Pascal Engel

Pascal Engel (born in 1954) is a French philosopher, specialized in the Philosophie of the spirit and the knowledge, and in the philosophy of the language and the Logique. Its work fits in the analytical Philosophie contemporary, which it often defended and promoted within the French-speaking philosophical community. It is currently professor at the department of philosophy of the university of Geneva.

Biography

Former student of ENS Ulm, aggregate of philosophy, Pascal Engel made his studies at the universities and Paris IV and Paris I. Under the influence of Jules Vuillemin, of Jacques Bouveresse, which directed its doctorate, then Gilles-Gaston Granger in Aix-en-Provence, which directed its doctorate of State, it turned to the analytical Philosophie, which it also studied in England and in the United States. He chaired the analytical French company of philosophy of 1993 to 1997 and is founding member of the European society for analytic philosophy . He taught at the universities of Grenoble, of Caen, of Paris-Iv Sorbonne and in several foreign universities. He was member of the Academic institute of France. He was member of the Research center in Epistemology Applied of the Polytechnic school, and he is member of the Institute Jean Nicod. Since 2005, he is professor of modern and contemporary philosophy at the University of Geneva, and editor of the review Dialectica .

Research

Its first work concerned the philosophy of the language. Its thesis (1981), under the direction of Jacques Bouveresse, related to the theories of the reference of Saul Aaron Kripke and Gottlob Frege, and its doctorate of State (1990), under the direction of Gilles-Gaston Granger, related to the philosophy of the language of Donald Davidson. It defended, in philosophy of the language and philosophy of the spirit, a nonreductionistic naturalism which is inspired largely by the ideas of Davidson.

In same time, it published an important synthesis of philosophy of logic, the standard of truth . The main theme of its research in this field is that of the role and the nature of the truth. It published several works on this last, in which it criticizes the relativistic designs authors like Michel Foucault or Richard Rorty, with which it published a work on this question.

Since the years 1990, its work also concerned the Philosophie of the spirit and cognitive sciences, and the philosophy of knowledge. Its research relates there to normalcy in the fields logical, epistemic and psychological, and in particular on the problem of psychologism. Its current research relates to the relations between epistemology and ethics.

In parallel, Pascal Engel did an important work of introduction and defense of the analytical Philosophie in France, through translations and works of introduction, but as by defending the idea as this form of philosophy obeys better than of others with professional criteria and cognitive standards which should apply to very undertaken theoretical. This defense led it to be opposed to holding of the continental Philosophie, and to philosophers of inspiration wittgensteinienne (Christiane Chauviré and Sandra Laugier) which show it to want moraliser unduly the cognitive standards.

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