Extended interview with Prof. Michael Devitt - Part I: The Origins of Ideas

Jagiellonian University’s co-production (Copernicus Center, The Jagiellonian Doctoral School in the Humanities, Institute of Philosophy).
DESCRITPION OF THE FIRST PART: In this interview, Prof. Michael Devitt and Agata Paszke discuss some of Prof. Devitt’s key formative philosophical experiences. The interlocutors trace through Prof. Devitt’s philosophical development, starting with some of his early reflections from the time preceding his formal philosophical education, through undergraduate education at University of Sydney and his PhD studies at Harvard University, all the way to the early period of Professor Devitt’s philosophical career. The influence exerted on Professor Devitt’s thought by some key figures, as well as the origins of his ideas and sources of his guiding principles, such as realism and naturalism, are also discussed.
NEXT PARTS:
PART II: Realism and Naturalism
PART III: Biological Essentialism
PART IV: Philosophy of Language: Reference and Meaning
PART V: Linguistics and Experimental Philosophy of Language
PART VI: Semantics vs. Pragmatics
MENTIONED FIGURES IN THE FIRST PART: John Anderson, David Armstrong, Ned Block, David Braun, Sylvain Bromberger, Noam Chomsky, Donald Davidson, Keith Donnellan, Michael Dummett, Gareth Evans, Paul Feyerabend, Hartry Field, Allan Gibbard, William Ginnane, D.L. Gunner, John Heil, Geoffrey Hellman, Peter Herbst, Saul Kripke, Thomas Kuhn, George Lakoff, John Mackie, Charles Martin, Brian Medlin, Graham Nerlich, Hilary Putnam, W. V. O. Quine, Richard Rorty, Nathan Salmon, J. J. C. Smart, Scott Soames, Ludwig Wittgenstein
MENTIONED WORKS IN THE FIRST PART:
Armstrong, D. (1948) A Materialist Theory of the Mind. Many editions.
Ayer, A. J. (1936) Language, Truth and Logic. Many editions.
Davidson, D. (1967) ‘Truth and Meaning’, Synthese, 17(1): 304-323.
Devitt, M. (1974) ‘Singular Terms’, Journal of Philosophy, 71(7): 183-205.
Devitt, M. (1981) Designation. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Devitt, M. (1983a) ‘Dummett’s Anti-Realism’, Journal of Philosophy, 80(2): 73-99.
Devitt, M. (1983b) ‘Realism and the Renegade Putnam: A Critical Study of Meaning and the Moral Sciences, Noûs, 17(2): 291-301.
Devitt, M. (1984) Realism and Truth. Many editions.
Devitt, M. (1988) ‘Rorty’s Mirrorless World’, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 12(1): 157-177.
Devitt, M. (1996) Coming to our Senses: A Naturalistic Program for Semantic Localism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Devitt, M. (2006) Ignorance of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Devitt, M. (2010) Putting Metaphysics First: Essays on Metaphysics and Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Devitt, M. (2015) ‘Should Proper Names Still Seem So Problematic?’, in A. Bianchi (ed.), On Reference. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 108-144.
Donnellan, K. (1966) ‘Reference and Definite Descriptions’, The Philosophical Review, 75(3): 281-304.
Field, H. (1972) ‘Tarski’s Theory of Truth’, Journal of Philosophy, 69(13): 347-375.
Kripke, S. (1980) Naming and Necessity. Many editions.
Presley, C. F. (ed.) (1967) The Identity Theory of Mind. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press.
Putnam, H. (1975) ‘The Meaning of “Meaning”’, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 7: 131-193.
Putnam, H. (1978) Meaning and the Moral Sciences. Many editions.
Quine, W. V. O. (1960) Word and Object. Many editions.
Quine, W. V. O. (1970) ‘On the Reason for Indeterminacy of Translation’, Journal of Philosophy, 67(6): 178-183.
Russell, B. (1912) Problems of Philosophy. Many editions.
Ryle, G. (1949) The Concept of Mind. Many editions.
Prof. Michael Devitt is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York. Over the years, Professor Devitt has written extensively on topics from different branches of philosophy, most notably metaphysics and philosophy of language. Recently (2023) his book “Biological Essentialism” was published by Oxford University Press. Professor Devitt is also engaged in various projects in experimental philosophy.
Agata Paszke (BA Philosophy) is a graduate philosophy major at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. Her interests lie at the intersection of philosophy of language, metaphysics, and metaphilosophy. Her research concerns the problem of reference of various linguistic expressions, which she approaches by incorporating methods of traditional armchair philosophy alongside those of experimental philosophy.