Laird Addis, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy
My association with the University of Iowa began in 1951 when,
at the age of 14,I started four years of working evenings and,
Office address: in summers, full time in the hospital kitchens. During my
170 English-Philosophy Building (EPB) undergraduate years, with majors in Music and Philosophy (BA,
The Department of Philosophy 1959), I worked in University cafeterias and libraries to
The University of Iowa supplement my income from playing my bass and music copying.
Iowa City, IA 52242 Following a year at Brown University (MA, 1960), I returned to
Iowa (Ph.D, 1964) to study with Gustav Bergmann. Joining the
Office phone: 319-335-0495 faculty in 1963, I moved up the ranks to Professor (1974), and
Office FAX: 319-353-2392 retired after 41 years on the faculty (Emeritus Professor, 2004).
Home phone: 319-338-6635 My life as a musician has included 29 seasons with the Quad City
Symphony Orchestra and 36 with the Iowa City Community String
Orchestra (and still playing as of 2016). Additionally, I returned
to composing in 2007, after a break of 45 years. I am a proud
e-mail address: laird-addis@uiowa.edu member of the American Federation of Musicians, Local 450.
Publications
Books
- Moore and Ryle: Two Ontologists (with D. Lewis), Nijhoff, 1965.
- The Logic of Society: A Philosophical Study , University of Minnesota
Press, 1975.
- Natural Signs: A Theory of Intentionality, Temple University Press, 1989.
- Of Mind and Music, Cornell University Press, 1999.
- Ontology and Analysis: Essays and Recollections about Gustav Bergmann (editor, with G. Jesson and E. Tegtmeier), Ontos Verlag, 2007.
- Mind: Ontology and Explanation (Collected Papers 1981-2005), Ontos Verlag, 2008.
- Nietzsche's Ontology, Ontos Verlag, 2012.
Articles and Reviews
- Kant's First Analogy. Kant Studien, 54/3/1963, 237-242.
- Freedom and the Marxist Philosophy of History. Philosophy of Science,
33/2/1966, 101-117. Reprinted as: The Individual and the Marxist Philosophy
of History, in Readings in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences,
edited by M. Brodbeck, Macmillan, 1968, 317-335.
- Particulars and Acquaintance. Philosophy of Science, 34/3/1967,
251-259.
- Historicism and Historical Laws of Development. Inquiry, 11/2/1968,
155-174.
- Review of E. Gellner's Thought and Change. Philosophy of Science,
37/1/1970,159-162.
- The Philosophy of Gustav Bergmann. Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor
Wijsbegeerte. 63/2/1971, 78-98.
- Presentness and the Ideal Language. Mind, 80/4/1971, 603-604.
- American Philosophy Today. Amersfoortse Stemmen, 53/2/1972, 47-51.
- Aristotle and the Independence of Substances. Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research, 33/1/1972, 107-111.
- Time, Substance, and Analysis. The Ontological Turn: Studies in the
Philosophy of Gustav Bergmann, edited by M. S. Gram and E. D.Klemke,
The University of Iowa Press, 1974, 148-167.
- Monistic Theories of Society. PSA 1972 (Boston Studies in the Philosophy
of Science, Volume XX), edited by R. S. Cohen and K. F. Schaffner, D. Reidel
Publishing Co., 1974, 209-216.
- Review of M. S. Gram's and E. D. Klemke's The Ontological Turn: Studies
in the Philosophy of Gustav Bergmann. Iowa Alumni Review, 27/3/1974,
19.
- On Defending the Covering-Law Model. PSA 1974 (Boston Studies in
the Philosophy of Science, Volume XXXII), edited by R. S. Cohen, C. A. Hooker,
A. C. Michalos, and J. W. Van Evra, D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1976, 361-368.
- Review of C. Gould's Marx's Social Ontology. Noûs, 14/4/1980,
648-652.
- Dispositions, Explanation, and Behavior. Inquiry, 24/2/1981, 205-227.
- Mind, Structure, and Time. Philosophical Topics, 12/3/1981, 39-52.
- Behaviorism and the Philosophy of the Act. Noûs, 16/3/1982,
399-420.
- Natural Signs. The Review of Metaphysics. 36/3/1983, 543-568.
- Review of D. Bradford's The Concept of Existence. The Journal of Value
Inquiry, 18/3/1984, 247-250.
- Parallelism, Interactionism, and Causation. Causation and Causal Theories
(Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Volume IX), edited by P. A. French, T. E.
Uehling, and H. K. Wettstein, University of Minnesota Press, 1984, 329-344.
- Pains and Other Secondary Mental Entities. Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research, 47/1/1986, 59-74.
