)
  • Theories of society and politics (MA course, part)
  • Topics in Political Philosophy (MA course, part)
  • Certainty and Uncertainty in Environmental Science and Policy (MA course).

Curriculum development

substantial; full details available on request. Including: co-creation of new ‘Environmental Sciences and Humanities’ Master degree, in 2011.

Previous teaching experience

  • Lecturer in Philosophy, Philosophy Dept., Manchester University, 1996-7.
  • Lecturer in Sociology and Philosophy, Sociology and Interdisciplinary Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University, 1995-6.
  • Instructor, English and Philosophy Depts., Rutgers University, Sept. 1993 – June 1995.
  • Instructor, Philosophy Dept., Rutgers, May 1990 – July 1991.

PhD supervision and examination

  • Currently first supervisor for three Ph.D students. Topics: “The Madyamaka and the New Wittgenstein: parallel lines”, “Cavell and Wittgenstein on rules”, “The aesthetical politics of climate”.
  • Ten Ph.D students graduated. Topics: “Attention”; “A Wittgensteinian critique of International Relations Theory”; “Self- consciousness and self-reference”; “Not in Mauthner’s sense: An anarchic reading of the Tractatus“; “The philosophy of the films of Lars von Trier”; “Rawls and epistemology”; “Confronting climate crisis: A framework for understanding the criteria for addressing dangerous climate change”, “Wittgenstein and Sartre on totality”; “A philosophy of the commons”; “A philosophy of imaginaries”.
  • Studentships: Three of my Ph.D students have received AHRB/C studentships; nine have received UEA studentships or bursaries.
  • Dissertation panels: Several students in Literature and Film, as well as in Philosophy.
  • External PhD examination: At Edinburgh, Essex, Oxford and Kent. Also invited to externally examine in Abo, Finland, and Helsinki, Finland.

Recent administrative experience

  • Headship of the School of Philosophy for 3.5 years. Under my leadership, the Philosophy Department at UEA expanded substantially, for the first time ever since the founding of UEA, including through the winning of a University-funded Professorship.
  • Directorship of the Philosophy and Literature joint degree Programme.
  • Directorship of the Philosophy degree programme.
  • Co- Directorship of the MA in Social Philosophy.
  • Creator and Course Director of the interdisciplinary MA/MSc in Environmental Science and Humanities.
  • Membership of the Faculty of Humanities Executive.
  • Originated and ran Philosophy Faculty Forum and UEA Wittgenstein Workshop.
  • Served on the UEA Assembly Standing Committee.

Publications

Books

Kuhn: philosopher of scientific revolution

  • Monograph, co-authored with Wes Sharrock; Oxford: Polity, 2002; translation into Korean (by Kim Hae Jin) published, 2005.
  • Widely reviewed, including a major review in Philosophical Books.

The New Wittgenstein

  • Edited book, jointly edited with Alice Crary; London: Routledge, 2000; reprinted several times.
  • Widely reviewed, including in the TLS and Common Knowledge; full-length review articles, critical notices and replies in Philosophical Investigations, Mind, European Journal of Philosophy; and a further 8 reviews published elsewhere; extremely widely cited.

The New Hume Debate

  • Edited book, jointly edited with Ken Richman; London: Routledge, 2000; enlarged paperback second edition appeared in 2007.
  • Reviewed in Journal of the History of Philosophy, TLS, Eighteenth Century Studies and (at length) in Hume Studies, among other places.

Film as Philosophy: Essays on Cinema After Wittgenstein and Cavell

  • Edited book, jointly edited with Jerry Goodenough; London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005.
  • Major reviews, all positive, in The Year’s Work in Critical and Cultural Theory, Times Higher Education, Scope, Film-Philosophy, The Philosophers’ Magazine.
  • The book as a whole (and its ruling idea of ‘film as philosophy’, which was my conception), wins praise on the back cover for representing “a wholly new view of the relationship between image and thought” and as calling “for course development”.
  • Widely and positively discussed in other books, including by Trahair, and by Mullarkey. It has spawned imitators, such as most notably Smith’s and Wartenberg’s Thinking on Screen: Film as Philosophy (Routledge: 2007).
  • The book’s central idea is increasingly attracting interest in journals: notably, in “Film as Philosophy: In Defense of a Bold Thesis”, by Aaron Smuths inThe Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (2009), Volume: 67 (4), Pages: 409-420. See also Paisley Livingston’s OUP book, Cinema, Philosophy, Bergman: film as philosophy.
  • Translated into and published in Persian (Farsi), 2012.
  • Sequelar article reflecting on the developments in film as philosophy over the last 10 years.

Philosophy for Life

  • Edited by Matt Lavery, London; Continuum, 2007.
  • Reviewed very favourably in Metapsychology and Reconstruction.
  • This is a popular work; it has sold c.6000 copies.

Applying Wittgenstein

  • Edited by Laura Cook, London: Continuum, 2007.
  • Reviewed in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, and very positively in Philosophical Investigations.

There is No Such Thing as Social Science: In Defence of Peter Winch

  • Co-authored with Phil Hutchinson & Wes Sharrock; London: Ashgate, 2008.
  • Reviewed positively in Philosophical Investigations, Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Contemporary Sociology and very positively in Analysis. Major review article by Stephen Turner in European Journal of Sociology.
  • Reviewed additionally in Archives of European Sociology, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, Metapsychology Online, Czech Sociological Review, Anthropology in Action and Human Studies.

Beyond the Tractatus wars: The ‘New Wittgenstein’ debate

  • Co-edited with Matt Lavery, London: Routledge, 2011.
  • This book has been reviewed in Philosophical Investigations, Philosophy, the Heythrop Journal and British Wittgenstein Society.

Wittgenstein among the Sciences

  • Edited by Simon Summers, Ashgate, 2012.
  • Positively reviewed in Philosophical Investigations, by Duncan Richter (2013): “Read’s rich work presents a great many facts and insights that do indeed incline the reader to see much of the social sciences as infected with scientism”. Also by Gavin Kitching in Review Essay.

A Wittgensteinian Way with Paradoxes

  • Lexington Books, 2012.
  • Critical Notice published recently by the British Wittgenstein Society. Book-cover reviews:
    • Rupert Read seems to be a spoilsport, until you realize how serious and important his objectives are in this book. He explains away several brain-teasing paradoxes, and he uses those explanations to illustrate and illuminate themes in philosophy, in general, and Wittgenstein, in particular. However, he also investigates subjects such as racism and self-hatred that greatly affect our lives outside of the classroom or study. (Don Levi, University of Oregon)
    • A fascinating study, by a major Wittgensteinian, of Wittgenstein’s seemingly paradoxical view of paradox: on one hand, mere confusion in a philosopher’s use of words; on the other, the deepest expression of our human nature. In these lively and powerfully illuminating essays, Rupert Read takes us to the very heart of Wittgenstein’s enterprise, offering one way of understanding the sense in which this crucial figure of modern thought both was and was not an anti-philosopher. (Louis A. Sass, author of The Paradoxes of Delusion: Wittgenstein, Schreber, and the Schizophrenic Mind)

A Film-Philosophy of Ecology and Enlightenment

  • Routledge, 2018. Available to purchase here.
  • Book-cover review: Rupert Read is one of the most significant environmental philosophers alive. He is changing the way people think about and talk about the catastrophe of anthropogenic climate change. Any thinking person who cares about non-human animals or about our ecological crisis – and that means any thinking person – will want to read this book. (Gary Francione, Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of Law and Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Scholar of Law and Philosophy, Rutgers University, USA).

