Gilbert Harman 1938 – 2021
Gilbert Helms Harman was an American philosopher of language, mind, and ethics and a long-serving professor at Princeton. After studies at Swarthmore and Harvard under W. V. O. Quine, he developed in his many essays and books the notion of inference to the best explanation as the most general form of nonscientific reasoning, defended a moderate moral relativism in The Nature of Morality, and argued in late papers against the existence of robust character traits of the kind required by classical virtue ethics. He shaped American philosophy of mind and meta-ethics for half a century.
Key facts
- Nationality
- American
- Era
- Contemporary
- Movements
- Analytic
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Gilbert Harman:
“Inference to the best explanation is the most general form of inductive reasoning.”
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Attributed to Gilbert Harman:
“Moral relativism is not the denial of moral truth, but its localization.”
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Attributed to Gilbert Harman:
“There is no robust character trait of the kind virtue ethics requires.”
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Attributed to Gilbert Harman:
“Reasoning, like perception, can be analyzed without taking inner soliloquy at face value.”
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Attributed to Gilbert Harman:
“The internal pressure of consistency is the engine of moral thought.”