Curriculum Vitae (academic)

 

 

Bjrn Torgrim Ramberg, Professor of Theoretical Philosophy, University of Oslo

Box 1020 Blindern, N-0315 Oslo, Norway
Tel: (+47) 228 41673
e-mail: b.t.ramberg@csmn.uio.no

Date of Birth: 31 March 1961 (in Oslo, Norway)

 

 

Education

Queens University, Kingston, Canada, Ph.D., May 1988. Dissertation: Daughters of History: Truth and Incommensurability. Supervisor: Professor Carlos G. Prado.

Queen's University, Kingston, Canada, M.A., October 1983. Thesis: The Concept of Truth in Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Postscripts. Supervisor: Professor Michael A. Fox.

University of Oslo, Norway, 1980-1982:  Undergraduate studies in philosophy and the history of religion 

 

Appointments

Wigeland Visiting Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Chicago, January 2nd – June 30th, 2012.

Core Group Member, Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature (CSMN), 2007-.

Head of Department, Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas, March 2005-February 2009.

Head of research group, with Olav Gjelsvik, at the Centre for Advanced Studies (CAS), Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, August 2003-June 2004.

Professor of Theoretical Philosophy, University of Oslo, July 1997-.

Associate Professor and Philosophy Department Chair, Simon Fraser University, September 1999-2000.

Associate Professor of Philosophy, Simon Fraser University, September 1997-2000.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Simon Fraser University, July 1991-97.

Andrew Mellon Faculty Fellow, Department of Philosophy, Harvard University, 1990-91.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Queen's University, 1989-90.

Adjunct Lecturer in Philosophy, Queen's University, Spring Intersession, 1989.

Adjunct Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Oslo, 1988-89.

Instructor in Philosophy, Queen's University, Fall 1987; Spring 1987; Spring 1985.

Teaching Assistant in Philosophy, Queen's University, 1982-1987.

 

Publications

Books:

2003. Reflections and Replies: Essays on Tyler Burge. Co-edited with Martin Hahn. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

1989. Donald Davidson's Philosophy of Language: An Introduction. Oxford and New York: Blackwell.

 

Articles and Chapters

2011. Method and Metaphysics: Pragmatist Doubts. In Jeff Malpas (ed.) Dialogues with Davidson: New Perspectives on his Philosophy, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

2011. Triangulation in Action:  A Rationalizing Proposal.  With Ingvald Fergestad.  In Cristina Amoretti and Gerhard Preyer (eds.), Triangulation: From an Epistemological Point of View. Frankfurt-Heusenstamm: Ontos Verlag.

2011. Turning to Hermeneutics: On Pragmatisms Struggle with Subjectivity. In Matthias Buschmeier and Espen Hammer (eds.), Pragmatische Hermeneutic. Beitrge zu Richard Rortys Kulturpolitik.  Zeitschrift fr sthetik und Allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft, Sonderheft 11. Berlin: Felix Meiner Verlag.

2011. Im Dienste seiner Generation: Rorty ber Zerstrung und Erbauung. In Mike Sandbothe and Alexander Grschner (eds.), Pragmatismus als Kulturpolitik: Beitrge zum Werk von Richard Rorty . Berlin: Suhrkamp.

2010. Richard Rorty: Motvillig teoretiker? [Richard Rorty: Reluctant Theorist?] In Jrgen Pedersen (ed.), Moderne Politisk Teori.  Oslo: Pax Forlag. 

2010. The New Loud: Richard Rorty, Quietist? With Hanne Andrea Kraugerud. Common Knowledge, vol. 16(1), 2010, 48-65.

2008. Rorty, Davidson, and the Future of Metaphysics in America. In Cheryl Misak (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of American Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press.

2007. Ironism. With Endre Begby, In American Philosophy. An Encyclopedia. Routledge.

2006. Analytic Philosophy. In John Shook and Joseph Margolis (eds.), A Companion to Pragmatism. Oxford and New York: Blackwell.

2006. Hermeneutics. With Kristin Gjesdal. In Edward Zalta (principal ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. URL: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hermeneutics/

2004. Naturalizing Idealizations: Pragmatism and the Interpretivist Strategy. Contemporary Pragmatism, Vol. 1. No. 2.

2003. Illuminating Language: Interpretation and understanding in Gadamer and Davidson. In Carlos Prado (ed.), A House Divided: Comparing Analytic and Continental Philosophers. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books. Czech translation: Osvetlit jazyk, osvetlit jazykem: Interpretace a rozumeni u Gadamera a Davidsona. Filozofický časopis, vol. 51(4), 567-591.

2001. What Davidson Said to the Sceptic. In Petr Kotatko, Peter Pagin, Gabriel Segal (eds.), Interpreting Davidson: Selected papers from the 1996 Karlovy Vary symposium on analytical philosophy. Palo Alto, California: CSLI Press.