This Civilisation is Finished: Conversations on the End of Empire – and what lies beyond

  • Co-authored with Samuel Alexander. Simplicity Institute, 2019.
  • Book-cover review: “A brave and necessary conversation, which digs deep into ideas which will make many people – including many greens – uncomfortable. This book should help everyone to question their own assumptions.” (Paul Kingsnorth, co-founder of The Dark Mountain Project.)
  • Book-cover review: “Bring your fear, your despair and your hope to this book – it will nurture them all with sharp and nuanced insight.” (Kate Raworth, author of Doughnut Economics.)
  • Chapter one has been translated into Chinese.

Extinction Rebellion: Insights from the Inside

  • Co-authored [RR as 1st author] with Samuel Alexander. Simplicity Institute, 2020.
  • The book contains endorsement quotes from David Graeber, Gail Bradbrook, Kate Raworth, Sir Jonathan Porritt, Mike Berners-Lee, Iain McGilchrist, David Loy, Ken Ward and Carne Ross.

Wittgenstein’s Liberatory Philosophy

  • Routledge, 2021.
  • Favorably reviewed for the premier Wittgenstein journal Philosophical Investigations by Britt Harrison.
  • The book contains endorsement quotes from Edmund Dain, David Stern, Aseem Shirvastava, Stephen Mulhall, Thomas Wallgren, Iain McGilchrist, Hans Sluga and Katherine Morris.

Parents for a Future – How loving our children can prevent climate collapse

  • UEA Publishing Project, 2021.
  • Translations into German and Dutch have been commissioned.
  • Favorably reviewed for the activist website Green World by former Green Party deputy leader, Shahrar Ali.

Papers (selected)

