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Peter Millican

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In 2005 Dr Peter Millican was appointed as Gilbert Ryle Fellow in Philosophy at Hertford College, Oxford (though for two years he was shared with Oriel College). In 2007 he was promoted to Reader in Early Modern Philosophy. From 2005 until 2010, he was Co-Editor of the journal Hume Studies. Hume's philosophy has indeed been the main focus of his research, though he continue to work also in Epistemology, Ethics, Philosophy of Language and of Religion. His teaching at Oxford is also quite varied, including General Philosophy, Formal Logic, History of Philosophy, Epistemology and Metaphysics, Logic and Language, and Philosophy of Religion.
| # | Episode Title | Description | People | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Creative Commons | 8. Conclusion; Scepticism in the Treatise and the Enquiry | Eighth and final lecture in Peter Millican's series on David Hume's Central Principles. | Peter Millican | 14 Aug 2012 |
| 2 | Creative Commons | 7. Scepticism with Regard to Reason, the Soul and the Self | Seventh lecture in Peter Millican's series on David Hume's Central Principles. | Peter Millican | 14 Aug 2012 |
| 3 | Creative Commons | 6. Hume on the External World | Sixth lecture in Peter Millican's series on David Hume's Central Principles. | Peter Millican | 14 Aug 2012 |
| 4 | Creative Commons | 5: Hume on Causal Necessity | Fifth lecture in Peter Millican's series on Hume's Central Principles. | Peter Millican | 14 Aug 2012 |
| 5 | Creative Commons | 4: Hume on Induction | Fourth lecture in Peter Millican's series on Hume's Central Principles. | Peter Millican | 14 Aug 2012 |
| 6 | Creative Commons | 3: Hume's Logic: Relations, and Forms of Argument | Third lecture in Peter Millican's series on Hume's Central Principles. | Peter Millican | 14 Aug 2012 |
| 7 | Creative Commons | 2. Overview, Theory of Ideas, and Faculty Psychology | Second lecture in Peter Millican's series on Hume's Central Principles. | Peter Millican | 14 Aug 2012 |
| 8 | Creative Commons | 1. Historical Background, and His 'Chief Argument' | First lecture on David Hume's Central Principles; focusing on the historical background and Hume's Chief Argument. | Peter Millican | 14 Aug 2012 |
| 9 | Creative Commons | 5. Of the Sceptical and Other Systems of Philosophy | Accompanying slides for Lectures 5a to 5c of Peter Millican's series on David Hume's Treatise of Human Nature Book One. | Peter Millican | 01 Aug 2012 |
| 10 | Creative Commons | 4. Of Knowledge and Probability | Accompanying slides for Lectures 4a to 4f of Peter Millican's series on David Hume's Treatise of Human Nature Book One. | Peter Millican | 01 Aug 2012 |
| 11 | Creative Commons | 3. Abstract Ideas, Space and Time | Accompanying slides for Lectures 3a to 3c of Peter Millican's series on David Hume's Treatise of Human Nature Book One. | Peter Millican | 01 Aug 2012 |
| 12 | Creative Commons | 1. Introduction, Hume's Theory of Ideas and the Faculties | Accompanying Slides for Lectures 1a to 1c of Peter Millican's series on David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature Book One. | Peter Millican | 01 Aug 2012 |
| 13 | Creative Commons | 5c. Of the Ancient and Modern Philosophies | Third and Final part of Lecture 5 of Peter Millican's series on David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature Book One. Of the Skeptical and Other Systems of Philosophy. | Peter Millican | 01 Aug 2012 |
| 14 | Creative Commons | 5b. Of Skepticism with Regard to the Senses | Second part of Lecture 5 of Peter Millican's series on David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature Book One. Of the Skeptical and Other Systems of Philosophy. | Peter Millican | 01 Aug 2012 |
| 15 | Creative Commons | 5a. Of Skepticism with Regard to Reason | First part of Lecture 5 of Peter Millican's series on David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature Book One. Of the Skeptical and Other Systems of Philosophy. | Peter Millican | 01 Aug 2012 |
| 16 | Creative Commons | 4f. The Point of Hume's Analysis of Causation | Sixth part of Lecture 4 of Peter Millican's series on David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature Book One. Of Knowledge and Probability. | Peter Millican | 01 Aug 2012 |
