Professor Peter Simons
Fellow Emeritus, Philosophy
Fellow Emeritus, Sch Office Social Sciences & Philosophy
Biography
Peter Simons studied Mathematics and Philosophy at the University of Manchester, supervised by Wolfe Mays. There he co-founded, with Kevin Mulligan and Barry Smith, the Seminar for Austro-German Philosophy (1975-85). After working briefly as a librarian he became Lecturer in Philosophy at Bolton Institute of Technology (now the University of Bolton). He then moved to Austria and lectured at the University of Salzburg from 1980-1995, gaining his Habilitation in 1986 and being granted Austrian citizenship in 1988. Visits to the University of California, Irvine and the University of Texas at Austin were interspersed with teaching in Neuchâtel, Geneva, Fribourg, Berne and Innsbruck. In 1995 he was appointed Professor of Philosophy at Leeds. From 1989-2001 he worked as a consultant to the software company Ontek Corporation. In 2004 he was elected FBA, and in 2013 MRIA. He is married with two adult children, and his hobbies include walking, skiing, choral singing, and reading history.
Publications and Further Research Outputs
Peer-Reviewed Publications
Armstrong and Tropes in, editor(s)Francesco F. Calemi , Metaphysics and Scientific Realism: Essays in Honour of David Malet Armstrong, Berlin, de Gruyter, 2016, pp71 - 83, [Peter Simons]
External Relations, Causal Coincidence and Contingency in, editor(s)Anna Marmodoro and David Yates , The Metaphysics of Relations, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2016, pp113 - 126, [Peter Simons]
Peter Simons, Bolzano's Monadology, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 2016
Applications of Complex Numbers and Quaternions: Historical Remarks, with a Note on Clifford Algebra in, editor(s)Philip Ebert and Marcus Rossberg , Abstractionism in Mathematics: Status belli, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2016, [Peter Simons]
The Ontology and Logic of Higher-Order Multitudes in, editor(s)Massimiliano Carrara, Alexandra Arapinis and Friederike Moltmann , Plurality and Unity. Logic, Philosophy, and Linguistics, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2016, pp55 - 69, [Peter Simons]
Ingarden on Causation in, editor(s)Oliver Malherbe and Sébastien Richard , Forme(s) et modes d'être: l'ontologie de Roman Ingarden, Brussels, Peter Lang, 2016, pp229 - 242, [Peter Simons]
Makers and Models: Two Approaches to truth, and their Merger in, editor(s)Miroslaw Szatkowski , God, Truth, and other Enigmas, Berlin, de Gruyter, 2015, pp153 - 166, [Peter Simons]
Kevin Mulligan, Peter Simons and Barry Smith, Ce se întâmplă cu se filosofia contemporană?, Revista de Filosofie, 62, 2015, p759 - 765
How to Do Things with Things: Brentano's Reism and its Limits. in, editor(s)Bruno Leclercq, Sébastien Richard and Denis Seron , Objects and Pseudo-Objects. Ontological Deserts and Jungles from Brentano to Carnap, Berlin, de Gruyter, 2015, pp3 - 15, [Peter Simons]
Peter Simons, Alfred North Whitehead's Process and Reality, Topoi, 34, 2015, p297 - 305
Peter Simons, Philosophical Method without the Linguistic Turn, Conséquence, 1 , (1), 2015, p52 - 80
Peter Simons, Wittgenstein and Surprise in Mathematics, Argumentos: Revista de Filosofia, 7, (13), 2015, p157 - 164
Frege 2.0. Was Frege gesagt hätte, wenn er gewusst hätte, was wir heute wissen (und was er vielleicht hätte sagen sollen). in, editor(s)Dieter Schott , Frege: Freund(e) und Feind(e). Proceedings of the International Conference 2013., Berlin, Logos, 2015, pp187 - 200, [Peter Simons]
Peter Simons, Review of Guillermo E. Rosado Haddock: Against the Current. Selected Philosophical Papers. , Review of Against the Current. Selected Philosophical Papers., by Guillermo E. Rosado Haddock , Philosophy Mathematica, 23, 2015, p145-148
Peter Simons, Lukasiewicz and the Several Senses of Possibility, European Review, 23, 2015, p114 - 124