* indicates peer-reviewed journal

  • “Pain and Certainty” in Cook et al (eds.), Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Symposium, Wakefield: Longwood, (1990): 160-169.
  • “The Unstatability of Kripkian Scepticisms” in Philosophical Papers, XXIV(1), (1995): 67-75.*
  • “The real philosophical discovery” in Philosophical Investigations, 18(4), (1995): 362-370.*
  • “Acting from Rules” (co-authored with James Guetti), International Studies in Philosophy, XXVIII(2), (1996): 43-62.*
  • “Goodman’s Hume” in Diálogos, 67, (1996): 95-121.*
  • “In what sense is ‘Kripke’s Wittgenstein’s scepticism’ a scepticism? Epistemic vs. metaphysical aspects” in De Philosophia, 12, (1996): 117-132.
  • “Is forgiveness possible? The cases of Thoreau and Rushdie (on)(writing) the unforgivable” in Reason Papers, 21, (1996): 15-35.
  • “On the nature and centrality of the concept of ‘practice’ among Quakers” in Quaker Religious Thought, 86, (1996): 33-39.
  • “On (virtuous? vicious?) circles of concepts in Goodman ‐ and Quine”, Diálogos, 68, (1997): 23-29.*
  • “The career of ‘internal relations’ in Wittgenstein’s thought” in Wittgenstein Studies, 2, (1997).*
  • “The (new) riddle of the new riddle: Goodmanic method applied to Goodman” in The Journal of Thought, 33(2), (1998): 49-74.*
  • “There is no good reason to believe that Philosophical Counselling will be effective in curing schizophrenia” in Contemporary Philosophy, XX(5&6), (1998): 59-63. [Paul Gibb replied in a subsequent issue].
  • “Meaningful Consequences” (co-authored with James Guetti), The Philosophical Forum, XXX(4), (1999): 289-314.*
  • “Erotic love considered as philosophy of science” in Review Journal of Philosophy and Social Science, XXV(1&2), (2000): 35-57.
  • “What ‘There is no such thing as meaning anything by any word’ could possibly mean” in Alice Crary & Rupert Read (eds.), The New Wittgenstein, London: Routledge, (2000): 74-83.
  • “Wittgenstein and Marx on ordinary and philosophical language” in Essays in Philosophy, 1(2), (2000): 1-41.*
  • “The New Hume’s new antagonists: On the relevance of Goodman and Wittgenstein to the New Hume debate” in Rupert Read & Kenneth A. Richman (ed.), The New Hume Debate, London: Routledge, (2000): 167-197.
  • “Psychotherapy: a form of prostitution?” (co-authored with Emma Willmer), in British Gestalt Journal, 9(2), (2000): 30-36. [A reply to this paper was published in the next issue of the Journal].
  • “Is there a legitimate way to raise doubts about the immediate future ‘from the perspective of’ a doubted immediate past?” in Wilhelm Lüttersfeld, Andreas Roser & Richard Raatzsch (eds.), Wittgenstein Jahrbuch (2000), Frankfurt: Peter Lang, (2001): 89-112.
  • “Recent work: the Philosophy of Literature” (co-authored with Jon Cook), in Philosophical Books, XLIII(2), (2001): 118-131.
  • “On wanting to say: ‘All we need is a paradigm'” in The Harvard Review of Philosophy, XI, (2001): 88-105. [Reprinted in a volume of the best of the Harvard Review, named after my essay: “All we need is a paradigm”, New York: Open Court, (2009)].
  • “How I learned to love (and hate) Noam Chomsky” in Philosophical Writings, 15 & 16, (2000/1): 23-48.*
  • “What does ‘signify’ signify?” in Philosophical Psychology, 14(4), (2001): 499-514. [published along with Grant Gillett’s reply].*
  • “On approaching schizophrenia through Wittgenstein” in Philosophical Psychology, 14(4), (2001): 449-475.*
  • “What is Chomskyism? Or: Chomsky against Chomsky” in The Alternative Raven, ‘Language, Mind and Society’ issue, (2001): 33-51. [published along with Chomsky’s reply].
  • “Are Philosophical Counsellors and Therapists prostitutes?: A dialogue” (co-authored with Emma Willmer), in Philosophy in the Contemporary World, 7(4), (2001): 33-42.*
  • “Is ‘What is time?’ a good question to ask?” in Philosophy, 77(2), (2002): 193-209. [Michael Dummett replied to this paper at length in Philosophy in the following year].
  • “Kripke’s conjuring trick” (co-authored with Wes Sharrock), in The Journal of Thought, 37(3), (2002): 65-96.*
  • “Nature, Culture, Ecosystem: or ‘The priority of Environmental Ethics to epistemology and metaphysics'” in N. Scheman (ed.), Feminist Readings of Wittgenstein, New York: Penn. State Press, (2002): 408-431. [Reprinted (with new Post-Scripts) in Alan Malachowski’s edited volume on Pragmatism for Sage, 2005].
  • “Thomas Kuhn’s misunderstood relation to ‘Kripke/Putnam essentialism'” (co-authored with Wes Sharrock), in Journal for the General Philosophy of Science, 33(1), (2002): 151-158. [Full-length reply by Alexander Bird appeared two issues later].*
  • “Wittgenstein and Marx on vampirism and parasitism” in Kitching and Pleasants (eds.), Wittgenstein and Marxism, London: Routledge, (2002): 254-281.
  • “Reply to Wernick” in Bhattacharjee and Paul (eds.), Proceedings of the First International Workshop on “Interpretive” Approaches to Information Systems and Computing Research, London: Brunel, (2002): x-xii.
  • “Logicism and Anti-Logicism are equally bankrupt and unnecessary” in Haller and Puhl (eds.), Wittgenstein and the future of philosophy, Proceedings of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society (2001/2): 380-8.
  • “Against ‘time-slices'” in Philosophical Investigations, 26(1), (2003): 24-43.*
  • “How to understand Kuhnian incommensurability: some unexpected analogies from Wittgenstein” in Wittgenstein Jahrbuch 2001/2, Frankfurt: Peter Lang, (2003): 151-172.
  • “Nothing is shown” (co-authored with Rob Deans) in Philosophical Investigations, 26(3), (2003): 239-268.*
  • “Kripke’s Hume” in Graduate Faculty Research Journal, 24(1), (2003).*
  • “Time to stop trying to provide an account of time” in Philosophy, 78(3), (2003): 397-408. [Replied to by Michael Dummett in the same issue.]
  • “Kuhn: le Wittgenstein des sciences?” in Archives de Philosophie, 66(3), (‘Kuhn, Aprés la Structure, (guest edited by Sandra Laugier, Paris: Presse de la Sorbonne nouvelle, (2003): 463-480. English translation: “Kuhn: a Wittgenstein of the sciences?”, in UEA Papers in Philosophy, 15 (2004), [replied to by Angus Ross]
  • “Literature as philosophy of psychopathology” in Philosophy, Psychology, Psychiatry, 10(2), (2003): 115-124. [Replied to by Louis Sass and Nobel Laureate J.M. Coetzee immediately followed my paper] *
  • “On delusions of sense: a response to Coetzee and Sass” in Philosophy, Psychology, Psychiatry, 10(2), (2003): 135-142.*
  • “Wittgenstein and Faulkner’s Benjy: reflections on and of derangement” in Gibson and Huemer (eds.), The Literary Wittgenstein, (2004), London: Routledge. [Translated into German by Martin Suhr, as Wittgenstein und die Literatur, (2006), Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.] [Replied to by Peter Sattler in The Valve, August 2005]
  • “Throwing away ‘the bedrock'” in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 105(1), (2004): 81-98.
  • “The first shall be last…: the importance of On Certainty 501” in Daniele Moyal-Sharrock et al (eds.), Essays On Certainty, (2005), London: Palgrave.
  • “Memento: A philosophical investigation” (co-authored with Phil Hutchinson), in Read and Goodenough (eds.), Film as Philosophy: Essays in Cinema after Wittgenstein and Cavell, (2005), London: Palgrave MacMillan.
  • “The elucidatory reading of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus” (co-authored with Phil Hutchinson) in International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 14(1), (2006): 1-29. [Dan Hutto replied in the same issue].*
  • “Is forgiveness ever possible?” in David Rudrum (ed.), Literature and Philosophy: A Guide to Contemporary Debates, (2006), London: Palgrave.
  • “Economics is philosophy: Economics is not science” in International Journal of Green Economics, 2, (2007): 307-325.*
  • “‘Perspicuous Presentation’: a perspicuous presentation” (co-authored with Phil Hutchinson) in Philosophical Investigations, 31(2), (2008): 141-160.*
  • “The ‘hard’ problem of consciousness is continually reproduced and made harder by all attempts to solve it” in Theory, Culture and Society, 25(2), (2008): 51-86.*
  • “Towards a Green philosophy of money” in Eco-Politics, 3, (2009): 3-26. Reprinted as “A Green Philosophy of money” in Leonard and Barry (eds.), The Transition to Sustainable Living and Practice: Advances in Ecopolitics, (2009), Dublin: Emerald.
  • “Philosophy is/as the power of words” (co-authored with Matt Lavery) in A. Kenkmann (ed.), Teaching Philosophy, (2009), London: Continuum.
  • “Extreme aversive emotions in Gustafsson, Kronqvist and McEachrane (eds.), Emotions and Understanding, (2009), London: Palgrave MacMillan.
  • “Wittgenstein and Zen: one practice, no dogma” in Garfield & Tillemans (eds.), Pointing at the Moon, (2009), Oxford: O.U.P.
  • “Refusing to hear the ‘Refuseniks’: a cautionary tale for our times, from Israel/Palestine” in Practical Philosophy, 10(1), (2010): 56-64.
  • “Wittgenstein and literary language” (co-authored with Jon Cook) in Garry Hagberg (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to the Philosophy of Literature, (2010), Oxford: Blackwell.
  • “On philosophy’s (lack of) progress: From Plato to Wittgenstein (and Rawls)” in Philosophy, 85(3), (2010): 341-367. [This paper was replied to in Philosophy].*
