Colin McGinn

From Philosopedia

Colin McGinn (10 March 1950 - )

McGinn, who was born in West Hartlepool, England, received his degree in psychology from Manchester in 1971 His thesis concerned the ideas of Noam Chomsky. By 1972 he was admitted to Oxford University and received his B. Philosophy degree from Oxford in 1974.

He has taught at University College London, the University of Southern California (USC), City University of New York (CUNY), Rutgers in New Jersey for over a decade, and he currently teaches at the University of Miami in Florida.

In philosophy, he has written about consciousness and intentionality, metaphysics, Wittgenstein, epistemology, ethics, and logic. His best-known work is a defense of New Mysterianism, which is the view that the human intellect is not equipped to solve the mind-body problem.

Also, he has written a novel, The Space Trap (1992), many book reviews, and a philosophical autobiography, The Making of a Philosopher: My Journey Through Twentieth-Century Philosophy (2002).

Partial List of Writings

Mindfucking (2008)

Shakespeare's Philosophy: Discovering the Meaning Behind the Plays (2006)

The Power of Movies: How Screen and Mind Interact (2005)

Mindsight: Image, Dream, Meaning (2004).

Consciousness and Its Objects (2004)

The Making of a Philosopher: My Journey Through Twentieth-Century

Philosophy (2002). HarperCollins, first edition).

(Reprint edition, 2003, Harper Perennial)

Logical Properties: Identity, Existence, Predication, Necessity, Truth (2001).

Oxford University Press)

The Mysterious Flame: Conscious Minds in a Material World (1999).

Basic Books)

Knowledge and Reality: Selected Papers (1998). Oxford University Press.

Ethics, Evil and Fiction (1997). Oxford University Press.

Minds and Bodies: Philosophers and Their Ideas (1997). Oxford University Press.

Problems in Philosophy: the Limits of Inquiry (1993). Blackwell.

The Space Trap (1992). Duckworth.

Moral Literacy: Or How To Do The Right Thing (1992). Duckworth, 1992; Hackett, 1993.

The Problem of Consciousness (1991). Basil Blackwell.

Mental Content (1989). Basil Blackwell.

Wittgenstein on Meaning (1984). Basil Blackwell.

The Subjective View: Secondary Qualities and Indexical Thoughts (1983).

Oxford University Press.

The Character of Mind (1982). Oxford University Press, 1982. (Second edition, 1997.)