Media and their Emergence: the Ontology in, editor(s)Juliet Floyd and James E. Katz , Philosophy of Emerging Media: Understanding, Appreciation, Application, New York, Oxford University Press, 2015, pp49 - 58, [Peter Simons]
Meaning and Dummett's Austrians in, editor(s)Bernhard Weiss , Dummett on Analytical Philosophy, Basingstoke, Palsgrave-Macmillan , 2015, pp195 - 210, [Peter Simons]
Peter Simons, Euclid's Context Principle, Hermathena, (191), 2014, p5 - 24
Jan Lukasiewicz, in: Edward Zalta, ed., Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer 2014, 2014, [Peter Simons]
Arithmetic in Lesniewski's Ontology in, editor(s)Kevin Mulligan, Katarzyna Kijania-Placek and Tomasz Placek , The History and Philosophy of Polish Logic. Essays in Honour of Jan Woleński, London, Palgrave-Macmillan, 2014, pp227 - 241, [Peter Simons]
Peter Simons, Linguistic Complexity and Argumentative Unity: A Lvov-Warsaw School Supplement, Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric, 36, (49), 2014, p101 - 120
Peter Simons, Relations and Idealism, Dialectica, 68, 2014, p305 - 315
Edgar Morscher and Peter Simons, Joint Ventures in Philosophy, 1, St.Augustin, Academia, 2014, 1 - 223pp
Where It's At: Modes of Occupation and Kinds of Occupant in, editor(s)Shieva Kleinschmidt , Mereology and Location, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014, pp59 - 68, [Peter Simons]
Peter Simons, Meinong on Meaning, Kodikas/Code: Ars Semiotica, 36, 2013, p301 - 309
Peter Simons, And Now for Something Completely Different: Meaning's Approach to Modality, HumanaMente, 25, 2013, p157 - 173
Peter Simons, Vague Kinds and Biological Nominalism, Metaphysica, 14, 2013, p275 - 282
Metaphysics in Analytic Philosophy in, editor(s)Michael Beaney , The Oxford HAndbook of the History of Analytic Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013, pp709 - 728, [Peter Simons]
Varieties of Parthood: Ontology learns from Engineering in, editor(s)Diana Michelfelder, Natasha McCarthy and David Goldberg , Philosophy and Engineering: Reflections on Practice, Principles and Process, Dordrecht, Springer, 2013, pp151 - 163, [Peter Simons]
Continuant Causation, Fundamentality,and Freedom in, editor(s)Sophie C. Gibb, E. Jonathan Lowe and Röngnvaldur D. Ingthorsson , Mental Causation and Ontology, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013, pp233 - 247, [Peter Simons]
Peter Simons, External Relations, Causal Coincidence, and Contingency, The Metaphysics of Relations, University of London, 3 October 2012, 2012, Anna Marmodoro and David Yates
Four Categories - and More in, editor(s)Tuomas E. Tahko , Contemporary Aristotelian Metaphysics, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp126 - 139, [Peter Simons]
Franz Brentano in, editor(s)Sebastian Luft and Søren Overgaard , The Routledge Companion to Phenomenology, London, Routledge, 2012, pp17 - 27, [Peter Simons]
Questions of Freedom in, editor(s)Richard Swinburne , Free Will and Modern Science, London, The British Academy, 2011, ppvii - xv, [Peter Simons]
The Day Roosevelt was Assassinated in, editor(s)D. E. Wittkower , Philip K. Dick and Philosophy: Do Androids Have Kindred Spirits?, Chicago, Open Court, 2011, pp283 - 292, [Peter Simons]
Supernumeration: Vagueness and Numbers in, editor(s)Richard Dietz and Sebastiano Moruzzi , Cuts and Clouds: Vagueness, its Nature and its Logic, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010, pp482 - 490, [Peter Simons]
Why Categories Matter: Grossmann and Beyond in, editor(s)Javier Cumpa , Studies in the Ontology of Reinhardt Grossmann, Frankfurt/Main, Ontos, 2010, pp191 - 210, [Peter Simons]
Ross Cameron, Robin Le Poidevin, Andrew McGonigal and Peter Simons, Routledge Companion to Metaphysics, 1st ed, London, Routledge, 2009, 632pp
A Short Glossary of Metaphysics in, editor(s)Robin Le Poidevin, Peter Simons, Andrew McGonigal and Ross Cameron , Routledge Companion to Metaphysics, London, Routledge, 2009, pp578 - 599, [Peter Simons]
Twardowski on Truth in, editor(s)Sandra Lapointe and Jurgis Skilters , 200 Years of Analytic Philosophy, Riga, The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication, 2009, pp1 - 14, [Peter Simons]