  • “Therapy” (co-authored with Phil Hutchinson) in Kelley Dean Jolley (ed.), Wittgenstein: Key Concepts, (2010), London: Acumen.
  • “Ordinary Language and the Everyday” (co-authored with Phil Hutchinson) in Kelley Dean Jolley (ed.), Wittgenstein: Key Concepts, (2010), London: Acumen.
  • “Rawls vs. Wittgenstein” in Munz, Puhl and Wang (eds.), Language and World: Essays on the Philosophy of Wittgenstein, (2010), Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag.
  • “Avatar: A call to save the future” in Radical Anthropology, 4, (2010): 35-41.
  • “Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations as a war book” in New Literary History, 41(3), (2010): 593-612.*
  • “No surprise that the EU is not an ‘Ecological Union'” in Innovations – The European Journal of Social Science Research, 23(4), (2010): 313-317.
  • “There are no such things as commodities” in Journal of Philosophical Economics, 4(2), (2011): 83-94.*
  • “A resolutely resolute reading of the Tractatus” in Read and Lavery (eds.), Beyond the ‘Tractatus’ Wars, (2011), London: Routledge.
  • “A strengthened ethical version of Moore’s Paradox?” in Philosophical Psychology, 25(2), (2011): 133-141.*
  • “Why the ecological crisis spells the end of liberalism: The ‘difference principle’ is ecologically unsustainable, exploitative of persons, or empty” in Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, 22(3), (2011): 80-94.*
  • “There is no such thing as ‘time-travel'” in Philosophical Investigations, 35(2), (2011): 138-153.*
  • “Religion as sedition: On liberalism’s intolerance of real religion” in Ars Disputandi, 11, (2011).*
  • “The difference principle is not action-guiding” in CRISPP, 14(4), (2011): 487-503.*
  • “On future people” in THINK, 29(10), (2011): 43-7.
  • “Beyond an ungreen-economics-based political philosophy: Three strikes against the difference principle” in International Journal of Green Economics, (2011), 5(2): 167–183.*
  • “Care, Love and Our Responsibility to the Future”, Arena, 35/36, (2011): 115-123.
  • “Demystifying tacit knowing and clues: Commentary on Henry et al” (co-authored with Phil Hutchinson) in Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, 17, (2011): 944-947.
  • “Kuhn’s fundamental insight – Reflection on the ‘social sciences’, as a pedagogical and philosophical tool for thinking adequately about the natural sciences” (co-authored with Wes Sharrock), in Kindi and Arabatzis (eds.), Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions revisited, (2012), London: Routledge.
  • “Wittgenstein and Pragmatism” (co-authored with Phil Hutchinson), in The Cambridge Companion to Pragmatism, (2013), Cambridge: C.U.P.
  • “Popular films as philosophy as ‘therapy'” in Al Mukhatabat, (2014).
  • “An allegory of a therapeutic reading: Of Melancholia” in Sequence, 1(2), (2014).*
  • “Religion, heuristics and intergenerational risk-management” (co-authored with Nassim Taleb), Econ Journal Watch, 11(2), (2014): 219-226.*
  • “The precautionary principle” (co-authored with Nassim Taleb et al), NYU Extreme Risk Initiative Working Paper, (2014).
  • “Reframing health-care: philosophy for medicine and human flourishing” (co-authored with Phil Hutchinson), in Michael Loughlin (ed.), Debates in Values-based practice, (2014), C. U. P.
  • “A price for everything?: ‘The natural capital controversy'” (co-authored with Molly Scott Cato), in Journal of Human Rights and the Environment, 5(2), (2015): 153-167.*
  • “An empirical refutation of the Pareto Principle?” in Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, 26(4), (2015): 236-244.*
  • “The tale Parfit tells” in Literature and Philosophy, 39(1), (2015): 265-284.*
  • “Metaphysics and metaphorics” in Sebastian Greve (ed.), Wittgenstein and the creativity of language, (2015), Routledge.
  • “Where values reside” (co-authored with Tom Greaves) in Environmental Ethics, 37(3), (2015): 321-340.
  • “Wittgenstein and the Illusion of ‘Progress’: On Real Politics and Real Philosophy in a World of Technocracy” in Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, 78, (2016): 265-284.
  • “Beyond just justice” (Co-authored with Ruth Makoff) in Philosophical Investigations, 40(3), (2017).
  • “Grammar”, with Phil Hutchinson, in Anat Matar (ed), Understanding Wittgenstein, Understanding Modernism, (2017), Bloomsbury.
  • “On preparing for the great gift of community that climate disasters can give us” in Global Discourse, 7(1), (2017): 149-167.
  • “The future: compassion, complacency or contempt?”, in Global Discourse, 7(1), (2017): 188-191. [This is a reply to John Foster’s “On letting go” in Global Discourse, 7(1),(2017): 171-187].*
  • “How to think about the climate crisis via precautionary reasoning: A Wittgensteinian case study in overcoming scientism” , in Beale and Kidd (eds.), Wittgenstein and Scientism, (2017), Oxon and New York: Routledge.
  • “The Precautionary Principle Under Fire” (Co-authored with Tim O’Riordan), in Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, 59(5), (2017): 4-15.
  • “The Augustinian Picture and Its Counter-Picture: PI 1 and PI 43 as Twins” in Emmanuel Bermon and Jean-Philippe Narboux (eds.), Finding One’s Way Through Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations: New Essays on §§1-88, (2017), Cham: Springer.
  • “Can There be a Logic of Grief?”, in Kuusela, Ometita, and Ųcan (eds.), Wittgenstein and Phenomenology, (2018), Oxon: Routledge.
  • “Voluntary Simplicity: strongly backed by all three main normative-ethical traditions”, (co-authored with Samuel Alexander and Jacob Garrett) in Ethical Perspectives, 25(1), (2018): 87-116.*
  • “Wittgenstein as Unreliable Narrator/Unreliable Author”, in Falcato and Cardiello (eds.), Philosophy in the Condition of Modernism, (2018), Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • “Den Katastrofala klimatförändringen är en ‘vit svan’” in Ikaros. 18(2-3), (2018): 14-16. (Swedish translation of my article ‘Climate Change is a White Swan’).
  • “A Micro ‘Case Study’: Critiquing the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity” (co-authored with Tom Greaves), in Victor Anderson (ed.), Debating Nature’s Value, (2018), Palgrave Pivot, Cham.
  • “This civilisation is finished: So what is to be done?”. IFLAS Ocassional Paper 3, (2018).
  • “A Wittgensteinian/Austinian Qualified Defence of Ryle on Know-How” in Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal. 39(2), (2019): 1-25.*
  • “Introduction: Looking for Hope between Disaster and Catastrophe” (co-authored with Brian Heatley and John Foster), in Facing Up To Climate Reality. Green House Publishing & London Publishing Partnership, (2019): 1-12.
  • “Making the Best of Climate Disasters: On the Need for a Localised and Localising Response” (co-authored with Kristen Steele), in Facing Up To Climate Reality. Green House Publishing & London Publishing Partnership, (2019): 53-68.
  • “Geoengineering as a Response to the Climate Crisis: Right Road or Disastrous Diversion?” (co-authored with Helena Paul), in Facing Up To Climate Reality. Green House Publishing & London Publishing Partnership, (2019): 109-130.
  • “Introduction: ‘Post-Truth’” (co-authored with Timur Uçan). Nordic Wittgenstein Review. Special Edition: Post-Truth. (2019): 5-22.
  • “What is New in Our Time?: The Truth in ‘Post-Truth’: A Response to Finlayson”. Nordic Wittgenstein Review. Special Edition: Post-Truth. (2019): 81-96.*
  • “Why ‘Swampman’ would not even get as far as thinking it was Davidson: On the spatio-temporal basis of Davidson’s conjuring trick”. (co-authored with Bo Allesøe Christensen).Philosophical Investigations. 42(4), (2019): 350-366.*
  • “‘Private language’ and the second person: Wittgenstein and Logstrup ‘Versus’ Levinas” in Backström et al. (eds.). Moral Foundations of Philosophy of Mind. (2019) Palgrave. [reprinted in The Second Cognitive Revolution (2019)].
  • “Psychology and Non-sense: Schizophrenese as Example” (co-authored with Bo Allesøe Christensen) in Bo Allesøe Christensen (ed.). The Second Cognitive Revolution: A Tribute to Rom Harré. (2019). Springer.
  • “Can Sentences Self-Refer? Gödel and the Liar” (co-authored with Christian Greiffenhagen) in Paul V. Smith and Michael Lynch (eds.). Festschrift for Wes Sharrock, Ethnographic Studies. (2019). 16: 181-201.
  • “Two conceptions of “community”: as defined by what it is not, or as defined by what it is”, in Andrew Gleeson and Craig Taylor (eds.). Morality in a Realistic Spirit: Essays for Cora Diamond. (2019). Routledge: New York & Oxon.
  • “The Ecological Economics Revolution: Looking at Economics from the Vantage-Point of Wittgenstein’s and Kuhn’s Philosophies”, in Shyam Wuppuluri and Newton da Costa (eds.). Wittgensteinian (adj.). (2020). Springer.
  • “This civilization is finished: Time to build an ecological civilization”. The Ecological Citizen. 3(2), (2020): 157-162. Available at: https://www.ecologicalcitizen.net/pdfs/v03n2-10.pdf.
  • “Rawlsian liberalism is founded on precautionary thinking – but the precautionary principle undermines Rawlsian liberalism”, in Kipton Jensen (ed.). Preston King: History, Toleration, and Friendship. (2021). Peter Lang: New York, NY
  • “How we failed to imagine Covd-19” Crisis Response Journal. 16(1), (2021): 46-49.

