Guttenplan, Samuel 1944-

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GUTTENPLAN, Samuel 1944-

PERSONAL: Born July 26, 1944, in New York, NY; son of Julius (a statistician) and Helen (a librarian) Guttenplan; married Jennifer Jutsen (a lawyer), June 30, 1995. Education: City College of New York, B.A., 1965; Oxford University, Ph.D., 1976. Religion: Jewish.

ADDRESSES: Office—Philosophy Department, Birkbeck College, University of London, Malet St., London WC1E 7HX, England. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Educator and philosopher. City College of New York, lecturer in philosophy, 1966-71; Birkbeck College, University of London, London, England, reader in philosophy, 1976—.

MEMBER: Phi Beta Kappa.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) Mind and Language, Clarendon Press (Oxford, England), 1975.

(With Martin Tamny) Logic: A Comprehensive Introduction, Basic Books (New York, NY), 1978.

The Languages of Logic: An Introduction, Blackwell (Oxford, England), 1987.

(Editor) The Companion to the Philosophy of Mind, Blackwell (Oxford, England), 1994.

Mind's Landscape: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind, Blackwell Publishers (Malden, MA), 2000.

(Editor with Jennifer Hornsby and Christopher Janaway) Reading Philosophy: Selected Texts with a Method for Beginners, Blackwell Publishers (Malden, MA), 2002.

Executive editor of interdisciplinary journal Mind and Language.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Objects of Metaphor.

SIDELIGHTS: Samuel Guttenplan is a reader in philosophy at Birkbeck College at the University of London, and serves as executive editor of the interdisciplinary journal Mind and Language. Philosophy of mind and language have been Guttenplan's primary areas of scholarly endeavor; however, he also has a strong interest in moral philosophy. The book Objects of Metaphor was also in the works in 2003, after which Guttenplan planned to turn his attention to issues of moral conflict as it is experienced by individuals, societies, and groups.

Mind and Language, published in 1975, collects the Wolfson College Lectures presented at Oxford University in 1974. The lecturers are among the most eminent philosphers who have contributed to the field of language and mind, including G. E. M. Anscombe, Peter Geach, W. V. Quine, Donald Davidson, D. Follesdal, and Michael Dummett. Guttenplan arranges and presents the articles in this volume. P. F. Strawson, in his Times Literary Supplement review, credited Guttenplan for a job skillfully done. Elsewhere, critical reviews suggested that the book is suited to well-grounded graduate students and professional philosophers.

A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind, edited by Guttenplan, is part of the "Blackwell Companion to Philosophy" series. Critics have remarked that this volume is not aimed at the uninitiated; however, the editor provides a clear and lengthy introduction to issues in philosophy of mind that will serve well any reader with some background in philosophy. The emphasis is contemporary rather than historical. For example, no scholars earlier than Wittgenstein are listed. Avoiding the dictionary format, the book, with fewer than one hundred articles, is a broad overview of the current concerns of scholars working in the field. Included are discussions of neural networks as well as the nature of semantics. In his review in New Scientist David Concar praised Guttenplan for the depth and breadth of the book stating that, "Here scholarly entries on the nature of semantics and the human imagination lie cheek-by-jowl with hard-nosed expositions of neural-network type models of perception. And helping you to find out who thinks what and why are a dozen or so self-profiles penned by heavy weights such as Noam Chomsky, Daniel Dennett and Jerry Fodor." The majority of the entries are listed by subject. Some topics are covered in more than one article, the purpose being to offer a balanced view. Extensive bibliographies have been included. The book has been well received and is considered by many to be an indispensable item in any philosophy reference collection.

Many critics consider Mind's Landscape: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind as an enlargement of Guttenplan's introduction to A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind. The author's stated goal is to provide a narrative account of the development of the understanding of mind. The landscape metaphor is used to structure the book and each section is composed of separate chapters. Brendan O'Sullivan, in his review in Philosophical Quarterly, described the material covered in the sections in the following way: 'Surveying the Territory,' the first section, describes mental phenomena. 'Digging Deeper' examines selected mental concepts, such as conscious experience. 'Bedrock,' the third section, addresses the mind-body problem, or the connection between the physical and the mental. O'Sullivan went on to praise the author for his restrained use of jargon, using specialized terms only as needed. This book has been praised consistently for its lucid, well-organized approach to a complex and abstract subject.

Guttenplan told CA: "My writing is partly intended as a contribution to the teaching of philosophy and partly to expose my ideas to the criticism of others in this field."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Reference Books Annual, 1996, Mark Cyzyk, review of A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind, p. 609.

Choice, May, 1976, review of Mind and Language, p. 381; September, 1995, J. White, review of A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind, p. 136; April, 2001, M. R. Hebert, review of Mind's Landscape: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind, p. 1475.

New Scientist, March 11, 1995, David Concar, review of A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind, p. 45.

Philosophical Quarterly, January, 2002, Brendan O'Sullivan, review of Mind's Landscape, pp. 126-128.

Review of Metaphysics, December, 1976, review of Mind and Language, p. 342.

Times Literary Supplement, November 21, 1975, P. F. Strawson, review of Mind and Language, p. 1383; April 21, 1995, review of A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind, p. 28; April 12, 2002, Sean Crawford, review of Mind's Landscape, p. 29.