William Child

William Child
Professor of Philosophy
Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy, University College
bill.child@univ.ox.ac.uk

See page on personal website

See page on college website

Area of Specialisation:
College:
Membership:
1989 - present University Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Oxford. Fellow & Tutor in Philosophy, University College
1985 - 1989 Fellow by Examination, All Souls College, Oxford
1989 D.Phil. in Philosophy, University of Oxford
1985 B.Phil. in Philosophy, University of Oxford
1983 B.A., Philosophy & Politics, Wadham College, Oxford

Authored Books

Wittgenstein London: Routledge, 2011

Causality, Interpretation, and the Mind, Oxford University Press, 1994

Edited Book

Wittgensteinian Themes: Essays in Honour of David Pears, Oxford University Press, 2001 (with David Charles)

Published Papers

  1. “‘We Can Go No Further’: Meaning, Use, and the Limits of Language”, in H. Appelqvist (ed.) Wittgenstein and the Limits of Language, Abingdon: Routledge, 2020, pp. 93-114.
  2. “Economics, Agency, and Causal Explanation”, in P. Rona and L. Zsolnai (eds.) Agency and Causal Explanation in Economics, Springer, 2020, pp. 53-67.
  3. “Meaning, Use, and Supervenience”, in J. Conant and S. Sunday (eds.) Wittgenstein on Philosophy, Objectivity, and Meaning, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019, pp. 211-230.
  4. “‘Two Kinds of Use of “I”’: The Middle Wittgenstein on ‘I’ and the Self”, in D. Stern (ed.) Wittgenstein in the 1930s: Between the Tractatus and the Investigations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018, pp. 141-157.
  5. “Wittgenstein, Seeing-As, and Novelty”, in B. Harrington, D. Shaw and M. Beaney (eds.) Aspect Perception After Wittgenstein: Seeing-As and Novelty, Abingdon: Routledge, 2018, pp. 29-48.
  6. “Sensations, Natural Properties, and the Private Language Argument”, in K. Cahill and T. Raleigh (eds.) Wittgenstein and Naturalism, Abingdon: Routledge, 2018, pp. 79-95.
  7. “Wittgenstein, Scientism & Anti-Scientism in the Philosophy of Mind”, in J. Beale and I. J. Kidd (eds.) Wittgenstein and Scientism, Abingdon: Routledge, 2017, pp. 81-100.
  8. “Wittgenstein and Davidson on First-Person Authority and the Univocality of Mental Terms”, in C. Verheggen (ed.) Wittgenstein and Davidson on Thought, Language and Action, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017, pp. 186-204.
  9. “The Inner and the Outer”, in H-J. Glock and J. Hyman (eds.) A Companion to Wittgenstein, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2017, pp. 465-477.
  10. “Wittgenstein and Phenomenal Concepts”, in M. Campbell and M. O’Sullivan (eds.) Wittgenstein and Perception, Abingdon: Routledge, 2015, pp. 84-103.
  11. "First-Person Authority”, in E. LePore and K. Ludwig (eds.) A Companion to Donald Davidson, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013, pp. 533-49
  12. "Does the Tractatus Contain a Private Language Argument?", in P. Sullivan and M. Potter (eds.) Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: History and Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. 143-169.
  13. "Vision and Causal Understanding", in J. Roessler, H. Lerman and N. Eilan (eds.) Perception, Causation, and Objectivity, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 161-80.
  14. "Wittgenstein on the First Person", in O. Kuusela and M. McGinn eds., The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 375-401.
  15. "Remembering Intentions", in A. Ahmed (ed) Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations: A Critical Guide, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 218-34.
  16. "Verificationism and Wittgenstein’s View of Mind", in P. Frascolla, D. Marconi & A. Voltolini (eds) Wittgenstein: Mind, Meaning and Metaphilosophy, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, pp. 13-30.
  17. "Wittgenstein’s Externalism" in The Later Wittgenstein on Language, ed. Daniel Whiting, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, pp. 63-80.
  18. “Wittgenstein, Dreaming and Anti-Realism: A Reply to Richard Scheer”, Philosophical Investigations, 32, 2009, 329-337.
  19. “Davidson on First Person Authority and Knowledge of Meaning”, Nous, 41, 2007, 157-177.
  20. “Memory, Expression, and Past-Tense Self-Knowledge”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 73, 2006, 54-76 (published May 2007).
  21. “Dreaming, Calculating, Thinking: Wittgenstein and Anti-Realism about the Past”, Philosophical Quarterly, 2007, 252-272.
  22. “Interpreting People and Interpreting Texts”, International Journal of Philosophical Studies, (Special Issue: Donald Davidson), 2006, 423-441.
  23. “Wittgenstein’s Externalism: Context, Self-Knowledge and the Past”, in What Determines Content?  The Internalism/Externalism Dispute, edited by Tomas Marvan, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006,  198-220.
  24. “On Having a Meaning Before One’s Mind”, Teorema, 25, 2006, (special issue edited by Angel Garcia Rodriguez, Aspects of the Philosophy of John McDowell) pp. 161-75.
  25. “Autonomy and Self-Knowledge”, Intellectica 36/37: Repenser le corps, l’action et la cognition avec les neurosciences, 2003, ed. J. L. Petit, 2003, 227-246.
  26. “Wittgenstein’s Externalism and Modern Externalism”, Filosoficky Casopis, 2002, 459-77.
  27. “Pears’s Wittgenstein: Rule-following, Platonism and Naturalism”, in Wittgensteinian Themes: Essays in Honour of David Pears, eds. D. Charles and W. Child, Oxford University Press, 2001, 81-113.
  28. “Triangulation: Davidson, Realism and Natural Kinds”, Dialectica, 55, 2001, 29-49.
  29. “Wittgenstein and Common-Sense Realism”, Facta Philosophica, 2, 2000, 179-202.
  30. “Solipsism and First Person/Third Person Asymmetries”, European Journal of Philosophy,1996.
  31. “On the dualism of scheme and content”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1994, 53-71.
  32. “Anomalism, uncodifiability, and psychophysical relations”, Philosophical Review, 1993, 215-45.
  33. “Vision and Experience: the Causal Theory and the Disjunctive Conception”, Philosophical Quarterly, 1992, 297-316.

Discussion Replies

  1. “Reply to ‘Simulation theory and mental concepts’ by Alvin Goldman”, in J. Dokic and J Proust (eds.) Simulation and Knowledge of Action, (Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2002), pp. 21-31.
  2. “Crane on Mental Causation”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1996, 97-102.
  3. “Vision and Causation: Reply to Hyman”. Philosophical Quarterly, 1994, 361-9.