In Progress

  • “Wittgenstein, Gravity and the affirmative evaluation of film-style”

Reports

Encyclopedia pieces

  • “Wittgenstein, Ludwig”, in J.Chambliss (ed.), Philosophy of Education: An Encyclopedia (New York: Garland, 1995), 678-682.
  • “Reporting of Courtroom Proceedings” (jointly written with Max Travers), in Ruth Chadwick (ed.), Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics (Vol.1) (New York: Academic Press, 2001), 673-679.
  • “Ludwig Wittgenstein”, (jointly written with Robert Deans) in P. B. DeMatteis (ed.), The Dictionary of Literary Biography: British Philosophers 1800-2000 (New York: Bruccoli, Clarck, Layman; 2002), 320-340.
  • “Wittgenstein”, in V.E. Taylor and C.E. Winquist (eds.) Encyclopedia of Postmodernism (London: Routledge, 2003).
  • “Peter Winch”, in The Dictionary of Modern American philosophers, ed. Ernie Lepore (New York: Continuum, 2005).

Critical notices, review essays, discussion notes and book reviews

  • “Book Review: P.Werhane’s Skepticism, Rules and Private Languages“, in Canadian Philos. Reviews (XIV:2, 1994).
  • “Book Review: D.Wood’s The Power of Maps“, in Radical Philosophy Review of Books 10 (1994).
  • “Book Review: J.Guetti’s Wittgenstein and the Grammar of Literary Experience“, in The British Journal of Aesthetics (35:4, p412, (Oct. 1995)).
  • “Book Review: D.Stern’s Wittgenstein: Mind and Language“, in Journal of the History of Philosophy (35:1 (1997), p151).
  • “Book Review: McAllister, van Eck and van de Vall (eds.), The question of Style in Philosophy and the Arts“, in Canadian Philosophical Reviews (XVI:3, 1996).
  • “Book Review: Edwin Hung’s The nature of science: Problems and Perspectives“, in Teaching Philosophy (1998).
  • “Book Review: R. Hursthouse’s, On Virtue Ethics, in Philosophical Investigations (24:3, 2001, 274-282).
  • “Book Review: A. Cunningham’s The heart of what matters: The role for literature in moral philosophy, in Mind 112 (no.447, 2003, 506-509)
  • “Does Thomas Kuhn have a ‘model of science’?”, a jt.-written (with Wes Sharrock) Critical Notice of S. Fuller’s Thomas Kuhn: a philosophical history for our times, in Social Epistemology 17: 2 &3 (2003) [Fuller replied to our paper in the next issue of Social Epistemology]
  • “Book Review: J. Floyd and S. Shieh (eds.), Future Pasts“, in Philosophy (78:1, 2003, 123-145).
  • “Book Review: A. Bird, Thomas Kuhn”, in International Studies in Philosophy, 2004
  • “Book Review: T. Kuhn, The Road Since Structure” in British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 55:1 (2004), 175-178.
  • “Book Review: Martin Warner, A philosophical study of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets” in Philosophical Books (45:1, 2004, 86-89).
  • “Book review: A.E. Pitson, Hume’s philosophy of the self, in Philosophical Quarterly, 55:219, 359-361, 2005.
  • “Whose Wittgenstein?” (jointly with Phil Hutchinson) Review essay of G. Baker, Wittgenstein’s method, D. Stern, Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, I. Dilman, Wittgenstein’s Copernican Revolution and P. Hacker Wittgenstein: Connections and Controversies, in Philosophy 80 (July 2005), pp.432-455.
  • “How and how not to write on a ‘legendary’ philosopher”, a Review essay of Steve Fuller, Kuhn vs. Popper, and Thomas Nickles (ed.), Thomas Kuhn, in Philosophy of the Social Sciences (Sept.2005), 35:3.[Fuller replied at length in the next issue, in his “The importance of being [Rupert] Read”.]
  • “Book review: Barsham and Bronson (eds.) ‘The lord of the rings’ and philosophy”, in Philosophical Psychology 18:3, (2005), 395-397.
  • “Book review: J. Margolis, Reinventing Pragmatism and The unravelling of scientism”, in Philosophical Quarterly (jt. with Phil Hutchinson) 55:219, (2005) 367-369.
  • “‘Discussion’: A no-theory theory? Dan Hutto’s, Wittgenstein: Neither theory nor therapy“, in Philosophical Investigations 29:1, 73-81, (2006).
  • “Book review: J. Whiting et al, Essays in honour of Annette Baier”, Mind 116 (461): 173-176, Jan 2007 (jt. With Mark Gregory).
  • “Book review: D.McManus, The enchantment of words”, Philosophy 82 (4): 657-661 (2007).
  • “Obituary: James Guetti”, Philosophy Now 60:18-18 (2007).
  • “Book review: John Cook, The Undiscovered Wittgenstein”, in Mind 117 (467), 681-685 (2008), (jt. with Phil Hutchinson).
  • “Book Review: S. Mulhall’s The Wounded Animal: J.M. Coetzee and the difficulty of reality in literature and philosophy”, Mind (2011) 120 (478): 552-557.
  • “Economist-kings?”, a Critical Notice of Bryan Caplan’s The myth of the rational voter, in the European Review 19:1 (2011), 119-129.
  • “Book Review: I. McGilchrist’s The Master and his Emissary”, in Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 11 (1):119-124 (2012).
  • “Book Review: Paul Horwich’s Wittgenstein’s metaphilosophy” – co-authored with Timur Uçan, Philosophy, 1-6 (2013).
  • “Book Review: James Klagge’s Wittgenstein in exile” – co-authored with Jessica Woolley, Journal of the History of Philosophy 51 (3):499-500 (2013).
  • “Book Review: Brad Wray’s Kuhn’s evolutionary social epistemology” – co-authored with Jessica Woolley, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 64 (3):659-664 (2013).
  • “Book Review: Craig Taylor, Moralism: A study of a vice”, Philosophical Investigations, 36 (2):179-184 (2013).
  • Commentary piece (the equivalent of a ‘Critical Notice’), Radical Philosophy 189 (Jan/Feb 2015): “Green economics versus growth economics: The case of Thomas Piketty”.
  • “Book Review: John Foster’s After sustainability”, in Radical Philosophy 194 (Nov./Dec. 2015).
  • “Book Review:Michael Temelini’s Wittgenstein and the study of politics”, co-authored with Juliette Harkin in Notre Dame Review of Politics. 78(2). (2016).
  • “Book review: What Kind of Creatures are we? and Decoding Chomsky: Science and Revolutionary Politics” – co-authored with Atus Mariqueo-Russell in Philosophy. (2017).
  • “Book review:Peter Singer’s The Most Good You Can Do and William MacAskill’s Doing good better: Must Do Better”, in Radical Philosophy. (2017).
  • “Obituary:John Heaton – A personal-philosophical recollection”, in Self & Society. (2017).
  • “Letter:United Kingdom should learn from global body for biodiversity” – co-authored with Victor Anderson and Aled Jones in Nature. 562, 39. (2018).
  • “Book Review: Aaron Bastani’s Fully Automated Luxury Communism”, (co-authored with Atus Mariqueo-Russell) in Radical Philosophy. (2019). 2.06.

Public Talks and Papers Presented (selected)

