Robert Kirk

Contact

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• robert.kirk@nottingham.ac.uk

Research Summary

Robert Kirk is Emeritus Professor in the Department. His main interests are consciousness, physicalism, and intentionality. He is also known for his work on Quine's doctrine of the indeterminacy of… read more

Current Research

Robert Kirk is Emeritus Professor in the Department. His main interests are consciousness, physicalism, and intentionality. He is also known for his work on Quine's doctrine of the indeterminacy of translation. His publications include Translation Determined (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), Raw Feeling (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994, paperback 1996), Relativism and Reality (London and New York: Routledge, 1999), Mind and Body (Chesham: Acumen, 2003), and Zombies and Consciousness (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005; Paperback edition 2007) which to some extent atones for his error in having defended the possibility of zombies in articles in 1974. (For more about zombies, see his entry in the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy at: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/zombies/.) He is currently working on a book on physicalism and the necessity of the physical-mental connection.

Publications

Books

• (1986) Translation Determined, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• (1994) Raw Feeling: a philosophical account of the essence of consciousness, Oxford: Clarendon Press. (Paperback edition 1996.)
• (1999) Relativism and Reality: a contemporary introduction, London and New York: Routledge.
• (2003) Mind and Body, Chesham: Acumen.
• (2005) Zombies and Consciousness, Oxford: Clarendon Press (Paperback edition 2007).

Articles

• (1967) 'Rationality without Language', Mind 76, pp. 369-86.
• (1969a) 'Translation and Indeterminacy', Mind 78, pp. 321-41.
• (1969b) 'Quine's Indeterminacy Thesis', Mind 78, pp. 607-8.
• (1971) 'Armstrong's Analogue of Introspection', Philosophical Quarterly 21, pp. 158-62.
• (1973a) 'Underdetermination of Theory and Indeterminacy of Translation', Analysis 33, pp. 195-202.
• (1974a) 'Sentience and Behaviour', Mind 83, pp. 43-60.
• (1974b) 'Zombies v. Materialists', Aristotelian Society Proceedings, Supp. Vol. 48, pp. 135-52.
• (1977a) 'More on Quine's Reasons for Indeterminacy of Translation' Analysis 37, pp. 136-41.
• (1977b) 'Reply to Don Locke on Zombies and Materialism', Mind 86, pp. 262-4.
• (1979) 'From Physical Explicability to Full-Blooded Materialism', Phil. Quarterly 29, pp. 229-37.
• (1981) 'Goodbye to Transposed Qualia', Aristotelian Society Proceedings 82, pp. 33-44.
• (1982a) 'On Three Alleged Rivals to Homophonic Translation', Philosophical Studies 42, pp. 409-18.
• (1982b) 'Physicalism, Identity and Strict Implication', Ratio 24, pp. 131-41.
• (1983) 'Quinean Indeterminacy and Forcing', Erkenntnis 20, pp. 213-18.
• (1985) 'Davidson and Indeterminacy of Translation', Analysis 45, pp. 20-24.
• (1986a) 'Mental Machinery and Gödel', Synthese 66, pp.437-52.
• (1986b) 'Sentience, Causation and Some Robots', Australasian Journal of Philosophy 64, pp. 306-19.
• (1991) 'Why Shouldn't We be Able to Solve the Mind-Body Problem?', Analysis 51, pp.17-23.
• (1992) 'Consciousness and Concepts', Aristotelian Society Proceedings, Supplementary Volume 66, pp. 23-40.
• (1993a) 'Indeterminacy of Interpretation, Idealization, and Norms', Philosophical Studies 70, pp. 213-223.
• (1993b) '"The Best Set of Tools"? Dennett's Metaphors and the Mind-Body Problem', Philosophical Quarterly 43, pp. 335-43.
• (1994) 'The Trouble with Ultra-Externalism', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, pp. 293-307.
• (1995) 'Wie ist Bewußtsein Möglich?', in Bewußtsein: Beitrãge aus der Gegenwartsphilosophie, Thomas Metzinger (ed.), Schöningh, pp. 641-662 [also appeared as 'How is Consciousness Possible?' in Conscious Experience, same editor and publisher].
• (1996a) 'Why Ultra-externalism goes too far', Analysis 56, pp. 73-9.
• (1996b) 'Physicalism Lives', Ratio 9, pp. 85-9.
• (1996c) 'Strict Implication, Supervenience, and Physicalism', Australasian Journal of Philosophy 74, pp. 244-56.
• (1996d) 'How Physicalists Can Avoid Reductionism', Synthese 108, pp. 157-170.
• (1996e) 'La Coscienza Animale', Iride 17, 62-81.
• (1998) 'Consciousness, Information, and External Relations', Communication and Cognition 30, pp. 249-271.
• (1999a) 'Why There Couldn't Be Zombies', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, supp. vol. 73, pp. 1-16.
• (1999b) 'Radical Interpretation', The MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences, edited by Robert A. Wilson and Frank C. Keil, Cambridge, Mass.; London, England: the MIT Press, pp. 696-697.
• (2001a) 'Nonreductive Physicalism and Strict Implication', Australasian Journal of Philosophy 79: pp. 545-553.
• (2001b) 'Barry Stroud on Subjectivism and Physicalism', Book Symposium contribution, Philosophical Books 42, pp. 253-260.
• (2004) 'Indeterminacy of Translatiom', in The Cambridge Companion to Quine, Roger Gibson (ed.), Cambridge, pp. 151-180.
• (2006a) 'Zapping the Zombies', Think 13, pp. 47-58.
• (2006b) 'Physicalism and Strict Implication', Synthese 151, pp. 523-536.
• (2007) 'Mechanism', The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief, edited by Tom Flynn, Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, pp. 533-4.
• Critical Notice of Sydney Shoemaker, Physical Realization (2007) in Analysis Reviews.
• (2008) 'The Inconceivability of Zombies', Philosophical Studies 139: pp. 73-89.
• (200?) 'Physcialism and Phenomenal Consciousness', in Teorema.