2001.  "Richard Rorty." In Edward Zalta (principal ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. URL: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rorty/

2001. Begrepsoppdrett og sprsmls(mis)dannelse: Vitenskap, etikk og laksens indre liv. [Breeding Concepts and (Mis)Shaping Questions: Science, Ethics and the Inner Life of the Salmon.] In Andreas Fllesdal (ed.), Dyreetikk [Animal Ethics). Oslo: Fagbokforlaget.

2000. Post-Ontological Philosophy of Mind: Rorty versus Davidson. In Robert Brandom (ed.), Rorty and His Critics. Oxford and New York: Blackwell.

1999. The Significance of Charity. In Lewis E. Hahn (ed.), The Philosophy of Donald Davidson. The Library of Living Philosophers, Vol. XXVI. Chicago and LaSalle, Illinois: Open Court Publishers.

1999. Dennett's Pragmatism. In Jean-Pierre Commetti (ed.), Pragmatism. Revue Internationale de Philosophie, Special Issue.

1998. Rorty and the Instruments of Philosophy. Originally published as, Rorty e os Instrumentos da Filosofia. In Paulo Roberto Margutti Pinto et al. (eds.), Filosofia Analtica, Pragmatismo e Cincia. Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais: Editora da Universidade de Minas Gerais. English version, 2002: In Michael Peters and Paulo Ghiraldelli (eds.), 2002. Richard Rorty: Philosophy, Culture and Education. Boulder, Colorado: Rowman & Littlefield. Italian version: Un uomo senza argomenti? Rorty e gli strumenti della filsofia. Iride 29, Anno XIII, Aprile 2000. German version: Rorty und die Werkzeuge der Philosophie. In Mike Sandbothe (ed.), 2000. Die Renaissance des Pragmatismus: Aktuelle Verflechtungen zwischen analytischer und kontinentaler Philosophie. Weilerswist: Velbrueck Wissenschaft.

1997. The Source of the Subjective. In Lewis E. Hahn (ed.), The Philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer. The Library of Living Philosophers, Vol. XXIV. Chicago and LaSalle, Illinois: Open Court Publishers.

1997. Donald Davidson. In Donald Borchert (ed.) Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Supplementary Volume. New York: Simon and Schuster MacMillan.

1993. Strategies for Radical Rorty: 'But is it Progress?' In Jocelyne Couture and Kai Nielsen (eds.), Reconstructing Philosophy? New Essays on Metaphilosophy. Canadian Journal of Philosophy. Supplementary volume XIX.

1993. Interpreting Davidson: Critical Notice of Simone Evnine: Donald Davidson (Stanford U.P., 1991). Dialogue, XXXII.

1988. Charity and Ideology. The Field Linguist as Social Critic. Dialogue, XXVII. Reprinted in Sharyn Clough (ed.), 2003. Feminism, Social Justice and Analytic Philosophy: Siblings Under the Skin. Aurora, Colorado: The Davies Group. 

 

Talks and Lectures

Expressing Subjectivity: Constraints on a pragmatist view of the explanatory relations between language and the mental. Augst 23rd, 2011.  The 4thNordic Pragmatism Conference, Copenhagen.

Science or Politics? On the commitments of pragmatism. June 9th, 2011. Realism and its Multiple Forms.  Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies.

Tensions in Pragmatism: On the science and politics of subjectivity. May 9th, 2011. Naturalism without Mirrors - workshop on the philosophy of Huw Price, Univrsitet Zurich.

Trouble with the Subjective: Pragmatism and the Naturalization of Mind. May 6th, 2011. The Balzan-Skinner Colloquium: Analytic Philosophy in Britain and America: the Forging of a Tradition, CRASHH, Cambridge University.

Animal Subjectivity. April 8th, 2011. Centre for Mind and Language, University of Hradec Kralove.

Turning to Hermeneutics: Pragmatisms Struggle with Subjectivity. December 2nd, 2010, Department of Philosophy, University of Helsinki.

Method and Metaphysics: Pragmatist Doubts. April 27th, 2010, Ethics Research Institute, Universitt Zrich.

Pragmatism and the Subjective. June 5th, 2009, Zentrm fr interdisziplinre Forschung, Bielelfeld; May 14th, 2009, Nordic Pragmatist Network, NTNU, Trondheim; April 10th, American Philosophy Association Pacific Division Annual Meeting, Vancouver, British Columbia; June 23rd, 2007, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universitt, Frankfurt/M.

Healing Minds, Treating Brains: Psychiatry between biology and subjectivity. August 18th, 2008, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro.  

Richard Rorty, in memoriam. March 21st, 2008. American Philosophy Association Pacific Division Annual Meeting, Pasadena, California.

Brandoms Inferentialism: The Rortyan Background.  April 26th, 2007, The School of Inferentialism, Charles University, Prague.

Atheist Doubts: Can science still the urge to believe? November 9th, 2005, Lund Philosophical Seminar, University of Lund. 

Animal Welfare, Ethics and Philosophy.  In Norwegian: Dyrevern, filosofi og etikk. November 1st, 2005, Norwegian Veterinary Society, autumn course, Stavanger.  

