Maximilian de Gaynesford


Robert Maximilian de Gaynesford is an English philosopher and professor of philosophy at the University of Reading.

Education and career

De Gaynesford attended Ampleforth College and Balliol College, Oxford, after which he spent several years studying theology before studying philosophy in 1993. Lincoln College, Oxford elected him fellow and tutor in philosophy shortly before receiving his doctorate. He was subsequently Humboldt Research Fellow at the Freie Universität Berlin and a tenured professor at The College of William and Mary in Virginia before becoming professor of philosophy and head of department at the University of Reading.
He is the author of four books: The Rift in the Lute: Attuning Poetry and Philosophy, I: The Meaning of the First Person Term, Hilary Putnam, and John McDowell. In 2011, he edited a collection of articles on the Philosophy of Action, Agents And Their Actions, including recent work by John McDowell and Joseph Raz. He spoke at the Harvard Conference in celebration of Hilary Putnam in 2011. He gives papers on attuning poetry and philosophy for general audiences; in 2015, he gave a public talk at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford on 'Why Philosophy and Poetry Matter.' In 2017, he took part in a short, filmed conversation about Philosophy and Film with Lenny Abrahamson and Francine Stock. Their subsequent extended public discussion became a podcast. His other research interests are moral psychology and the interface with the philosophy of law, where he unearths a particular type of defence that he calls 'justifexcuses.'

Selected bibliography

Books

  • The Rift in the Lute: Attuning Poetry and Philosophy
  • I: The Meaning of the First Person Term
  • Hilary Putnam
  • ''John McDowell''

Chapters in books

  • The Sonnets and Attunement in The Routledge Companion to Shakespeare and Philosophy eds Craig Bourne and Emily Caddick Bourne.
  • Attuning philosophy and literary criticism: a response to In the Heart of the Country in Beyond the Ancient Quarrel: Literature, Philosophy, and J.M. Coetzee eds P. Hayes and J. Wilm.
  • Uptake In Action in Interpreting J.L. Austin: Critical Essays ed. Savas Tsohatzidis.