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Dr Mark Pinder

Mark in his local park.

Profile summary

  • Central Academic Staff
  • Head of Discipline
  • Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences
  • School of Social Sciences & Global Studies
  • Philosophy
  • mark.pinder

Professional biography

Mark Pinder is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at The Open University. He has been at the OU since September 2018. Prior to joining, he held lecturing positions at the University of Bristol, the University of Birmingham and elsewhere, and a research fellowship supported by The Analysis Trust at the University of Reading.

Mark received his PhD in 2014 from the University of Bristol. The research was funded by the AHRC. His thesis, Meaning and Paradox, explored the implications of various paradoxes of truth [such as the liar paradox] for different theories of linguistic meaning. The core ideas in this work have since been published across two papers in Philosophical Studies.

More recently, Mark has been working in the field of philosophical methodology, with a particular (but not exclusive) interest in conceptual engineering. His work has been published in Mind, Synthese, and elsewhere.

Selected publications:

  • Pinder, M. 2019. Conceptual engineering, metasemantic externalism and speaker-meaning. Mind​. doi: 10.1093/mind/fzz069.
  • Pinder, M. 2018. How to find an attractive solution to the liar paradox. Philosophical Studies 175(7): 1661–1680.
  • Pinder, M. 2017. Does experimental philosophy have a role to play in Carnapian explication?" Ratio 30(4): 443–461.

Mark is happy to hear from potential PhD students with interests connected to his own - see below for more details.

Research interests

Mark has a wide range research interests, and has published on issues in philosophical methodology, philosophy of language, philosophical logic, epistemology, philosophy of science and moral and social philosophy. He is currently working on questions about methodology in philosophy and the sciences more generally, specifically concerning the process of conceptual engineering.

Here are some of the questions currently animating Mark's research:

  • What is philosophy and how is it related to science?
  • What are the best strategies for tackling philosophical problems?
  • (How) can philosophers have a positive impact on issues of equality and justice in society?
  • What are truth and meaning, and how are they related to language? 

A list of publications can be found via Open Research Online​.

Teaching interests

Mark has taught a wide range of topics, including:

  • Ancient Philosophy
  • Epistemology
  • Logic
  • Meaning of Life
  • Metaethics
  • Metaphysics
  • Philosophy of Language
  • Philosophy of Religion
  • Social and Politial Philosophy

Impact and engagement

Mark has written for the popular magazine Philosophy Now​. One article he has written introduces ​experimental philosophy​, using it to critically examine Hilary Putnam's views on natural kinds​, the building blocks of nature. It is available online, via this link. He has also published a philosophical short story for the magazine, available here. 

Publications

Recent work in the theory of conceptual engineering (2023-07-16)
Koch, Steffen; Löhr, Guido and Pinder, Mark
Analysis, 83(3) (pp. 589-603)

Scharp on inconsistent concepts and their engineered replacements, or: Can we mend these broken things? (2023)
Pinder, Mark
Inquiry, 66(5) (pp. 863-884)

Is it Good to Conceive of One’s Life Narratively? (2023)
Latham, Sally and Pinder, Mark
Philosophia, 51 (pp. 2005-2014)

The phenomenon objection to conceptual engineering (2022-11)
Pinder, Mark
Philosophical Studies, 179(11) (pp. 3281-3305)

Is Haslanger's ameliorative project a successful conceptual engineering project? (2022-08)
Pinder, Mark
Synthese, 200, Article 334(4)

What ought a fruitful explicatum to be? (2022)
Pinder, Mark
Erkenntnis, 87 (pp. 913-932)

[Book Review] "The Metaphysics of Representation" by J. Robert G. Williams (2022)
Pinder, Mark
The Philosophical Quarterly, 72(1) (pp. 225-257)

Conceptual Engineering, Metasemantic Externalism and Speaker-Meaning (2021-01)
Pinder, Mark
Mind, 130(517) (pp. 141-163)

The Austerity Framework and Semantic Normativity (2021)
Pinder, Mark
Inquiry, 64(1-2) (pp. 123-141)

Not Wanted: On Scharp's Solution to the Liar (2021)
Pinder, Mark
Erkenntnis, 86 (pp. 1567-1584)

On Strawson’s critique of explication as a method in philosophy (2020-03)
Pinder, Mark
Synthese, 197(3) (pp. 955-981)

Conceptual engineering, speaker-meaning and philosophy (2020)
Pinder, Mark
Inquiry ((Early Access))

How to find an attractive solution to the liar paradox (2018-07-31)
Pinder, Mark
Philosophical Studies, 175(7) (pp. 1661-1680)

The Explication Defence of Arguments from Reference (2017-12-31)
Pinder, Mark
Erkenntnis, 82(6) (pp. 1253-1276)

Does Experimental Philosophy Have a Role to Play in Carnapian Explication? (2017-11-08)
Pinder, Mark
Ratio, 30(4) (pp. 443-461)

A Normative Argument Against Explosion (2017-03-02)
Pinder, Mark
Thought: A Journal of Philosophy, 6(1) (pp. 61-70)

[Book Review] Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Language, edited by Haukioja Jussi (2016-10-01)
Pinder, Mark
The Philosophical Quarterly, 66(265) (pp. 879-882)

A Revenge Problem Without the Concept of Truth (2015-09)
Pinder, Mark
Thought: A Journal of Philosophy, 4(3) (pp. 151-161)

The cognitivist account of meaning and the liar paradox (2015-05-31)
Pinder, Mark
Philosophical Studies, 172(5) (pp. 1221-1242)

Attitude Ascriptions and Acceptable Translations (2014-07-01)
Pinder, Mark
Analysis, 74(3) (pp. 530-540)

Folk Semantic Intuitions, Arguments from Reference and Eliminative Materialism (2016-07-04)
Pinder, Mark
In: Hinton, Martin ed. Evidence, Experiment and Argument in Linguistics and the Philosophy of Language. Studies in Philosophy of Language and Linguistics (pp. 43-64)
ISBN : 978-3-631-66189-5 | Publisher : Peter Lang | Published : Frankfurt am Main

Borg’s Minimalism and the Problem of Paradox (2014-08-27)
Pinder, Mark
In: Stalmaszczyk, Piotr ed. Semantics and Beyond (pp. 207-230)
ISBN : 9783110354386 | Publisher : DeGruyter | Published : Berlin