Graham Oddie

  • Professor

overview

Graham Oddie (PhD, London, 1979) began studying philosophy at the University of Otago (New Zealand). While Oddie was an undergraduate at Otago, Sir Karl Popper came for a year as a Visiting Professor. The Otago faculty were all instructed by the Chair to discuss Popper's ideas in the weekly colloquium. When it came to his turn, Pavel TichĂ˝ proved that Popper's theory of truthlikeness had the following devastating consequence: that no false proposition could be closer to the truth than any other. This was a disaster for Popper's account of scientific progress but for Oddie it came as a pleasant revelation: that in philosophy you could actually prove interesting stuff. This made a life in philosophy seem attractive. Not long after that, he began working with TichĂ˝ on a new idea for truthlikeness, and wrote a PhD on the topic at the London School of Economics, which morphed into the first book-length treatment of the topic: (Reidel, 1986). Oddie returned to Otago as a Lecturer, moving a few years later to be Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Massey University, and thence to ˛ĘĂń±¦µä in 1994. He served as Chair of the Philosophy Department for several years, and then as Associate Dean for Humanities and the Arts for several more. These days he is happy being a full-time philosopher again.

Areas of Interest: Metaphysics, Value Theory, Metaethics, Formal epistemology, Philosophical Logic, Aesthetics.

Current Research: current research is focused on metaphysics (in particular, a general role ontology), value theory (realism, additivity, epistemology), desire, preference, and cognitive value.

For more information, see Professor Oddie's , , and CV.

selected papers

  • "Propositional and credal accuracy in an indeterministic world", Synthese 199 (3-4) 2021: 9391-9410.
  • "What Accuracy Could Not Be", British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 70  (2) 2019:551-580.
  • “Value perception, properties and the primary bearers of value” in Anna Bergqvist and Robert Cowan (eds.) Evaluative Perception, (Oxford University Press, 2018), 239-258.
  • “Truth and Truthlikeness”, in Glanzberg, M. (ed.)  Oxford Handbook of Truth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 625-648.
  • "Non-naturalism, autonomy and entanglement" Topoi (2017): DOI: 10.1007/s11245-017-9454-z, pp. 1-14.
  • “Desire and the good: finding the right fit”, in Deonna, J. and Lauria, F. The Nature of Desire (Oxford University Press, 2017), 29-56.
  • “What do we see in museums?” in Harrison, V.S., Bergqvist, A. and Kemp, G., (eds.) .  Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, 79, (2016), pp. 217-240: 10.1017/S1358246116000047.
  • “Fitting attitudes, finkish goods, and value appearances” Russ Schafer-Landau (ed.) Oxford Studies in Metaethics, (Oxford University Press, 2016), 74-101.
  • “Value and desires” in Olson, J. and Hirose, I. (eds.) Oxford Handbook of Value  (Oxford University Press, 2015),  60-79.
  • “”, Les Ateliers De L’Éthique (La Revue de CrĂ©um) Special Issue on: Attitudes, Values, Environment Volume 9, numĂ©ro 2, Ă©tĂ© 2014,  57-81.
  • “Content, consequence and likeness: on three approaches to verisimilitude and their compatibility” Synthese 190 (9):1647-1687 Jun 2013.
  • 56   “The fictionalist’s attitude problem”, (with Dan Demetriou) in Ethical Theory and Moral Practice. (2007), 10: 485-98.  (Primary author)
  • “A refutation of Peircian idealism”, in Colin Cheyne (ed.) Rationality and Reality (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2006), 255-62.
  • “Recombinant values”, Philosophical Studies 106 (2001), 259-92.
  • “Scrumptious functions”, Grazer Philosophische Studien 62 (2001), 137-56.
  • “Hume, the bad paradox and value realism”, Philo 4 (2001), 109-22.
  • “Axiological atomism”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 79 (2001), 313-32.
  • “Permanent possibilities of sensation”, Philosophical Studies 98 (2000), 345-59.
  • “Moral realism, moral relativism and moral rules (a compatibility argument)”, Synthese 117 (1999), 251-74.
  • “Conditionalization, cogency and cognitive value”, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 48 (1997), 533-41.
  • “Killing and letting-die: from bare differences to clear differences”, Philosophical Studies 88 (1997), 267-87.
  • “Harmony, Purity, Truth”, Mind 103 (1994), 452-72.