| 17 | Creative Commons | 4e. Understanding Hume on Causation | Fifth part of Lecture 4 of Peter Millican's series on David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature Book One. Of Knowledge and Probability. | Peter Millican | 01 Aug 2012 |
| 18 | Creative Commons | 4d. Of the Necessary Connection | Fourth part of Lecture 4 of Peter Millican's series on David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature Book One. Of Knowledge and Probability. | Peter Millican | 01 Aug 2012 |
| 19 | Creative Commons | 4c. Belief and Probability | Third part of Lecture 4 of Peter Millican's series on David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature Book One. Of Knowledge and Probability. | Peter Millican | 01 Aug 2012 |
| 20 | Creative Commons | 4b. The Argument Concerning Induction | Second part of Lecture 4 of Peter Millican's series on David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature Book One. Of Knowledge and Probability. | Peter Millican | 01 Aug 2012 |
| 21 | Creative Commons | 4a. Relations, and a Detour to the Causal Maxim | First part of Lecture 4 of Peter Millican's series on David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature Book One. Of Knowledge and Probability. | Peter Millican | 01 Aug 2012 |
| 22 | Creative Commons | 3b. Space and Time | Second part of Lecture 3 of Peter Millican's series on David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature Book One. Abstract Ideas, Space and Time. | Peter Millican | 01 Aug 2012 |
| 23 | Creative Commons | 3a. Hume's Theory of General (or Abstract) Ideas | First part of Lecture 3 of Peter Millican's series on David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature Book One. Abstract Ideas, Space and Time. | Peter Millican | 01 Aug 2012 |
| 24 | Creative Commons | 2. Hume's Theory of Relations | Lecture 2 of Peter Millican's series on David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature Book One. | Peter Millican | 01 Aug 2012 |
| 25 | Creative Commons | 1c. Hume's Faculty Psychology | Third part of lecture one of Peter Millican's series on David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature Book One. | Peter Millican | 01 Aug 2012 |
| 26 | Creative Commons | 1b. The Theory of Ideas | Second part of lecture one of Peter Millican's series on David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature Book One. | Peter Millican | 01 Aug 2012 |
| 27 | Creative Commons | 1a. Hume's Theory of Ideas and the Faculties | First part of lecture one of Peter Millican's series on David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature Book One. | Peter Millican | 01 Aug 2012 |
| 28 | Creative Commons | 8.4 Persons, Humans and Brains | Part 8.4. The final part of this series. Explores the distinction between mind and body and whether this makes a difference to the idea of personal identity. | Peter Millican | 01 Dec 2010 |
| 29 | Creative Commons | General Philosophy Lecture 8 | PDF slides from Peter Millican's General Philosophy lecture 8. | Peter Millican | 01 Dec 2010 |
| 30 | Creative Commons | 8.3 Problems for Locke's View of Personal Identity | Part 8.3. Criticisms of Locke's view of personal identity; if personal identity is dependent on memory then how does forgetting personal history and the concept of false memory change Locke's view of personal identity. | Peter Millican | 01 Dec 2010 |
| 31 | Creative Commons | 8.2 John Locke on Personal Identity | Part 8.2. Looks at John Locke's view of personal identity; how consciousness and 'personal history' distinguish personal identity and the idea of memory as crucial for personal identity. | Peter Millican | 01 Dec 2010 |
| 32 | Creative Commons | 8.1 Introduction to Personal Identity | Part 8.1. Introduces the concept of personal identity, what is it to be a person, whether someone is the same person over time and Leibniz's law of sameness. | Peter Millican | 01 Dec 2010 |
| 33 | Creative Commons | 7.4 Making Sense of Free Will and Moral Responsibility | Part 7.4. A brief explanation of Hume's argument for sentimentalism and Robert Kane's views on free will and determinism. | Peter Millican | 01 Dec 2010 |
| 34 | Creative Commons | General Philosophy Lecture 7 | PDF slides from Peter Millican's General Philosophy lecture 7. | Peter Millican | 01 Dec 2010 |
