Rae Helen Langton, FBA (born 14 February 1961) is an Australian-British professor of philosophy. She is currently the Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. She has published widely on Immanuel Kant's philosophy, moral philosophy, political philosophy, metaphysics, and feminist philosophy. She is also well known for her work on pornography and objectification.

Life, education and career

Langton was born in 1961 in Ludhiana, India to David Langton and his wife Valda. A carpenter and a nurse, respectively, they were at the time lay missionaries. She attended Hebron School, Coonoor and Ootacamund, India. In 1980 she moved to Australia and attended the University of New England in Armidale, New South Wales. In 1981 she enrolled at the University of Sydney where she majored in philosophy.{{cite web|title=Curriculum vitae – Rae Helen Langton|url=https://cambridge.academia.edu/RaeLangton/CurriculumVitae|publisher=Academia.edu|access-date=20 December 2013}} There she became interested in Kant. Her Honours thesis argued that Kant's scientific realism did not fit with his idealism.{{cite book|last=Gardner|first=Steve|chapter=Rae Langton|editor1=Graham Oppy |editor2=N. N. Trakakis|title=The Antipodean Philosopher: Volume 2. Interviews on Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand|publisher=Lexington Books|year=2011|pages=85–104, 254–55|isbn=978-0739166567}} She graduated with First Class Honours in 1986. She was one of a group of women honours graduates at the time encouraged to continue their studies by applying to graduate school in the United States.{{cite book|last=Green|first=Karen|chapter=Australian Women Philosophers|editor1=Graham Robert Oppy |editor2=Nick Trakakis|title=The Antipodean Philosopher, Volume 1|publisher=Lexington Books|year=2011|pages=67–79|isbn=978-0739127339}} In 1986 Langton moved to the United States and began graduate work at Princeton University in the philosophy department. While studying social philosophy at Princeton she became interested in the philosophical debates on free speech and pornography.

In 1990, before writing her PhD thesis, Langton moved back to Australia. From 1990–98 she was a Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in the Philosophy department of Monash University in Melbourne.

Langton received her PhD in 1995 from Princeton. Her thesis advisor was Margaret Dauler Wilson; and her thesis topic was Kantian Humility.{{cite web|title=Alumni PhDs by Last Name|url=https://philosophy.princeton.edu/sites/philosophy/files/documents/alumni/PhDs_by_last_name.pdf|publisher=Princeton University Department of Philosophy|access-date=9 March 2014}}

In 1998 Langton was a Fellow in the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University. She moved to the United Kingdom in 1998. From 1998 to 1999 she was a lecturer at Sheffield University. From 1999 to 2004 she was Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. From 2004 to 2013 she was back in the United States as a Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In 2012 she was one of several philosophers who submitted evidence to the Leveson Inquiry into press ethics.{{cite web|last=Langton|first=Rae|title=Submission from Prof. Rae Langton to the Leveson Inquiry|url=http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Submission-from-Professor-Rae-Langton.pdf|access-date=20 December 2013 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141210231333/http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20140122145147/http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Submission-from-Professor-Rae-Langton.pdf | archive-date=2014-12-10 | url-status=unfit }}

She was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in October 2013.{{cite press release|author=Staff|title=Nine MIT faculty members elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Among 198 elected this year to the prestigious honorary society|url=http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/nine-from-mit-named-to-academy.html|publisher=Massachusetts Institute of Technology|date=24 April 2014|access-date=8 March 2014}}

In 2013 she joined the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge and became a Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge. In 2014, she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy, the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences.{{Cite web | url=http://www.britac.ac.uk/users/professor-rae-langton | title=Professor Rae Langton}} She gave the John Locke Lectures on 'Accommodating Injustice' at Oxford University in 2015.

In 2017 she was appointed to the Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge, the first woman to hold this professorship.{{Cite news | url=http://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/langton-knightbridge | title=Rae Langton will be the next Knightbridge Professor – Faculty of Philosophy}}

She is married to fellow philosopher Richard Holton.

