Philip Stuart Kitcher (born 20 February 1947) is a British philosopher who is

John Dewey John Dewey (; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the fi ...

Professor Emeritus of

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. He specialises in the

philosophy of science Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultim ...

, the philosophy of biology, the

philosophy of mathematics The philosophy of mathematics is the branch of philosophy that studies the assumptions, foundations, and implications of mathematics. It aims to understand the nature and methods of mathematics, and find out the place of mathematics in people' ...

, the

philosophy of literature Philosophy and literature involves the literary treatment of philosophers and philosophical themes (the literature of philosophy), and the philosophical treatment of issues raised by literature (the philosophy of literature). The philosop ...

, and more recently

pragmatism Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that considers words and thought as tools and instruments for prediction, problem solving, and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. ...

Life and career

Born in London, Kitcher spent his early life in

Eastbourne Eastbourne () is a town and seaside resort in East Sussex, on the south coast of England, east of Brighton and south of London. Eastbourne is immediately east of Beachy Head, the highest chalk sea cliff in Great Britain and part of the l ...

East Sussex East Sussex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England on the English Channel coast. It is bordered by Kent to the north and east, West Sussex to the west, and Surrey to the north-west. The largest settlement in East ...

, on the south coast of the United Kingdom, where another distinguished philosopher of an earlier generation (A.J. Ayer) was also at school. Kitcher himself went to school at

Christ's Hospital Christ's Hospital is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 11–18) with a royal charter located to the south of Horsham in West Sussex. The school was founded in 1552 and received its first royal charter in 1553. ...

, Horsham,

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ...

. He earned his B.A. in Mathematics/History and Philosophy of Science from

Christ's College, Cambridge Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college includes the Master, the Fellows of the College, and about 450 undergraduate and 170 graduate students. The college was founded by William Byngham in 1437 as ...

in 1969, and his PhD in History and Philosophy of Science from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

in 1974, where he worked closely with

Carl Hempel Carl Gustav "Peter" Hempel (January 8, 1905 – November 9, 1997) was a German writer, philosopher, logician, and epistemologist. He was a major figure in logical empiricism, a 20th-century movement in the philosophy of science. He is espe ...

and

Thomas Kuhn Thomas Samuel Kuhn (; July 18, 1922 – June 17, 1996) was an American philosopher of science whose 1962 book '' The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'' was influential in both academic and popular circles, introducing the term ''paradig ...

. Kitcher is currently

Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at

. As chair of Columbia's Contemporary Civilization program (part of its undergraduate Core Curriculum), he also held the James R. Barker Professorship of Contemporary Civilization. Before moving to Columbia, Kitcher held tenure-track positions at the

University of Vermont The University of Vermont (UVM), officially the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, is a public land-grant research university in Burlington, Vermont. It was founded in 1791 and is among the oldest universities in the Unite ...

, The

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

, and

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is ...

where he held the position of Presidential Professor of Philosophy. Kitcher is past president of the

American Philosophical Association The American Philosophical Association (APA) is the main professional organization for philosophers in the United States. Founded in 1900, its mission is to promote the exchange of ideas among philosophers, to encourage creative and scholarl ...

. In 2002, Kitcher was named a fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

, and he was awarded the inaugural Prometheus Prize from the

in 2006 in honour of extended achievement in the

. He was elected to the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

in 2018. Kitcher was Editor-in-Chief of the journal ''Philosophy of Science'' from 1994 to 1999, was also a member of the NIH/ DOE Working Group on the Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of the

Human Genome Project The Human Genome Project (HGP) was an international scientific research project with the goal of determining the base pairs that make up human DNA, and of identifying, mapping and sequencing all of the genes of the human genome from both ...

from 1995 to 1997. He has trained a number of prominent philosophers of science, including

Peter Godfrey-Smith Peter Godfrey-Smith (born 1965) is an Australian philosopher of science and writer, who is currently Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney. He works primarily in philosophy of biology and philosophy of mind, ...

(

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si ...

), Kyle Stanford (

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and p ...

), and Michael R. Dietrich (

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the univers ...

). He also taught

C. Kenneth Waters C. Kenneth Waters holds the Canada Research Chair in Logic and the Philosophy of Science and is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Calgary, where he specializes in philosophy of biology. Education and career Waters received his underg ...

(University of Calgary) and Michael Weisberg (University of Pennsylvania) as undergraduates. He is married to Patricia Kitcher. She is a well known

Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aest ...

scholar and

philosopher of mind Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are addre ...

who has been the

Mark Van Doren Mark Van Doren (June 13, 1894 – December 10, 1972) was an American poet, writer and critic. He was a scholar and a professor of English at Columbia University for nearly 40 years, where he inspired a generation of influential writers and thi ...