| 35 | Creative Commons | 7.3 Hume on Liberty and Necessity | Part 7.3. Looks at Hume's views on liberty and its relationship to causal necessity; that we have free will but it is causally determined. | Peter Millican | 01 Dec 2010 |
| 36 | Creative Commons | 7.2 Different Concepts of Freedom | Part 7.2. Looks at Hobbes' and Hume's views of free will and the three concepts of freedom, and considers the idea of moral responsibility as dependent on free will. | Peter Millican | 01 Dec 2010 |
| 37 | Creative Commons | 7.1 Free Will, Determinism and Choice | Part 7.1. Explores the problem of free will and the ideas of moral responsibility, determinism and choice; the need for a concept of freedom to allow free choice, the problems associated with this and asking whether we really have freedom of choice. | Peter Millican | 01 Dec 2010 |
| 38 | Creative Commons | 6.4 Making Sense of Perception | Part 6.4. A brief overview of contemporary accounts of perception; including phenomenalism (that objects are logical constructions from sense data) and direct realism (that we perceive objects and the external world directly). | Peter Millican | 30 Nov 2010 |
| 39 | Creative Commons | General Philosophy Lecture 6 | PDF slides from Peter Millican's General Philosophy lecture 6. | Peter Millican | 30 Nov 2010 |
| 40 | Creative Commons | 6.3 Abstraction and Idealism | Part 6.3. Criticisms of the resemblance theory of perception and an introduction to idealism - that perceptions of the external world are all within the mind as ideas. | Peter Millican | 30 Nov 2010 |
| 41 | Creative Commons | 6.2 Problems with Resemblance | Part 6.2. Explores Berkeley's and Locke's arguments concerning the resemblance of qualities and objects; that the perceived qualities of objects exist only in the mind or whether secondary qualities are intrinsically part of the object. | Peter Millican | 30 Nov 2010 |
| 42 | Creative Commons | 6.1 Introduction to Primary and Secondary Qualities | Part 6.1. Introduces the problem of perception (and the distinction between the world and what we perceive), along with the concepts of primary and secondary qualities. | Peter Millican | 30 Nov 2010 |
| 43 | Creative Commons | 5.4 Scepticism, Externalism and the Ethics of Belief | Part 5.4. Looks at the role the concept of knowledge plays in life, the different levels of knowledge we require in certain contexts and the return of scepticism over knowledge. | Peter Millican | 29 Nov 2010 |
| 44 | Creative Commons | General Philosophy Lecture 5 | PDF slides from Peter Millican's General Philosophy lecture 5. | Peter Millican | 29 Nov 2010 |
| 45 | Creative Commons | 5.3 Gettier and Other Complications | Part 5.3. The difference between internalist and externalist accounts of knowledge; whether we need external factors to justify knowledge or whether internal accounts are sufficient, and the Gettier cases. | Peter Millican | 29 Nov 2010 |
| 46 | Creative Commons | 5.2 The Traditional Analysis of Knowledge | Part 5.2. Explores the idea of conscious and unconscious knowledge (should a person know that they know something or does it not matter?) and the theory of justification of propositions and beliefs. | Peter Millican | 29 Nov 2010 |
| 47 | Creative Commons | 5.1 Introduction to Knowledge | Part 5.1. Looks at the problem of knowledge; how can we know what we know, three types of knowledge and A J Ayer's two conditions for knowledge. | Peter Millican | 29 Nov 2010 |
| 48 | Creative Commons | 4.4 The Mind-Body Problem | Part 4.4. Looks at some of the modern responses to Cartesian Dualism including Gilbert Ryle's and G. Strawson's responses to the idea. | Peter Millican | 08 Apr 2010 |
| 49 | Creative Commons | General Philosophy Lecture 4 | PDF slides from Peter Millican's General Philosophy lecture 4. | Peter Millican | 08 Apr 2010 |
| 50 | Creative Commons | 4.3 Cartesian Dualism | Part 4.3. Introduces Descartes' idea of dualism, that there is a separation between the mind and the body, as well as some of the philosophical issues surrounding this idea. | Peter Millican | 08 Apr 2010 |
| 51 | Creative Commons | 4.2 Possible Answers to External World Scepticism | Part 4.2. Investigates some of the possible solutions to Descartes' sceptical problem of the external world, looking at G.E Moore's response, among others, to the problem. | Peter Millican | 08 Apr 2010 |
