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Ruth Garrett Millikan (1933-) is a well-known American philosopher of biology, psychology, and language. She was awarded the Jean Nicod Prize and gave the Jean Nicod Lectures in Paris in 2002.
Millikan earned her PhD from Yale University where she studied under Wilfred Sellars. She and Paul Churchland are often considered leading proponents of "right wing" (i.e., individualistic) Sellarsianism. Millikan's most distinctive position, "Teleosemantics," seeks to account for semantic meaning through evolutionary explanations.
Millikan taught at the University of Michigan and for several years at the University of Connecticut, where she is now professor emeritus.
In Ruth Millikan's article, "Naturalist Reflections on Knowledge", she defends the position that the justification of true beliefs through an explanation in accordance with evolution constitutes knowledge.
Further reading
Millikan has published five books,
- (1984) Language, Thought and Other Biological Categories
- (1993) White Queen Psychology and Other Essays for Alice
- (2000) On Clear and Confused Ideas pdf
- (2004) The Varieties of Meaning: The 2002 Jean Nicod Lectures pdf
- (2005) Language: A Biological Model pdf
The 1993 and 2005 books are collections of papers.
Millikan has also published many articles, many of which are listed here and available (in draft form) here.
See also
External links
1933 births | Living people | 20th century philosophers | 21st century philosophers | American philosophers | Philosophers of language | Philosophers of mind
"Ruth Millikan"