Professor of Humanities at Columbia. Their son, Charles Kitcher, is the Associate General Counsel for the

Federal Election Commission The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is an independent regulatory agency of the United States whose purpose is to enforce campaign finance law in United States federal elections. Created in 1974 through amendments to the Federal Election Cam ...

Philosophical work

Within philosophy, Kitcher is best known for his work in philosophy of

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary ...

science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence ...

, and

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

, and outside academia for his work examining

creationism Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of divine creation. Gunn 2004, p. 9, "The ''Concise Oxford Dictionary'' says that creationism is 't ...

and

sociobiology Sociobiology is a field of biology that aims to examine and explain social behavior in terms of evolution. It draws from disciplines including psychology, ethology, anthropology, evolution, zoology, archaeology, and population genetics. Within ...

. His works attempt to connect the questions raised in philosophy of biology and

with the central philosophical issues of

epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epi ...

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

, and

ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concer ...

. He has also published papers on

John Stuart Mill John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, Member of Parliament (MP) and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of classical liberalism, he contributed widely to ...

and other figures in the

history of philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

. His 2012 book documented his developing interest in

and a pragmatic approach to philosophical issues. He sees

as providing a unifying and reconstructive approach to traditional philosophy issues. He had, a year earlier, published a book outlining a naturalistic approach to ethics, ''The Ethical Project'' (Harvard University Press, 2011). He has also done work on the philosophy of

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...

Criteria for what constitutes "good science"

Kitcher's three criteria for good science are: :1. Independent testability of auxiliary hypotheses :: "An auxiliary hypothesis ought to be testable independently of the particular problem it is introduced to solve, independently of the theory it is designed to save" (e.g. the evidence for the existence of

Neptune Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the farthest known planet in the Solar System. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 time ...

is independent of the anomalies in Uranus's orbit). :2. Unification :: "A science should be unified .... Good theories consist of just one problem-solving strategy, or a small family of problem-solving strategies, that can be applied to a wide range of problems". :3. Fecundity :: "A great scientific theory, like Newton's, opens up new areas of research... Because a theory presents a new way of looking at the world, it can lead us to ask new questions, and so to embark on new and fruitful lines of inquiry... Typically, a flourishing science is incomplete. At any time, it raises more questions than it can currently answer. But incompleteness is no vice. On the contrary, incompleteness is the mother of fecundity... A good theory should be productive; it should raise new questions and presume that those questions can be answered without giving up its problem-solving strategies". He increasingly recognised the role of values in practical decisions about scientific research.

Kuhn and creationism

Kitcher is the author of ''Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism''. He has commented on the way

creationists Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of Creation myth, divine creation.#Gunn 2004, Gunn 2004, p. 9, "The ''Concise Oxford Dictionary'' say ...

have misinterpreted Kuhn:

Thomas Kuhn Thomas Samuel Kuhn (; July 18, 1922 – June 17, 1996) was an American philosopher of science whose 1962 book '' The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'' was influential in both academic and popular circles, introducing the term ''paradig ...
's book ''
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions ''The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'' (1962; second edition 1970; third edition 1996; fourth edition 2012) is a book about the history of science by philosopher Thomas S. Kuhn. Its publication was a landmark event in the history, philoso ...
'' has probably been more widely read—and more widely misinterpreted—than any other book in the recent philosophy of science. The broad circulation of his views has generated a popular caricature of Kuhn's position. According to this popular caricature, scientists working in a field belong to a club. All club members are required to agree on main points of doctrine. Indeed, the price of admission is several years of
graduate education Postgraduate or graduate education refers to academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate (bachelor's) degree. The organization and st ...
, during which the chief
dogma Dogma is a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted. It may be in the form of an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion, such as Roman Catholicism, Judaism, Islam ...
s are inculcated. The views of outsiders are ignored. Now I want to emphasize that this is a hopeless caricature, both of the practice of scientists and of Kuhn's analysis of the practice. Nevertheless, the caricature has become commonly accepted as a faithful representation, thereby lending support to the Creationists' claims that their views are arrogantly disregarded.Kitcher, P, 1982, ''Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism'', p. 168

Books

*''Abusing Science: The Case Against

Creationism Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of divine creation. Gunn 2004, p. 9, "The ''Concise Oxford Dictionary'' says that creationism is 't ...