Philosophical work

In 1990, in response to Ronald Dworkin's Is There a Right to Pornography?,{{cite journal|last=Dworkin|first=Ronald|title=Is There a Right to Pornography?|jstor=764457|journal=Oxford Journal of Legal Studies|year=1981|volume=1|issue=2|pages=177–212|doi=10.1093/ojls/1.2.177}} Langton published Whose right? Ronald Dworkin, Women, and Pornographers.{{cite journal|last1=Langton|first1=Rae|title=Whose Right? Ronald Dworkin, Women, and Pornographers|journal=Philosophy and Public Affairs|date=1990|volume=19|issue=4|pages=311–59|jstor=2265317}} In it she argued that the positions Dworkin takes on segregation and affirmative action are not consistent with his position in defence of pornography.{{cite journal|last=Langton|first=Rae|title=Whose right? Ronald Dworkin, Women, and Pornographers|journal=Philosophy and Public Affairs|volume=19|issue=4|pages=311–59|year=1990|doi=10.1023/A:1010619209334|s2cid=141072264}} The paper was voted one of the ten best articles in philosophy that year.{{cite web|title=Past Volumes|url=http://www.philosophersannual.org|publisher=The Philosopher's Annual|access-date=9 March 2014}}

In 1993 she published her paper Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts.{{cite journal|last=Langton|first=Rae|title=Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts|journal=Philosophy & Public Affairs|year=1993|volume=22|issue=4|pages=293–330|jstor=2265469}}

According to Mary Kate McGowan, "Rather than focus on the harms allegedly caused, Langton explores the hypothesis that pornography actually constitutes harm."{{cite journal|last=McGowan|first=Mary Kate|title=Review: Sexual Solipsism: Philosophical Essays on Pornography and Objectification|url=http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/24072-sexual-solipsism-philosophical-essays-on-pornography-and-objectification|journal=Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews|date=June 2009}}

Her first book, Kantian Humility: Our Ignorance of Things in Themselves,{{Cite book|title=Kantian humility our ignorance of things in themselves|last=Rae|first=Langton|date=2004|publisher=Oxford Univ. Press|isbn=978-0198236535|oclc=177345495}} is based on her thesis. According to one reviewer, "In this perspective there is no idealism in Kant, rather what Langton calls epistemic humility."{{cite journal|last=Esfeld|first=Michael|title=Rae Langton, Kantian Humility. Our Ignorance of Things in Themselves|journal=Erkenntnis|volume=54|issue=3|pages=399–403|year=2001|doi=10.1023/A:1010619209334|s2cid=141072264}} Another reviewer described the book as "one of the most original and thought-provoking books on Kant to have appeared for quite some time."{{cite journal|last=Walker|first=Ralph|title=Review: Kantian Humility: Our Ignorance of Things in Themselves|journal=Mind|year=2002|volume=111|issue=441|pages=136–43|doi=10.1093/mind/111.441.136}}

Many of the papers she published from 1990–99 were collected in her 2009 book, Sexual Solipsism: Philosophical Essays on Pornography and Objectification, along with her responses to some of her critics.{{Cite book|title=Sexual solipsism philosophical essays on pornography and objectification|last=Rae|first=Langton|date=2009|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0199247066|oclc=902008049}} Regarding this book, Wellesley College philosophy professor Mary Kate McGowan wrote in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews that "...Langton's crisp, clear, and careful argumentation proves that philosophy has much to offer the socially, politically and even legally charged issues addressed here... This is feminist scholarship at its very best. It's first-rate philosophy." Langton has written more than fifty articles about subjects ranging from feminist approaches to pornography, to animal ethics, to hate speech.

Awards and honours

Philosophers' Annual, Whose Right? ("top ten" articles of 1990)
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, inducted October 2013
Prospect Magazine – 50 World's Top Thinker's 2014{{cite web|url=http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/world-thinkers-2014-the-results|title=World thinkers 2014: The results|author= Kutchinsky, Serena|date=23 April 2014|work=Prospect Magazine}}
Elected a Fellow of the British Academy, 2014{{cite web|url=http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/british-academy-announces-42-new-fellows/2014585.article|title=British Academy announces 42 new fellows|publisher=Times Higher Education|date=18 July 2014|access-date=18 July 2014}}
John Locke Lectures, Oxford University, 2015
Hägerström Lectures, Uppsala University, 2015 {{cite web|last1=Uppsala University|title=Hägerström Lectures 2015|url=http://www.filosofi.uu.se/Conferences+%26+Workshops/2015/november-2015---hagerstrom-lectures|access-date=3 December 2015}}
Doctor Honoris Causa, University of Klagenfurt, 2020