  • Keynote talk: “A film-philosophy of ecology and enlightenment: Or, how great films can help us avoid destroying civilization”, Art After the Collapse, Dartington Hall, 22 Nov. 2019.
  • “Research AND action in the age of climate- and ecological- breakdown”, at the biannual conference of the Consortium for the Humanities and the Arts South-East England, Brighton, 16 Nov. 2019.
  • “The limits to growth and the limits of science”, Norwich Science Café, The Maddermarket Theatre, 16 Oct. 2019.
  • “Invitation to Future Trajectories” at “Art & Architecture Summit”, Architectural Association, London. 4 Oct. 2019.
  • Mahbub Ul Haq Keynote lecture: “The end of globalisation and the return of localisation: How climate breakdown terminates developmentality”, at “Human Development & Capability Association” Conference, University College London, 9 Sep. – 11 Sep. 2019.
  • Reply to Sabina Lovibond’s ““The Sickness of a Time”: Social Pathology and Therapeutic Philosophy’”, at “Culture and Value after Wittgenstein” conference, University of Oxford, 30 Aug. – 1 Sep. 2019.
  • “Without Growth or Progress: Adapting Our Culture to the New Climate Reality”, debate with Paul Hogget, Friends Meeting House, Bristol, 22 Jun. 2019.
  • “What might a better economy look like?”, debate with Richard Murphy, Friends Meeting House, Norwich, 20 May. 2019.
  • “How Facing up to Climate Reality Will Change Everything”, at “PSA Annual International Conference 2019”, Nottingham Conference Center, Nottingham, 15 Apr. – 17 Apr. 2019.
  • “Climate Change: What should we do about it? How can I live with it?”, debate with Bill McKibben and Kim Cobb, Middlebury College, Vermont, US, 8 Apr. 2019.
  • “Wittgensteinian reflections upon what we can learn from other cultural animals: such as dolphins”, at “Wittgenstein in the 21st Century: New Directions in the Study of Wittgenstein” Conference, Berkeley University of California, US, 5 Apr. – 6 Apr. 2019.
  • “Global Emergency Climate Mobilization – Is it even possible? And if so, what are the preconditions?”, debate with Tom Athanasiou, Berkeley University of California, US, 4 Apr. 2019.
  • “Philosophical reflections upon the possible imminent end of civilization”, New College of the Humanities, London, 13 Mar. 2019.
  • “This civilisastion is finished: So what is to be done?”, Churchill College Environmental Lecture Series, University of Cambridge, 7 Nov. 2018.
  • “A Future for the Planet”, at Latitude Festival, Henham Park, Southwold, Suffolk. 12 Jul. – 15 Jul. 2018.
  • “Anthropodenial vs the Precautionary Principle”, at “Animal Advocacy in the Era of Laudato Si” Conference, University of East Anglia, Norwich, 23 Jun. 2018.
  • “Private Language”?: Wittgenstein as care-ethicist”, at “Wittgenstein: The Place of Normativity in a Naturalistic World” Conference, University of Ottawa, Canada, 15 Jun. – 16 Jun. 2018. (by video conference).
  • Keynote talk: “A Film-Philosophy of Ecology and Enlightenment: Cuaron’s Gravity”, at “Social Experiences of Film | Film Experiences of Sociality: New Approaches in Film-Philosophy” Conference, New Europe College, Bucharest, Romania, 14 Jun. – 15 Jun. 2018.
  • “Understanding a cetacean society: post-Winchian thinking on what we should learn from seeming-stupidity”, at “The Problem of the Intelligibility of Alien Forms of Thought: Cross-Perspectives in Anthropology and Philosophy of Logic” workshop, Institute for Advanced Study of Berlin, 7 Jun. – 8 Jun. 2018.
  • Reply to Hans Sluga’s “Our current disorientation in politics and how to rethink political philosophy”, at “Disorientation in politics and the challenge of renewing political philosophy” workshop, University of East Anglia, 27 Apr. 2018.
  • “Can we understand cetaceans? Can we change ourselves? Winchian and Wittgensteinian reflections on ‘individualism’, freedom and survival”, at “Peter Winch, 60 years after the publication of The idea of a social science” conference, University of Pecs, Hungary, 30 Mar. – 31 Mar. 2018.
  • “This Civilization is Finished”, at Department of Environmental Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic. 26 Mar. 2018.
  • “A film-philosophy of ecology and enlightenment”, at Philosophy Dept., Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic. 23 Mar. 2018.
  • “The Precautionary Principle Briefing”, at The Palace of Westminster, 25 Oct. 2017. [This was a talk delivered to Members of Parliament and Members of the House of Lords about the philosophy and legal history of the Precautionary Principle]. The text of the briefing is “available here”.
  • “Understanding a dolphins’ society.”, at University of East Anglia, UEA Philosophy Society, 20 Oct. 2017.
  • “Wittgenstein as Augustinian.”, at Helsinki University, 24 Sep. 2017.
  • “Autonomy is relationality: Wittgenstein on ethics, in relation to Logstrup, Nykanen and Backstrom.”, at the research seminar, Åbo Akademi University, 19 Sep. 2017.
  • “Philosophy’s role in thinking about the coming ecological crisis.”, at Åbo Akademi University, Philosophical Workshop, 18 Sep. 2017.
  • “This Civilization is Finished.”, at University of California, Berkeley, “What Now?: Political Thought at a Moment of Crisis” conference, 7 Sep. – 8 Sep. 2017.
  • “On be(com)ing us: Questioning the individual, and learning from other mammals.”, at University of East Anglia, “The 2017 Conference of the Rhetoric Society of Europe”, 3 Jul. – 5 Jul. 2017.
  • “Can we understand cetaceans? Can we change ourselves?: Winchian and Wittgensteinian reflections on ‘individualism’, freedom and survival.”, at Kings College London, “Truth in politics and metaphysics: celebrating the work of Peter Winch” conference, 30 Jun. – 2 Jul. 2017.
  • “Seeding a civilisation to succeed this one.”, at Panacea Museum Gardens, Bedford. Hosted by the Centre for the Critical Study of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements, “Climate & Apocalypse International Conference”. 29 Jun. – 30 Jun. 2017.
  • Reply to Mariam Thalos’s “Precaution-first frameworks for decision analysis”, at Pitt Building, University of Cambridge. Hosted by Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, “Risk, Uncertainty & Catastrophe Scenarios conference”, 9 May. – 10 May. 2017.
  • “Economics and Science: a philosophical critique, with special reference to ecological economics.”, at Clare College, University of Cambridge, “Cambridge Realist Workshop”, 13 Feb. 2017.
  • Reply to Mark Sagoff’s “In defence of ecomodernism”, at University of Manchester, “ESRC Seminar: Climate Justice and Economic Growth”, 30-31 Jan. 2017.
  • “A short history of philosophy with a radical green edge” jt. With Prof Catherine Rowett, at Being Human: A Festival of the Humanities, University of East Anglia. 23 Nov. 2016.
  • “The Precautionary Principle reinterpreted”, at Lancaster University, 26 Oct. 2016.
  • “Is it self-evident that inquiry ought to be ‘evidence-based’?”, at the University of Helsinki closed symposium on Wittgenstein and politics, 9-11 Mar. 2016.
  • “The Precautionary Principle and existential risk”, at the Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford, 19 Feb. 2016.
  • “Does science have all the answers?”, debate at the Forum for European Philosophy, LSE, London, 15 Feb. 2016.
  • “The relevance of the Precautionary Principle to governance”, at the National Audit Office seminar, London, 14 Sep. 2015.
  • “The tyranny of evidence: An argument for precaution”, at the ‘Where the light gets in’ festival, Hay-on-Wye, 23 May. 2015.
  • “How to admire science and despise scientism”, at the ‘Wittgenstein and physics’ conference, St. Cross, University of Oxford, 22 Nov. 2014.
  • “Why time goes faster as one gets older: a philosophical argument”, at the ‘A science of the Soul?’ Conference, Helsinki, 20 Oct. 2014.
  • “On the concept of ‘placebo'”, jt. with Phil Hutchinson, 18 Oct. 2014, University of Helsinki.
  • “Guardians for future generations: A proposal for earth systems governance”, at the IARU Sustainability Science Congress, Copenhagen (by Skype), 7 Oct. 2014.
  • “What can’t be learnt from past financial crises”, Closed seminar at the Bank of England, the City of London, 2 Mar. 2015: audience of 120 Bank staff.
  • “Wittgenstein and the concept of progress”, Royal Institute of Philosophy Public Lecture, London, 24 Oct. 2014.
  • “Guardians for future generations: a modest Platonic-Habermasian proposal”, at the annual Association of Legal and Social Philosophy Conference, Leeds, 1-2 Jul. 2014.
  • “Guardians for future generations as Earth-Systems-Governance”, at the global Earth Systems Governance Conference, University of East Anglia, 2-4 Jul. 2014.
  • “The philosophy of human-triggered global over-heat”, at Conway Hall, London, 12 Apr. 2014.
  • “Green Philosophy?”: Debate with Roger Scruton, Forum for European Philosophy, LSE, 5 Jun. 2013.
  • “Ordinary language”, public lecture at the York ‘Ordinary and Quotidian’ series, 31 May. 2013.
  • “Kuhn and evidence-based medicine” at Hull University Philosophy Department, 30 May. 2013.
  • “Guardians for future generations: a way to care adequately for the future”, in the Philosophy seminar at Wolverhampton Uni, 7 May. 2013.
  • “How the Precautionary principle undermines liberalism, and why this is a good thing”, at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Science, University of East Anglia, 31 Oct. 2012.
  • “An ethical reading of Wittgenstein’s PI”, at the closed conference in memoriam for Gordon Baker on the 10th anniversary of his death, SJC, Oxford, 17 Sep. 2012; jt. presentation with Phil Hutchinson.
  • “The Prestige as therapeutic philosophy”, Film-Philosophy in London, 14 Sep. 2012, part of the panel “The Therapeutic Philosophy of Christopher Nolan”.
  • “Philosophy, politics and communication”: debate with Mike Hulme (chaired by Geoffrey Lean), the Hay Literary Festival, 2 Jun. 2012.
  • “A modest Platonic proposal?: Strong guardians for future generations”, Sheffield University, 23 May 2012.
  • “Reframing knowledge”, plenary address at the ‘Society for the Philosophy of Education’ Annual Conference, New College, Oxford, 30 Mar. 2012.
  • “A modest Platonic proposal?: Strong guardians for future generations”, RIP Lecture, Philosophy Department, Bradford University, 2 Nov. 2011.
  • “Wittgenstein’s ‘therapeutic’ conception of philosophy as a challenge to standard understandings of what knowledge must be”, Institute of Education, University of London, 12 Oct. 2011.
  • “A policy proposal to take future generations seriously: Strong guardians”, Resolve seminar, U. Surrey (Guildford), 14 Jul. 2011.
  • “On ecological films”, European Network for Cinema and Media Studies (NECS), London, 24 Jun. 2011.
  • “Sustainability: the very idea”, a plenary address at the Lancaster ‘Climate philosophy’ conference, 26-8 Mar. 2011.
  • “Avatar: Transformative therapeutic film”, at the FTV seminar series, University of East Anglia, 7 Mar. 2011.