| 52 | Creative Commons | 4.1 Scepticism about the External World | Part 4.1. Introduces the problem of how do we have knowledge of the world, how do we know what we perceive is in fact what is there? | Peter Millican | 08 Apr 2010 |
| 53 | Creative Commons | 3.2 Responses to Hume's Famous Argument | Part 3.2. Responses to and justifications of Hume's argument concerning the problem of induction. | Peter Millican | 08 Apr 2010 |
| 54 | Creative Commons | General Philosophy Lecture 3 | PDF slides from Peter Millican's General Philosophy lecture 3. | Peter Millican | 08 Apr 2010 |
| 55 | Creative Commons | 3.1 Hume's Argument Concerning Induction | Part 3.1. Briefly introduces the problem of induction: that is, the problem that it is difficult to justify claims to knowledge of the world through pure reason, i.e. without experience. | Peter Millican | 08 Apr 2010 |
| 56 | Creative Commons | 2.7 Overview: Kant and Modern Science | Part 2.7. Concludes a historical survey of philosophy with Immanuel Kant, who thought Hume was wrong in his idea of human nature and how we gain knowledge of the world. | Peter Millican | 08 Apr 2010 |
| 57 | Creative Commons | General Philosophy Lecture 2 | PDF slides from Peter Millican's General Philosophy lecture 2. | Peter Millican | 08 Apr 2010 |
| 58 | Creative Commons | 2.6 David Hume | Part 2.6. Introduces 18th Century Scottish philosopher David Hume, 'The Great Infidel', including his life, works and a brief look at his philosophical thoughts. | Peter Millican | 16 Mar 2010 |
| 59 | Creative Commons | 2.5 Nicolas Malebranche and George Berkeley | Part 2.5. Focuses on Malebranche, a lesser-known French Philosopher, and his ideas on idealism and the influence they had on English philosopher George Berkeley. | Peter Millican | 16 Mar 2010 |
| 60 | Creative Commons | 2.4 John Locke | Part 2.4. Introduction to the philosophy of John Locke, 'England's first Empiricist', he also gives a very simplistic definition of Empiricism; we obtain knowledge through experience of the world, through sensory data (what we see, hear, etc). | Peter Millican | 16 Mar 2010 |
| 61 | Creative Commons | 2.3 Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton | Part 2.3. An introduction to Robert Boyle's theory of corpuscularianism and Isaac Newton's ideas on mathematics and the universe. | Peter Millican | 16 Mar 2010 |
| 62 | Creative Commons | 2.2 Thomas Hobbes: The Monster of Malmesbury | Part 2.2. A brief introduction to Thomas Hobbes, 'The Monster of Malmsbury', his views on a mechanistic universe, his strong ideas on determinism and his pessimistic view of human nature: 'The life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short'. | Peter Millican | 16 Mar 2010 |
| 63 | Creative Commons | 2.1 Recap of General Philosophy Lecture 1 | Part 2.1. A brief recap on the first lecture describing how Aristotle's view of the universe, dominant throughout the middle ages in Europe, came to be gradually phased out by a modern, mechanistic view of the universe. | Peter Millican | 16 Mar 2010 |
| 64 | Creative Commons | 1.4 From Galileo to Descartes | Part 1.4. Outlines Galileo's revolutionary theories of astronomy and mechanical science and introduces Descartes' (the father of modern philosophy) ideas of philosophical scepticism. | Peter Millican | 19 Feb 2010 |
| 65 | Creative Commons | General Philosophy Lecture 1 | PDF slides from Peter Millican's General Philosophy lecture 1. | Peter Millican | 19 Feb 2010 |
| 66 | Creative Commons | 1.3 Science from Aristotle to Galileo | Part 1.3. Describes briefly the Aristotelian view of the universe; the basis for natural science in Europe until the 15th century and its conflict Galileo's theories. | Peter Millican | 19 Feb 2010 |
| 67 | Creative Commons | 1.2 The Background of Early Modern Philosophy | Part 1.2. Gives a very brief history of philosophy from the 'birth of philosophy' in Ancient Greece through the rise of Christianity in Europe in the Middle Ages through to the Renaissance, the Reformation and the birth of the Modern Period. | Peter Millican | 19 Feb 2010 |
| 68 | Creative Commons | 1.1 An Introduction to General Philosophy | Part 1.1. Outlines the General Philosophy course, the various topics that will be discussed, and also, more importantly, the philosophical method that this course introduces to students. | Peter Millican | 19 Feb 2010 |