Interpretation and the knowledge of emotion. April 16th, 2004:  Objectivity and Meaning: Themes from Davidson, International Research Seminar, Oslo, April 15th and 16th 2004. April 28th: The Prague seminar on Interpretation, Prague, April 26th to 29th, 2004.

Who we are and what we are: Emotion at the interface of subjectivity and science.  May 13th, 2004: plenary paper at the XV Inter-Nordic Philosophical Symposium: SCIENCE – A CHALLENGE TO PHILOSOPHY?  Helsinki, May 13–15, 2004.

Subjectivity as scientific object: a pragmatist approach to the sciences of emotion. May 21st, 2004: The LOGOS Group, Department of Logic, History and Philosophy of Science, University of Barcelona.

Gadamer and Historicity. Department of Logic, History and Philosophy of Science, University of Barcelona, Spain, May 1999.

Davidson's Notion of the Physical. Department of Logic, History and Philosophy of Science, University of Barcelona, Spain, May 1999.

A Man Without Arguments? Rorty as Philosopher. Department of Philosophy, University of Stockholm, Sweden, October 1998.

On Davidson's Distinction Between the Mental and the Physical. Department of Philosophy, University of Stockholm, Sweden, October 1998.

Intellectual Virtues and Their Names: Putnam versus Rorty. The 1998 Karlovy Vary Symposium on Analytical Philosophy: Swimming in H20, Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic, September 1998.

Rorty, Davidson, and Relativism. In Norwegian. A Third Way: Conference on Relativism, Philosophical Project Centre, Oslo, Norway, June 1998.

Post-Ontological Philosophy of Mind. Rorty versus Davidson. The Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, May 1998.

Is Philosophy an Academic Subject? In Norwegian: Er filosofi er fag? Fagligpedagogisk dag, University of Oslo, January 1998.

Rorty and the Instruments of Philosophy. The Seminar on Analytical Philosophy and Pragmatism, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil, August 1997.

What Davidson said to the Sceptic. Department of Philosophy, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, May 1997; Department of Philosophy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, October 1996.

Scepticism, Representation, and Davidsonian Naturalism. The 1996 Karlovy Vary Symposium on Analytical Philosophy: Interpreting Davidson Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic, September 1996.

Symposiast, with Robert Brandom (Pittsburgh), John McDowell (Pittsburgh), and Richard Rorty (Stanford), at Anti-Authoritarianism in Epistemology and Ethics: The Philosophy of Richard Rorty, the Ferrater Mora Chair in Contemporary Thought, University of Girona, Spain, 25-29 June 1996.

Rorty on Argument and Truth. Keynote Address, Annual Conference of the Canadian Federation of Graduate Students in Philosophy, University of Toronto, 12 April 1996.

Naturalism in the Philosophy of Language. Department of Philosophy, University of Bergen, Ustaoset retreat, Norway, May 1995.

Davidson and Fodor on Holism. Department of Philosophy, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA, November 1994.

Pragmatism and Verificationism: Carnap, Dennett, Rorty. Department of Philosophy, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, February 1994; Department of Philosophy, University of Oslo, Norway, April 1994.

Dennett's Consciousness Explained. Symposium Paper, Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Vancouver, Canada, June 1993.

Rorty, Putnam and McCarthy on the Transcendence of Values. British Columbia Tri-University Conference on Philosophy, Vancouver, Canada, May 1992.

On Fllesdal on Urges and Attitudes. Department of Philosophy, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada, September 1991; American Philosophical Association, Pacific Division, Portland, OR, March 1992; Canadian Philosophical Association, Charlottetown, P.E.I., Canada, May 1992.

The Source of the Subjective. Department of Philosophy, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA, January 1990; Department of Philosophy, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA, January 1990; Department of Philosophy, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA, February 1990; Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto, ON, Canada, February, 1992; Canadian Philosophical Association, Charlottetown, P.E.I., Canada, May 1992.

Language as Power Tool. Department of Philosophy, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada; Department of Philosophy, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, USA; Critical Theory Seminar Series, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, Canada, October 1989.

Intention and Interpretation. Queen's University, Kingston, ON, Canada, August 1989; Department of Philosophy, Simon Fraser University, BC, Canada, January 1989.

What is a Language? Department of Philosophy, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA, January 1989.

Incommensurability and the Hermeneutics of Radical Interpretation. Department of Philosophy, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, Canada, November 1987.

Charity and Ideology: The Field Linguist as Social Critic. Department of Philosophy, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, Canada, August 1989.

Hermeneutics and Free Discourse. Canadian Philosophical Association, Guelph, Ontario, Canada, May 1984.

 

Referee

Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Dialogue, Nous, Erkentniss, Theory and Psychology, Oxford University Press, Canadian Philosophical Association.

 

Awards, Memberships

Excellence in Research Award, Professor Ingerid Dal and Ulrikke Greve Dal Foundation in support of Humanistic Research, August 2000.

Elected member, Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, 2006.