Cora Diamond

{{Infobox philosopher

| name = Cora Diamond

| image =

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| birth_name =

| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1937}}

| birth_place = New York City, New York, U.S.

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| school_tradition = {{hlist | Analytic philosophy | Postanalytic philosophy}}

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| region = Western philosophy

| era = Contemporary philosophy

| main_interests = {{hlist | Moral philosophy | animal ethics | philosophy of language | political philosophy}}

| institutions = University of Virginia

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| notable_students =

| notable_ideas = New Wittgenstein

| education = {{ubl | Swarthmore College (BA)| St Hugh's College, Oxford (BPhil)}}

}}

Cora Diamond (born 1937)[http://d-nb.info/gnd/1025941004/about/html DNB] is an American philosopher who works in the areas of moral philosophy, animal ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of language, philosophy and literature, and the thought of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gottlob Frege, and Elizabeth Anscombe. Diamond is the Kenan Professor of Philosophy Emerita at the University of Virginia.

Education and career

Diamond received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Swarthmore College in 1957, and her Bachelor of Philosophy degree from St Hugh's College, Oxford (where her tutor was Paul Grice{{cite journal |last1=Diamond |first1=Cora |title=Reflections of a Dinosaur |journal=Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association |date=November 2019 |volume=93 |page=87-104 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/45222978 |access-date=9 April 2025}}, in 1961. She began a master's in economics in MIT in 1957, but she never finished it, realising, after attending classes with Paul Grice (who was visiting Harvard at the time) and Morton White, that she wanted to pursue her interests in Philosophy. Before she began the BPhil, she spent a year saving money by working at IBM. After her BPhil she taught at the University of Swansea (1961-62), University of Sussex (1962-1963), and University of Aberdeen (1963-1971). In 1969, she spent a year at the University of Virginia on a visiting appointment. In 1971, she moved there and has taught there ever since{{cite journal |last1=Diamond |first1=Cora |title=Reflections of a Dinosaur |journal=Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association |date=November 2019 |volume=93 |page=87-104 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/45222978 |access-date=9 April 2025}}. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2024.{{cite web | url=https://www.amacad.org/new-members-2024 | title=2024 New Member List | American Academy of Arts and Sciences }}

Philosophical work

One of Diamond's most famous articles, "What Nonsense Might Be", criticizes the way that the logical positivists think about nonsense on Fregean grounds (see category mistake). Another well-known article, "Eating Meat and Eating People", examines the rhetorical and philosophical nature of contemporary attitudes towards animal rights. Diamond's writings on both "early" (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus era) and "late" (Philosophical Investigations era) Wittgenstein have made her a leading influence in the New Wittgensteinian approach advanced by Alice Crary, James F. Conant, and others.

Diamond has published a collection of essays titled The Realistic Spirit: Wittgenstein, Philosophy, and the Mind. She is the editor of Wittgenstein's Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics: Cambridge 1939, a collection of lectures assembled from the notes of Wittgenstein's students Norman Malcolm, Rush Rhees, Yorick Smythies, and R. G. Bosanquet.

Wittgenstein and the Moral Life: Essays in Honor of Cora Diamond (edited by Alice Crary{{Cite book|url=http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/wittgenstein-and-moral-life|isbn=9780262033596|title=Wittgenstein and the Moral Life: Essays in Honor of Cora Diamond|series=Representation and Mind series|date=25 May 2007|publisher=A Bradford Book}}) features essays by Crary, John McDowell, Martha Nussbaum, Stanley Cavell, and James F. Conant, among others.

Selected works

{{cite journal | last=Diamond | first=Cora | author-mask=1 | date=1978 | title=Eating meat and eating people | journal=Philosophy | volume=53 | issue=206 | pages=465-479 | doi=10.1017/S0031819100026334 | doi-access=free | jstor=3749876 | issn=0031-8191 | url=http://unfogged.com/eatingmeat.pdf}}
{{cite journal | last=Diamond | first=Cora | author-mask=1 | date=1981 | title=What nonsense might be | journal=Philosophy | volume=56 | issue=215 | issn=0031-8191 | doi=10.1017/S0031819100049743 | jstor=3750713 | pages=5–22}}
{{cite journal | last=Diamond | first=Cora | author-mask=1 | date=1988 | title=Losing your concepts | journal=Ethics | volume=98 | issue=2 | issn=0014-1704 | doi=10.1086/292940 | jstor=2381116 | pages=255–277}}
{{cite journal | last=Diamond | first=Cora | author-mask=1 | date=1988 | title=Throwing away the ladder | journal=Philosophy | volume=63 | issue=243 | issn=0031-8191 | doi=10.1017/S0031819100043102 | jstor=3750493 | pages=5–27}}
{{cite journal | last=Diamond | first=Cora | author-mask=1 | date=March 1991 | title=The importance of being human | journal=Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement | volume=29 | issn=1358-2461 | doi=10.1017/S135824610000744X | pages=35–62 | id={{EBSCOhost|db=gcd|57117496}} {{ProQuest|2132562109}}}}
{{cite book | last=Diamond | first=Cora | author-mask=1 | date=2 March 1995 | title=The realistic spirit: Wittgenstein, philosophy, and the mind | publication-place=Cambridge, Massachusetts | publisher=MIT Press | isbn=978-0-262-54074-2 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xKTntPBnjd4C}}
{{cite book | last=Diamond | first=Cora | author-mask=1 | date=June 2000 | chapter=Ethics, imagination and the method of Wittgenstein's Tractatus | chapter-url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203449400-12/ethics-imagination-method-wittgenstein-tractatus-cora-diamond | chapter-url-access=subscription | editor-last=Crary | editor-first=Alice | editor-last2=Read | editor-first2=Rupert J. | title=The new Wittgenstein | publication-place=London | publisher=Routledge | doi=10.4324/9780203449400 | isbn=978-0-415-17318-6 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C0sd7z6Fx1cC&pg=PA149}}
{{cite journal | last=Diamond | first=Cora | author-mask=1 | date=2003 | title=The difficulty of reality and the difficulty of philosophy | journal=Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas | volume=1 | issue=2 | issn=1936-9247 | doi=10.1353/pan.0.0090 | pages=1–26 | url=https://r.jordan.im/download/philosophy/diamond2003.pdf}}

References

External links

[https://philosophy.virginia.edu/cora-diamond Diamond's home page at UVa]
[https://www.pdcnet.org/harvardreview/content/harvardreview_2000_0008_0001_0069_0081 An interview with Diamond from 2000] (pdf)

Category:1937 births

Category:20th-century American philosophers

Category:20th-century American women writers

Category:Alumni of St Hugh's College, Oxford

Category:American ethicists

Category:American political philosophers

Category:American women philosophers

Category:Animal ethicists

Category:Living people

Category:Philosophers from New York (state)

Category:American philosophers of language

Category:Swarthmore College alumni