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Philosophy is not a science: Margaret Macdonald on the nature of philosophical theoriesHopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science. forthcoming.Margaret Macdonald was at the institutional heart of analytic philosophy in Britain in the mid-twentieth century. Yet, her views on the nature of philosophical theories diverge quite considerably from those of many of her contemporaries. In this paper, I focus on her 1953 article ‘Linguistic Philosophy and Perception’, a provocative paper in which Macdonald argues that the value of philosophical theories is more akin to that of poetry or art than science or mathematics. I do so for two reasons. …Read more
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The philosopher versus the physicist: Susan Stebbing on Eddington and the passage of timeBritish Journal for the History of Philosophy 30 (1): 130-151. 2021.In this paper, I provide the first in-depth discussion of Susan Stebbing’s views concerning our experience of the passage of time – a key issue for many metaphysicians writing in the first half of the twentieth century. I focus on Stebbing’s claims about the passage of time in Philosophy and the Physicists and her disagreement with Arthur Eddington over how best to account for that experience. I show that Stebbing’s concern is that any attempt to provide a scientific account of the passage of ti…Read more
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Peter West
Northeastern University London
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Northeastern University LondonAssistant Professor
Trinity College, Dublin
PhD, 2020
Areas of Specialization
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
17th/18th Century British Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Metaphysics |
Perception |
Intentionality |