''. MIT Press, 1982 (paperback 1983). *''The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge''. Oxford University Press, 1983 (paperback 1984). *''Vaulting Ambition:

Sociobiology Sociobiology is a field of biology that aims to examine and explain social behavior in terms of evolution. It draws from disciplines including psychology, ethology, anthropology, evolution, zoology, archaeology, and population genetics. Within ...

and the Quest for Human Nature''. MIT Press, 1985 (paperback 1987). *''The Advancement of Science'', Oxford University Press, April 1993 (paper January 1995). *''The Lives to Come: The Genetic Revolution and Human Possibilities'' (Simon and Schuster S Penguin K January 1996, paperback editions 1997). The American paperback contains a postscript on

cloning Cloning is the process of producing individual organisms with identical or virtually identical DNA, either by natural or artificial means. In nature, some organisms produce clones through asexual reproduction. In the field of biotechnology, c ...

, almost identical with his article "Whose Self is it, Anyway?”. *''Patterns of Scientific Controversies'', essay in ''Scientific Controversies: Philosophical and Historical Perspectives'', Oxford University Press, 2000. *''Science, Truth, and Democracy'', Oxford University Press, 2001; paperback 2003. *''In Mendel's Mirror: Philosophical Reflections on Biology'', Oxford University Press, 2003. (This is a collection of seventeen of his articles). *''Finding an Ending: Reflections on Wagner’s Ring'', co-authored with

Richard Schacht Richard Schacht (born 1941) is an American philosopher and professor emeritus at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He is a noted expert on the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, is the editor of ''International Nietzsche Studies'', a ...

, Oxford University Press, February 2004. *''Living with Darwin:

Evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

, Design, and the Future of Faith'', Oxford University Press, January 2007. *'' Joyce's Kaleidoscope: An Invitation to

Finnegans Wake ''Finnegans Wake'' is a novel by Irish writer James Joyce. It is well known for its experimental style and reputation as one of the most difficult works of fiction in the Western canon. It has been called "a work of fiction which combines a bod ...

'', Oxford University Press, July 2007. *''The Ethical Project'', Harvard University Press, October 2011. *''Science in a Democratic Society'', Prometheus Books, September 2011. *''Preludes to

Pragmatism Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that considers words and thought as tools and instruments for prediction, problem solving, and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. ...

: Toward a Reconstruction of Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 2012. *'' Deaths in Venice: The Cases of Gustav von Aschenbach'', Columbia University Press, November 2013. *''Life After Faith: The Case for

Secular Humanism Secular humanism is a philosophy, belief system or life stance that embraces human reason, secular ethics, and philosophical naturalism while specifically rejecting religious dogma, supernaturalism, and superstition as the basis of morality ...

'', Yale University Press, 2014. *''Moral Progress'', Oxford University Press, 2021.

References

External links

The Quest For Inclusion in the Science and Religion DebatePhilip Kitcher website
via Columbia University.
Interview by Point of Inquiry
13 July 2007 (mp3/podcast). Kitcher "explores the implications of Darwinism for both literalist religion, and for liberal faith" and "discusses the role and benefits of religion, and explores alternatives to it, such as secular humanism, and offers ideas for how

secular humanism Secular humanism is a philosophy, belief system or life stance that embraces human reason, secular ethics, and philosophical naturalism while specifically rejecting religious dogma, supernaturalism, and superstition as the basis of morality ...

might become more popular in society."
Fighting incompleteness
interview by David Auerbach, 3am Magazine, 31 January 2014.
Life after faith: Interview with Richard Marshall
3am Magazine, 2 August 2015. {{DEFAULTSORT:Kitcher, Philip 1947 births 20th-century English male writers 20th-century British non-fiction writers 20th-century British philosophers 20th-century essayists 21st-century English male writers 21st-century British non-fiction writers 21st-century British philosophers 21st-century essayists Alumni of Christ's College, Cambridge Analytic philosophers British ethicists British humanists British male essayists Charles Darwin biographers Columbia University faculty Critics of creationism Cultural critics Empiricists Epistemologists Living people Members of the American Philosophical Society Metaphysicians Moral philosophers Ontologists People educated at Christ's Hospital Philosophers of culture Philosophers of education Philosophers of ethics and morality Philosophers of literature Philosophers of mathematics Philosophers of mind Philosophers of psychology Philosophers of science Philosophers of technology Philosophy academics Philosophers of biology Philosophy writers Pragmatists Princeton University alumni Secular humanists Social critics Social philosophers University of California, San Diego faculty University of Michigan faculty University of Minnesota faculty University of Vermont faculty Vassar College faculty Writers about religion and science Lakatos Award winners