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Peter Strawson

Peter Strawson was a British philosopher who spent almost all of his career at Oxford, where he was Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy. He…

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Also known as P. F. Strawson, Peter Frederick Strawson

1919 – 2006 · London, Oxford

Traditions: Analytic

Schools: Ordinary language philosophy

Peter Strawson was a British philosopher who spent almost all of his career at Oxford, where he was Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy. He criticised Russell's theory of descriptions in 'On Referring' and developed a 'descriptive metaphysics' in Individuals. In 'Freedom and Resentment' he shifted the free will debate away from metaphysics to our practices of blame and gratitude, the 'reactive attitudes' through which we hold one another responsible.

Key ideas

  • Reactive attitudes such as resentment, gratitude and indignation are natural to interpersonal life and cannot be abandoned wholesale.
  • Moral responsibility is grounded in these practices, not in a metaphysical theory that a truth of determinism could overturn.
  • Referring expressions presuppose rather than assert the existence of their referents.
  • Descriptive metaphysics describes the actual structure of our thought about the world, with material bodies and persons as basic particulars.

Major works

  • On Referring (1950)
  • Introduction to Logical Theory (1952)
  • Individuals (1959)
  • Freedom and Resentment (1962)

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