Peter J. King (born March 27, 1956) is a British poet and humanist philosopher. He teaches philosophy at Pembroke College, Oxford and is the author of One Hundred Philosophers: The Life and Work of the World's Greatest Thinkers (2004). Download high resolution version (1940x2616, 587 KB) This work is copyrighted. ... Download high resolution version (1940x2616, 587 KB) This work is copyrighted. ... March 27 is the 86th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (87th in Leap years). ... 1956 was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Poets are authors of poems, or of other forms of poetry such as dramatic verse. ... Humanism is a general term for many different lines of thought which focus on common solutions to common human issues. ... Pembroke College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. ...

Background

Peter John King was born in Boston, Lincolnshire. He attended St Mary's Catholic Primary School, then Boston Grammar School. [1] (http://www.bostongrammar.lincs.sch.uk) After leaving school, he decided against his long-standing desire to go into the theatre, becoming involved instead in the poetry scene in London, centred on the National Poetry Society in Earls Court Square, and running his own small poetry-publishing company, tapocketa press. For other uses, see Boston (disambiguation). ... Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs) is a county in the East Midlands of England, traditionally the second largest after Yorkshire. ... The Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster which contains Big Ben London is the capital city of the United Kingdom and of England. ... Earls Court is a place in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, in London, England. ...

In 1980, he attended Middlesex Polytechnic, now Middlesex University, where he read for a Humanities degree, specialising in philosophy. Gaining first-class honours, he went on to Brasenose College, Oxford, where he read for the B.Phil., a postgraduate philosophy degree, taking papers in philosophical logic, philosophy of science, and the seventeenth-century rationalists, and writing a thesis on "The Ontology of Possible Worlds". He extended this thesis for his D.Phil., which he took in 1995. 1980 is a leap year starting on Tuesday. ... Middlesex University is a university in North London, England, located in the traditional county of Middlesex (from which it takes its name). ... Middlesex University is a university in North London, England, located in the traditional county of Middlesex (from which it takes its name). ... The term Philosophy derives from a combination of the Greek words philos meaning love and sophia meaning wisdom. ... The British bachelors degree classification system is a grading scheme used to distinguish between the achievements of bachelors degree graduates in the United Kingdom. ... Brasenose College (in full: The Kings Hall and College of Brasenose) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. ... Bachelor of Philosophy (B.Phil. ... Philosophical logic is the study of the more specifically philosophical aspects of logic: the term contrasts with mathematical logic. ... The philosophy of science is the branch of philosophy which studies the philosophical foundations, presumptions and implications of science both of the natural sciences like physics and biology and the social sciences such as psychology and economics. ... In philosophy, ontology (from the Greek ον = being and λόγος = word/speech) is the most fundamental branch of metaphysics. ... In philosophy and logic, the concept of possible worlds is used to express modal claims, claims that involve notions of possibility or necessity. ... 1995 was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Academic career

King's teaching and publishing career began while he was still working on his doctorate. The former included Oxford College lectureships at St Edmund Hall, New College, and St Anne's College, as well as teaching at Birkbeck College and King's College London. St Edmund Hall is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. ... New College is the name of many academic institutions, including: New College of California New College of Florida New College Nottingham New College, Oxford New College, University of New South Wales New College, University of Toronto New College was the original name of Harvard University. ... St Annes College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. ... Birkbeck Birkbeck (sometimes still called Birkbeck College) is a College of the University of London. ... Kings College London (often abbreviated to KCL) in London is the largest college in the federal University of London, with 21,500 registered students. ...

After taking his doctorate, he held Oxford college lectureships at St Hilda's College, Brasenose College, Somerville College, and Christ Church, before taking up his present position at Pembroke College. He has also held visiting lectureships at the University of North London and the University of Reading, and for a number of years lectured in Oxford on the philosophy of religion. St Hildas College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. ... Brasenose College (in full: The Kings Hall and College of Brasenose) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. ... Somerville College, part of the University of Oxford, was one of the first womens colleges to be founded there. ... Christ Church Cathedral is the name of the Anglican Cathedral in several cities around the world, including the following: In Australia Newcastle, Australia In Canada Fredericton, New Brunswick Kingston, Ontario Montreal, Quebec Ottawa, Ontario Vancouver, British Columbia In the Falkland Islands Port Stanley In Ireland Dublin Waterford In New Zealand... Pembroke College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. ... The University of North London is the name of a former university in the United Kingdom. ... The University of Reading (pronounced Redding) is a university in the English town of Reading. ... Philosophy of religion is the rational study of the meaning and justification of fundamental religious claims, particularly about the nature and existence of God (or gods, or the divine). ...