Bibliography

{{cite book |ref=none|last1=Langton|first1=Rae|title=Kantian humility : our ignorance of things in themselves|date=2001|publisher=Clarendon Press|location=Oxford|isbn=978-0199243174}}
{{cite book|ref=none|last1=Langton|first1=Rae|title=Sexual solipsism : philosophical essays on pornography and objectification|date=2009|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0199247066}}
{{cite journal|ref=none | last = Langton | first = Rae | title = Speech acts and unspeakable acts | journal = Philosophy & Public Affairs | volume = 22 | issue = 4 | pages = 293–330 | publisher = Wiley | date = Autumn 1993 | jstor = 2265469 }} [https://web.archive.org/web/20150919105752/http://web.mit.edu/langton/www/pubs/SpeechActs.pdf Pdf.]
See also: {{citation|ref=none | last = MacKinnon | first = Catharine A. | author-link = Catharine MacKinnon | contribution = Francis Biddle's sister: pornography, civil rights, and speech | editor-last = MacKinnon | editor-first = Catharine A. | editor-link = Catharine MacKinnon | title = Feminism unmodified: discourses on life and law | pages = 177, 181 and 193 | publisher = Harvard University Press | location = Cambridge, Massachusetts | year = 1987 | isbn = 978-0674298743 | postscript = .| title-link = Feminism Unmodified }} [https://archive.org/details/feminismunmodifi00mack/page/181 Preview.]
See also: {{cite journal|ref=none | last = Davies | first = Alex | title = How to silence content with porn, context and loaded questions | journal = European Journal of Philosophy | volume = 24 | issue = 2 | pages = 498–522 | doi = 10.1111/ejop.12075 | date = March 2014 }}
{{cite journal|ref=none | last = Langton | first = Rae | title = Pornography: a liberal's unfinished business | journal = The Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence | volume = 12 | issue = 1 | pages = 109–33 | doi = 10.1017/S0841820900002162 | date = January 1999 | s2cid = 155880958 }} [http://web.mit.edu/langton/www/pubs/UnfinishedBusiness.pdf Pdf.]
{{cite journal|ref=none | last1 = Langton | first1 = Rae | last2 = West | first2 = Caroline | title = Scorekeeping in a pornographic language game | journal = Australasian Journal of Philosophy | volume = 77 | issue = 3 | pages = 303–19 | doi = 10.1080/00048409912349061 | date = September 1999 }} [http://web.mit.edu/langton/www/pubs/Scorekeeping.pdf Pdf.]
See also: {{citation|ref=none | last = McGill | first = Justine | contribution = The silencing of women | editor-last1 = Hutchison | editor-first1 = Katrina | editor-last2 = Jenkins | editor-first2 = Fiona | title = Women in philosophy: what needs to change? | pages = [https://archive.org/details/womeninphilosoph0000hutc/page/197 197–214] | publisher = Oxford University Press | location = New York, New York | year = 2013 | isbn = 978-0199325603 | postscript = . | url = https://archive.org/details/womeninphilosoph0000hutc/page/197 }} [http://philosophy.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/This%20silencing%20of%20women_McGill.pdf Pdf.]

References

External links

[https://cambridge.academia.edu/RaeLangton/CurriculumVitae Rae Langton CV]
[https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/04/the-disappearing-women/ The Disappearing Women] – an opinion piece on women in philosophy published in The Stone on 4 September 2013.
[https://philosophybites.com/2012/07/rae-langton-on-hate-speech.html Rae Langton on Hate Speech] – a Philosophy Bites audio interview from 28 July 2012.

Category:1961 births

Category:21st-century Australian philosophers

Category:21st-century British philosophers

Category:Living people

Category:Analytic philosophers

Category:Australian feminist writers

Category:British ethicists

Category:Fellows of Newnham College, Cambridge

Category:Scholars of feminist philosophy

Category:Kantian philosophers

Category:Metaphysicians

Category:Political philosophers

Category:Australian women philosophers

Category:Fellows of the British Academy

Category:Knightbridge Professors of Philosophy

Category:Hebron School alumni