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David Owen

Associate Professor of Philosophy
D.Phil., Oxford University, 1979
History of Modern Philosophy, Metaphysics
Personal Website

David Owen (D.Phil., Oxford), Associate Professor of Philosophy, taught at Oxford and Columbia before coming to Arizona. He specializes in the history of early modern philosophy, especially Descartes, Locke and Hume, but also has broader philosophical interests, especially in metaphysics and problems of reasoning. He is currently working on theories of judgment in the 17th and 18th century.

Current Research

  • "Locke on Judgment", forthcoming in The Cambridge Companion to Locke's Essay, ed. by Lex Newman
  • "Scepticism with regard to reason", forthcoming in a volume of essays on Hume"s Treatise, edited by Donald Ainslie (CUP).
  • "Belief and Assent in Locke and Hume", Topoi (forthcoming).

Books

  • Hume: General Philosophy, The International Library of Critical Essays in the History of Philosophy, General Editor Tom Campbell (Ashgate, 2000).
  • Hume's Reason (Oxford University Press, 1999).
  • Central Readings in the History of Modern Philosophy: Descartes to Kant (Wadsworth, 1998, 2nd edition),edited with Robert Cummins.

Selected Publications

  • "Reason and Commitment", contribution to book symposium on Don Garrett"s Cognition and Commitment in Hume"s Philosophy, Philosophy and Phenomological Research LXII, #1, 2001
  • "Reply to my critics", contribution to book symposium on my Hume"s Reason, Hume Studies 26, #2 (2000).
  • Critical Notice, Nicholas Wolterstorff"s John Locke and the Ethics of Belief, The Locke Newsletter (1999).
  • "Representation, Reason and Motivation" (with Rachel Cohon), Manuscrito 20, 1997, 47-76.
  • "Hume and the Irrelevance of Warrant", not published.
  • "Hume on Demonstration" (Logic of the Workings of the Mind, North American Kant Society, 1997) edited by Patricia Easton.
  • "Philosophy and the Good Life: Hume's Defence of Probable Reasoning" (Dialogue XXXV, 1996).
  • "Reason, Reflection and Reductios" (Hume Studies, November 1994).
  • "Hume's Doubts About Probable Reasoning: Was Locke the Target?" in Hume and Hume's Connexions M.A. Stewart and J.P. Wright, eds. (Edinburgh/Penn State, 1994).
  • "Locke on Reason, Probable Reasoning and Opinion" (The Locke Newsletter, 1993).
  • "Hume and the Lockean Background: Induction and the Uniformity Principle" (Hume Studies, November 1992).
  • "Locke on Real Essence" (History of Philosophy Quarterly, April 1991).
  • "Hume vs. Price on Miracles and Prior Probabilities: Testimony and the Bayesian Calculation" (The Philosophical Quarterly, April 1987; and Miracles, ed. R. Swinburne, Blackwell, 1988).

Teaching

  • Philosophy 262, Introduction to Early Modern Philosophy
  • Philosophy 471b/571/b, The Empiricists
  • Philosophy 596Q, Hume"s Treatise