He has published both academic and more popular work, and is currently working on an introduction to the philosophy of religion, in the form of a series of dialogues. His interest in poetry continues, and he has collaborated with Andrea Christofidou on translations of modern Greek poets such as Karyotakis and Kavafis. Andrea Christofidou has been teaching Philosophy at the University of Oxford since 1992; she has been lecturer in Philosophy at Keble College since 2001, and previously held Lectureships at a number of Oxford Colleges, including Balliol and Worcester. ... Kostas Karyotakis (Greek: Κώστας Καρυωτάκης) (October 30, 1896, Tripoli, Greece – July 20, 1928, Preveza, Greece) was a Greek poet considered one of the most representative Greek poets of the 1920s and one of the first poets to wrote about modernism in Greece. ... Cavafy, around 1900 in Alexandria, Egypt Constantine P. Cavafy, also known as Konstantin or Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis, or Kavaphes (April 29, 1863 - April 29, 1933) was a Greek poet who is among the 20th centurys most important literary figures, though he is relatively little known in the English speaking...

His research interests include moral philosophy, the philosophy of religion, the philosophy of mind, metaphysics, philosophical logic, the philosophy of parapsychology, René Descartes, David Hume, and John Stuart Mill. In addition, his teaching interests include African philosophy, political philosophy, epistemology, philosophy of science (including the philosophy of physics and of biology), the rationalists, and the empiricists. Ethics is a general term for what is often described as the science (study) of morality. In philosophy, ethical behavior is that which is good or right. ... Philosophy of mind is the philosophical study of the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental properties, and consciousness. ... Metaphysics (Greek words meta = after/beyond and physics = nature) is a branch of philosophy concerned with the study of first principles and being (ontology). ... Parapsychology is the study of the evidence involving phenomena where a person seems to affect or to gain information about something through a means not currently explainable within the framework of mainstream, conventional science. ... René Descartes René Descartes (IPA: , March 31, 1596 – February 11, 1650), also known as Cartesius, worked as a philosopher and mathematician. ... David Hume David Hume (April 26, 1711 – August 25, 1776) was a Scottish philosopher and historian and, with Adam Smith and Thomas Reid among others, one of the most important figures in the Scottish Enlightenment. ... John Stuart Mill (May 20, 1806 – May 8, 1873), aka JS Mill, an English philosopher and political economist, was an influential liberal thinker of the 19th century. ... African philosophy is a disputed term, used in different ways by different philosophers. ... Political philosophy is the study of the fundamental questions about the state, government, politics, property, law and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it should... Epistemology, from the Greek words episteme (knowledge) and logos (word/speech) is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature, origin and scope of knowledge. ... Physics is the study of matter and energy and how it interacts. ... Main article: Life There are many universal units and common processes that are fundamental to the known forms of life. ... A separate article deals with a different philosophical position called rationalism. ... Empiricism is generally regarded as being at the heart of the modern scientific method, that our theories should be based on our observations of the world rather than on intuition or faith; that is, empirical research and a posteriori inductive reasoning rather than purely deductive logic. ...

He is a member of the Humanist Philosophers Group, [2] (http://www.humanism.org.uk/site/cms/contentviewarticle.asp?article=1163) and maintains the philosophy portal, Philosophy around the Web. [3] (http://users.ox.ac.uk/~worc0337/phil_index.html)

Main philosophy publications

• One Hundred Philosophers: The Life and Work of the World's Greatest Thinkers (2004. U.S.A.: Barrons ISBN 0764127918; U.K.: Apple ISBN 1840924624)
• "One man's meat is another man's person" (in "Mind: Its Place in the World (http://www.ap.univie.ac.at/users/Alexander.Batthyany/mipw) — Non-Reductionist Approaches to the Ontology of Consciousness", edd Alexander Batthyany, Dimitri Constant, & Avshalom Elitzur; Ontos Verlag, forthcoming)
• "Parapsychology without the 'para' (or the psychology)" (Think (http://www.royalinstitutephilosophy.org/think/) 3; 2003)
• "Hereafter, in a later world than this (http://www.ifs.csic.es/sorites/Issue_10/item07.htm)" (Sorites (http://www.ifs.csic.es/sorites/) 10; 1999)
• "The problem of evil (http://users.ox.ac.uk/~shil0124/mystuff/evil.html)" (Philosophical Writings (http://www.dur.ac.uk/philosophical.writings/) 9; 1998)
• "Against tolerance (http://users.ox.ac.uk/~shil0124/mystuff/tolerance.html)" (Philosophy Now (http://www.philosophynow.org/), 11; 1995)
• "Other times" (Australasian Journal of Philosophy (http://www.qut.edu.au/arts/human/ethics/ajp.htm) 73; 1995)
• "Lycan on Lewis and Meinong (http://users.ox.ac.uk/~shil0124/mystuff/lycan.html)" (Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0066-7374) XCIII, 2; 1993)

References

• "This & That" — King's website at Oxford (http://users.ox.ac.uk/~worc0337)
• King's webpage at Pembroke College (http://www.pmb.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/profiles_academic.cgi?profileid=247)