Peter Simons, Vectors and Beyond: Geometric Algebra and its Philosophical Significance, dialectica, 63, (4), 2009, p381 - 395
The Monist, 92, 3, (2009), Peter Simons and Sir Duncan Michael, [Guest Editors]
Leśniewski's Logic in, editor(s)Dov M. Gabbay and John Woods , Handbook of the History of Logic. Vol. 5, Logic from Russell to Church, Amsterdam, Elsevier, 2009, pp305 - 320, [Peter Simons]
Whitehead: Process and Cosmology in, editor(s)Robin Le Poidevin, Peter Simons, Andrew McGonigal and Ross Cameron , Routledge Companion to Metaphysics, London, Routledge, 2009, pp181 - 190, [Peter Simons]
Formalism in, editor(s)Andrew Irvine , Philosophy of Mathematics. Handbook of the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 4, Amsterdam, Elsevier, 2009, pp291 - 310, [Peter Simons]
Peter Simons and Vasilis Agouridas, Antecedence and Consequence in Design Rationale Systems, Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing, 22, 2008, p375 - 386
Peter Simons, Philosophy and Logic in Central Europe from Bolzano to Tarski. Selected Essays., 1, Dordrecht, Kluwer, 1992, 1 - 441pp
Peter Simons, Parts. A Study in Ontology, 1, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1987, 1 - 390pp
Double Value-Ranges in, editor(s)Philip Ebert and Markus Rossberg , Essays on Frege's Basic Laws of Arithmetic, Oxford, Oxford University Press, [Peter Simons]
Peter Simons, Mereology and Truth-Making, Logic and Logical Philosophy
Non-Peer-Reviewed Publications
The Importance of Classification in Empirical Science in, editor(s)Anna Brożek and Jacek Juliusz Jadacki , Nauka i język (seria druga). Księga pamiątkowa Marianowi Przełęckiemu w darze na 90-lecie urodzin. , Lublin, Norbertinum, 2014, pp145 - 157, [Peter Simons]
Edgar Morscher, Otto Neumaier and Peter Simons, Ein Philosoph mit "Bodenhaftung". Zu Leben und Werk von Joseph M. Bocheński, 1, Sankt Augustin, Germany, Academia, 2011
Bochenski and Balance: System and History in Analytic Philosophy in, editor(s)Edgar Morscher, Otto Neumaier and Peter Simons , Ein Philosoph mit "Bodenhaftung". Zu Leben und Werk von Joseph M. Bochenski., Sankt Augustin, Germany, Academia, 2011, pp61 - 78, [Peter Simons]
Ontic Generation: Getting Everything from the Basics in, editor(s)Alexander Hieke and Hannes Leitgeb , Reduction - Abstraction - Analysis. Proceedings of the 31st International Wittgenstein Symposium , Frankfurt am Main, Ontos, 2009, pp137 - 152, [Peter Simons]
Why there are no states of affairs in, editor(s)Maria Elisabeth Reicher , States of Affairs, Frankfurt/Main, Ontos, 2009, pp111 - 128, [Peter Simons]
Peter Simons, Analītiska filozofija: kādēļ tā ir vislabākā filozofija, 2008, -
Research Expertise
Description
Metaphysics and Ontology: Pure (systematization, categories, nominalism, tropes, naturalism, emergence, quantities, ) Applied, to various disciplines (database design, manufacturing engineering, enterprise design, physical geography, music, ) Philosophy of Language and Logic (truthmakers, nominalist semantics, term logic, Lesniewskian logic, categorial grammar) Philosophy of Mathematics (abstraction, structuralism, numbers, sets, vectors, geometrical algebra) History of Analytic Philosophy (Bolzano, Frege, Whitehead, Russell, Wittgenstein) History of Philosophy and Logic in Central Europe (Bolzano, Brentano, Frege, Meinong, Husserl, Twardowski, Lukasiewicz, Lesniewski, Tarski)Recognition
Awards and Honours
Kulturpreis der Stadt Salzburg
Honorary Professor of Philosophy, University of Salzburg
Fellow of the British Academy
Member of the Academia Europaea
Ph.D. (honoris causa), University of Bolton
Member, Royal Irish Academy
Honorary Professor, University of Nottingham
Foreign Member of the Polish Academy of Sciences
Memberships
American Philosophical Association
European Society for Analytic Philosophy
Österreichische Gesellschaft für Philosophie
Gesellschaft für analytische Philosophie
Salzburger Philosophische Gesellschaft
Internationale Bernard-Bolzano-Gesellschaft