  • “The language that mediates environmental change”, plenary address at the MECCSA ‘Mediating environmental change’ conference, Bournemouth University, 4 Mar. 2011.
  • “Guardians for the future: A modest Platonic proposal?”, at the ‘Philosophy and Public Policy: Making an impact’ closed seminar series, King’s College London, 23 Feb. 2011.
  • “A better future: love or justice?”, at the 4th ‘Changing the climate: Utopias’ Conference in Monash, Australia, by audiolink, 30 Aug. – 1 Sep. 2010.
  • “‘Unspeak’ and ‘Reframing’; Or, Politics without Propaganda?”, at the ‘Where’s your argument?’ conference on Informal Logic, Manchester Metropolitan University, 7 Apr. 2010.
  • “Swastikas and cyborgs: Wittgenstein’s Philosphical Investigations as a war book”, at the Philosophy Department, Manchester Metropolitan University (Crewe campus), 1 Dec. 2009.
  • “‘When love is gone, there’s always justice’: Which value do we most need, to stop manmade climate change?”, at the Camp for Climate Action Conference, London, 29 Nov. 2009.
  • “Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations as a war book”, at the Philosophy department, Abo Academy, Finland, 28 Sep. 2009.
  • “Wittgenstein vs. Rawls”, as an invited paper at the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society Conference (August ’09), and at the Philosophy Department of the University of Helsinki (24 Sep. 2009).
  • “Gramsci and The Lord of the Rings”, at the Forum for European Philosophy, Queensbury Place, London, 13 Feb. 2009.
  • “Is economics a Kuhnian discipline?”, as an invited speaker at the University of Athens closed conference on Kuhn, September 2008.
  • “The case of John Rawls vs. the refuseniks”, at SOAS seminar series, London, 7 Feb. 2007.
  • “The philosophy of climate change”, via audio- and videolink, at the inaugural Florida ‘Philosophy and climate change’ conference, 14-16 Sep. 2006.
  • “Jackson’s Sauron as Descartes’s malign demon: Film as better philosophy”, at the Manchester University Philosophy and Film Conference, 8-9 Jun. 2006.
  • “A philosophical critique of ecological economics”, at the Solar Cities Congress, Oxford University, 3-6 Apr. 2006.
  • “Liberalism is inherently inegalitarian and ecologically unsustainable: Against Rawls and Habermas”, as part of the ‘Provocations’ series, Forum for European Philosophy, Institut Francais, London, 26 Jan. 2006.
  • “Zen Buddhism as Wittgensteinian”, at the International Society for Buddhist Philosophy conference, Cambridge University, 12-13 Nov. 2005.
  • “The philosophy of climate change – the philosophy of ‘Contraction and Convergence'”, at the Second Annual Green Economics Institute Conference, Reading, 29 Oct. 2005.
  • “Economics is philosophy”, at the Green Economics Institute Conference, Reading, 29 May 2005.
  • “Poetry, belief and non-belief”, jt. with Jon Cook, at the Warwick LitPhil Workshop, 25 Feb. 2005.
  • “Throwing away ‘the bedrock'”, at the Aristotelian Society, London, 18 Nov. 2004.
  • “Wittgensteinian philosophy as Zen Buddhism”, Stapleton Society, Liverpool U., 18 Oct. 2004.
  • “Hume’s writing from the vantage point of Wittgenstein’s”, 4th Annual British Hume Studies Conference, Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford, 8-9 Sep. 2004.
  • “The responsibility of British intellectuals”, at ‘Literature and Humanities 2: What is Literature?’, Univ. of Kent, 4 Jun. 2004.
  • “Kuhn: A Wittgenstein of the Sciences?” at the MIND / Aristotelian Society Joint Sessions, Belfast, 18-21 Jul. 2003.
  • “Kuhn: A Wittgenstein of the Sciences?”, at the Departmental Seminar, History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge, 30 Jan. 2003.
  • Reply to Critchley and McCarthy, at ‘Accounting for literary language: An international interdisciplinary symposium’, University of East Anglia, 1-2 Sep. 2002.
  • “Kuhn’s legacy”, at the IIEMCA Annual Workshop, Brunel U., 26-27 Jul. 2002.
  • “On On Certainty 501”, at the 9th annual Mind and Society Symposium, Manchester Univ., 6-7 Jun. 2002.
  • Reply to Allen and Turvey, at the one-day international symposium on ‘Wittgenstein and film’, Univ. of Kent, Canterbury, England, 1 Jun. 2002.
  • “How not to misunderstand Thomas Kuhn”, at the Philosophy Department, Williams College, Massachussetts, 4 Apr. 2002.
  • “Wittgenstein’s ‘woodsellers’ reconsidered”, at the New School for Social Research, New York, 2 Apr. 2002.
  • “Kuhn: a Wittgenstein of the Sciences?”, at ‘Apres la Structure: Kuhn et la philosophie des sciences aujourd’hui’, an international conference at the Institut d’Histoire et Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques, Paris, 16 Mar. 2002.
  • “Philosophical problems are not problems of the intellect, but problems of mood”, at the University of Hertfordshire Philosophy Research Seminar, Aldenham, England, 7 Feb. 2002.
  • “The philosophy of literature of Salman Rushdie”, at the Literature Club, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India, 11 Oct. 2001.
  • “Thomas Kuhn and ‘human science'”, at The Colloquium, School of Humanities & Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India, 10 Oct. 2001.
  • “Slicing Time”, at the ‘Orders of Ordinary Action” Conference (July 9-11 2001), the International Institute for Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis, Manchester Metro. University, Manchester, England, 10 Jul. 2001.
  • “Thomas Kuhn on history, politics, sociology, theology, art, and … oh yeah … science”, at the Philosophy and Religion Department, Colgate University, Hamilton NY, 23 Mar. 2001.
  • “‘Kuhnian’ incommensurability: in science, social science, and ethics”, at the Philosophy Department Colloquium, SUNY Binghamton, New York, USA, 22 Mar. 2001.
  • “Giving an elucidatory reading of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus”, at the Philosophy Dept. Colloquium, the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA, 2 Mar. 2001.
  • “Marx’s critique of conceptual confusion, Wittgenstein’s critique of capital”, at the Kaplan Humanities Centre, NorthWestern University, Evanston, IL, USA, 12 Feb. 2001.
  • “Giving an elucidatory reading of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus”, at the Wittgenstein Workshop, University of Chicago, USA, 2 Feb. 2001.
  • “The New Hume versus the New Wittgenstein: Metaphysics versus Therapy”, at the ‘Nature et Naturalisme: Héritages contemporains de Hume’ Conference, at the Université d’Amiens, Amiens, France, 11 Dec. 2000.
  • “Is ‘The New Wittgenstein’ really new?”, Keynote Address, ‘Le nouvel Wittgenstein’ Conference, at the Sorbonne (Université Paris I), Paris, France, 9 Dec. 2000.
  • “Wittgenstein’s influence on Hume, Nietzsche, Marx etc.”, at the Forum for European Philosophy, Institut Francais, Kensington, London, 21 Nov. 2000.
  • “Wittgenstein’s influence on Nietzsche: A Wittgensteinian reading of his predecessors”, at the Department of Philosophy, University of Wales, Lampeter, 15 Nov. 2000.
  • “Beyond Relativism, Pluralism, Realism, etc.: reassessing Peter Winch”, at the British Sociological Association Theory Group Conference on Peter Winch, Bristol U., 8-10 Sep. 2000.
  • “On wanting to say, ‘All we need is a paradigm, and then we can have normal science'”, at the British Society for the Philosophy of Science Annual Conference, Univ. of Sheffield, 6-7 Jul. 2000.
  • “‘Scepticism’ in the service of philosophical clarity: Re-reading Hume in the light of a new understanding of Wittgenstein”, at the International ‘Skepticism and Interpretation’ Conference, ASCA, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, 6-11 Jun. 2000.
  • “The paradox of forgiveness”, at ‘Forgiveness: Traditions and Implications’, a Conference at the Tanner Humanities Centre, University of Utah, USA, 12-15 Apr. 2000.
  • “All attempts to solve the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness only make the problem harder”, at the Senior Seminar, Essex University Philosophy Dept., 23 Mar. 2000.
  • “Marx and Wittgenstein on parasitism”, at the International Wittgenstein and Marx Colloquium, Trinity College, Cambridge, 30 Mar. 1999.
  • “Are technical terms of any use in the social sciences and philosophy?”, at the termly Philosophy Seminar, POLSOC, University of Exeter, 4 Dec. 1998.
  • “Two Wittgensteinian accounts of schizophrenia”, given at the invitation of the Bolton Institute of Higher Education, Bolton, 16 Oct. 1998.
  • “Sass versus Diamond on Wittgenstein and ‘schizophrenic language'”, as an invited speaker at the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar on ‘Philosophy and Psychopathology’, Cornell U., Ithaca NY, 10 Jul. 1998.
  • “Sass versus Diamond on Wittgenstein and schizophrenic language”, given at the invitation of the Philosophy Department of the University of Illinois, Chicago, 11 Apr. 1997.
  • “A Wittgensteinian critique of Freud – and Fodor”, given at the invitation of the Houston Cognitive Science Initiative, Univ. of Houston, 5 Apr.1997.
  • “Louis Sass versus the Conant/Diamond reading of Wittgenstein”, as a ‘Critic’ in the ‘Author meets Critics’ session on Sass’s The paradoxes of delusion: Wittgenstein, Schreber and the schizophrenic mind, at the Pacific APA, Berkeley, 29 Mar. 1997.
  • “Is it ever possible to forgive anyone?”; given at the Stapleton Society, Philosophy Department of Liverpool University, 21 Oct. 1996.
  • Reply to Kevin Meeker’s “Was Hume an Externalist?”, at the Hume Society / British Society for the History of Philosophy Conference, Nottingham, 16 Jul. 1996.
  • “Cognitive Sciences, David Hume and ‘Postmodernism'”, given at the invitation of the Cultural Studies Dept., University of Nottingham, 13 Jul. 1996.
  • “The geography of (our) society”, at the American Philosophical Association (S.P.G. Meeting), New York NY, 29 Dec. 1995.
  • “A taxonomy of scepticisms”, at the NJ Regional Philosophy Association’s Annual Conference, New Brunswick, 19 Nov. 1994.
  • “Nature, Culture, Environment”, at the annual PIC Conference, SUNY Binghamton, NY, 16 Apr. 1993.
  • “Three pragmatists?: Nelson Goodman, Stephen Stich, Cornel West”, given at the invitation of the Philosophy Department at the University of Houston, Texas, 5 Jun. 1992.
  • “From Relativism and Ethnocentrism to Perspectivism”, at the invitation of the Morality and Rationality Seminar, European University Institute, Firenze, Italy, 29 May 1991.
  • “Quine and Wittgenstein on Reference, Behaviourism and Language-acquisition”, at the Middle Atlantic States Philosophy of Education Society Annual Conference, Route 1, NJ, 5-6 May 1990.
  • “Is Derrida’s Nietzsche’s ‘Third Woman’ an Essentialist or a Feminist?”, at the 12th annual ‘Graduate Philosophy Conference’, Univ. of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, 12-14 Apr. 1990.
  • Reply to Wing-Chun Wong’s “Do I know I’m in pain?”, at the New Jersey Regional Philosophical Association’s ‘Witgenstein Centennial Conference’, Fairleigh-Dickinson Univ., NJ, 29 Apr. 1989.