- Dispositional Mental States: Chomsky and Freud. Zeitschrift für
Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie, 19/1/1988, 1-17.
- Critical Review of L. Smith's Behaviorism and Logical Positivism: A
Reassessment of the Alliance. Synthese, 78/3/1989, 345-356.
- Intrinsic Reference and the New Theory. Contemporary Perspectives in
the Philosophy of Language II (Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Volume
XIV, edited by P. A. French, T. E. Uehling, and H. K Wettstein, University
of Notre Dame Press, 1989, 241-257.
- Review of J. C. Maloney's The Mundane Matter of the Mental Language.
The Review of Metaphysics, 44/2/1990, 426-427.
- Review of E. Pivcevic's Change and Selves. Canadian Philosophical Reviews,11/1991,
442-444.
- Review of M. Heller's The Ontology of Physical Objects and J. K.
Swindler's Weaving: An Analysis of the Constitution of Objects. Canadian
Philosophical Reviews, 12/1992, 55-58.
- Note on Gustav Bergmann. A Companion to Epistemology, edited by
J. Dancy and E. Sosa, Basil Blackwell, 1992, 49-50.
- Entries on Holism, Mannheim, Methodological Holism. The Cambridge Dictionary
of Philosophy, edited by R. Audi, Cambridge University Press, 1995.
- The Ontology of Emotion. The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 33/3/1995,
261-278.
- Human Action and the Humean Universe. Philosophia, 26/1-2/1998,
23-40.
- Intellectual Biography of Gustav Bergmann. American National Biography,
Vol. 2, edited by J. Garraty, Oxford University Press, 1999, 639-641.
- Emotion in Music and Language. Proceedings of the 6th International
Conference on Music Perception and Cognition, edited by C. Woods, G.
Luck, R. Brochard, F. Seddon, and J. A. Sloboda, Keele University, 2000.
- The Simplicity of Content. Metaphysica: Zeitschrift für Ontologie
& Metaphysik. 2/1/2000, 23-43.
- La Musica che Attraversa la Mente: L'Immaginazione Musicale e la Natura
della Coscienza (Musical Imagery and the Nature of Consciousness). L'Esperienza
Musicale: Per Una Fenomenologia dei Suoni, edited by Luca Nostra, I Libri
di Montag, 2002, 137-149.
- Gilbert Ryle's The Concept of Mind (1949): A Method and a Theory.
The Classics of Western Philosophy, edited by Jorge J. E. Gracia,
Gregory M. Reichberg, and Bernard N. Schumacher, Blackwell Publishing, Ltd.,
2003, 540-545.
- Music and Knowledge. Truth, Rationality, Cognition and Music, edited
by Kepa Korta and Jesus M. Larrazabal, Kluwer Academic Publishers B.V., 2004,
175-190.
- Entry on May Brodbeck. Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers, 1860-1960,
edited by Ernest Lepore, Thoemmes Press, 2005, 347-349.
- The Necessity and Nature of Mental Content. Intentionality: Past and
Future, edited by Gabor Forrai and George Kampis, Rodopi, 2005, 1-14.
- Particulars as Areas and Durations. Fostering the Ontological Turn: Gustav Bergmann (1906-1987), edited by Guido Bonino and Rosaria Egidi, Ontos Verlag, 2008, 231-242.
- Entry on Carl Emil Seashore. The Iowa Biographical Dictionary, edited by David Hudson, Marvin Bergman, and Loren Horton, University of Iowa Press, 2008, 447-448.
- Ryle and Intentionality. Metaphysica: International Journal for Ontology and Metaphysics, 10/1/2009, 49-63 .
- Grossmann on Relations and Intentionality. Studies in the Ontology of Reinhardt Grossmann, edited by Javier Cumpa, Ontos Verlag, 2010, 11-25.
- Consciousness and Intentionality. Metaphysica: International Journal for Ontology and Metaphysics, 15/2/2014, 299-312.
Current Research Interests
- metaphysics
- philosophy of mind
- philosophy of music
- Nietzsche
Selected Memberships
- American Philosophical Association
- Philosophy of Science Association
- The American Society for Aesthetics
- North American Nietzsche Society
- Society of Humanist Philosophers
- Institute 'Vienna Circle'
Selected Honors
- Phi Beta Kappa (1959)
- Woodrow Wilson Fellow (1959-60)
- Senior Fulbright Lecturer, University of Groningen, The Netherlands (1970-71)
- Senior Faculty Fellow in the Humanities (1986)
- Andrew W. Mellon Emeritus Faculty Fellow (2008-2011)