Major national radio appearances as a philosopher

Further impact and engagement activities (selected)

  • Given evidence to a number of House of Commons Select Committee inquiries, including on GM and the Precautionary Principle.
  • Published author in Resurgence magazine.
  • A paid journalist: see the archive of my five years worth of monthly published newspaper columns at the Eastern Daily Press
  • Published online significant numbers of articles, including on the LSE sites, at Open Democracy, at Liberal Conspiracy, Left Foot Forward, Le Monde Diplomatique, the New Internationalist, Red Pepper, The Ecologist, The New Statesman, Res Publica, and at the Guardian online. Also, guest blogger with the OECD.
  • Published a few articles in specialist ‘trade’ journals; e.g. my commissioned ‘Viewpoint’ piece in Britain’s leading transport policy journal, Local Transport Today, 4 Aug. 2005, “In trying to cut car use, why do we prioritise public transport over walking and cycling?”
  • Numerous letters published in national and international newspapers, and in journals such as the LRB and TLS, published seven articles in Green World magazine, an article in Business Spotlight magazine, and three articles in the Morning Star.
  • Numerous national and regional TV and radio appearances.
  • Several talks at the ‘Where the Light Gets In’ Philosophy Festival at Hay-on-Wye, at the Cambridge Festival of Ideas, and at other such festivals.
  • Regular columnist in The Philosophers’ Magazine.
  • Regular blogger at their ‘Talking Philosophy’ site, the most prominent philosophy-centred blog in the world, and at the new The Philosophers Magazine blogsite.
  • Former chair of the Green House thinktank.
  • Helped to found the All Party Parliamentary Group on Limits to Growth.
  • Briefed members of parliament and the House of Lords on the merits of the Precautionary Principle. This included a one-to-one meeting with the secretary of state for environment, Michael Gove MP, in December 2017.
  • Was a prominent spokesperson for the Extinction Rebellion protests in London in April 2019. This included debates on national television and radio with MPs, ministers and members of the shadow cabinet.

Referees

Please contact me directly for a list of referees you contact to give confidential references.

Finally, for convenient access to many of my academic publications online, go to https://philpapers.org, eastanglia.academia.edu, or researchgate.net. See also wikipedia.org.