Sydney Shoemaker

{{Infobox philosopher

| region = Western philosophy

| era = 20th-century philosophy

| image =Philosopher_Sydney_Shoemaker_(1951-2022)_in_1973.jpg

| name = Sydney S. Shoemaker

| birth_date = September 29, 1931

| birth_place = Boise, Idaho, U.S.

| death_date = {{death date and age|2022|9|3|1931|9|29}}

| death_place = Ithaca, New York, U.S.

| education = Reed College
Cornell University (Ph.D., 1958)

| institutions = Cornell University

| school_tradition = Analytic philosophy
Representationalism

| main_interests = Philosophy of mind, metaphysics

| notable_ideas = Immunity to error through misidentification
Quasi-memory

| doctoral_advisor = Norman Malcolm{{Cite web |title=History of the Sage School {{!}} Sage School of Philosophy |url=https://philosophy.cornell.edu/history |access-date=2022-09-29 |website=philosophy.cornell.edu |language=en}}

}}

Sydney Sharpless Shoemaker (September 29, 1931 – September 3, 2022) was an American philosopher. He was the Susan Linn Sage Professor of Philosophy at Cornell University and is well known for his contributions to philosophy of mind and metaphysics.

Education and career

Shoemaker graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Reed College and earned his Doctor of Philosophy from Cornell University in 1958Larry Bernard (May 6, 1996), [https://news.cornell.edu/stories/1996/05/three-cornell-faculty-members-are-elected-american-academy-arts-and-sciences "Three Cornell faculty members are elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences"], Cornell Chronicle. under the supervision of Norman Malcolm.{{Cite web|title=History of the Sage School {{!}} Sage School of Philosophy Cornell Arts & Sciences|url=https://philosophy.cornell.edu/history|access-date=2021-03-15|website=philosophy.cornell.edu|quote=Sydney Shoemaker and Carl Ginet have been working in metaphysics and epistemology at Cornell since the late 1960s and early 1970s. Both did their graduate work at Cornell – Shoemaker with Norman Malcolm and Ginet with John Rawls. Although Shoemaker studied Wittgenstein with Malcolm early on, his work reflects the realism and lack of discomfort with metaphysics that characterized analytic philosophy more generally beginning in the 1960s.}} He taught philosophy at Ohio State University from 1957 to 1960 then, in 1961, returned to Cornell as a faculty member of the philosophy department. In 1978 he was appointed the Susan Linn Sage Professor of Philosophy, a position he held until his retirement, as professor emeritus of Philosophy.{{Cite book |last=Greco |first=John |author-link=John Greco (philosopher) |url= |title=The Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers |year=2005 |isbn=9780199754663 |language=en |chapter=Shoemaker, Sydney Sharpless |doi=10.1093/acref/9780199754663.001.0001 |chapter-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210311213058/https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199754663.001.0001/acref-9780199754663-e-878}}

Among his students at Cornell were Richard Moran{{Cite web|last1=Moran|first1=Richard|author-link=Richard Moran (philosopher)|last2=Marshall|first2=Richard|title=Keeping Sartre, and other passions|url=https://www.3-16am.co.uk/articles/keeping-sartre-and-other-passions|access-date=2024-10-09|website=3:16|language=en|quote=When I began to work on self-knowledge in graduate school with Sydney Shoemaker,...}} and Susanna Siegel.{{Cite journal|date=2000|title=Doctoral Dissertations 1999–2000|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20131526|journal=The Review of Metaphysics|volume=54|issue=1|page=216|jstor=20131526}}

In 1971, he delivered the John Locke Lectures at Oxford University.

Shoemaker died on September 3, 2022, at the age of 90. He was buried in Greensprings Natural Cemetery Preserve in Newfield.{{cite web |title=Sydney Shoemaker |url=https://www.ithacajournal.com/obituaries/bps131466 |website=Ithaca Journal |access-date=16 September 2022}}

Philosophical work

Shoemaker worked primarily in the philosophy of mind and metaphysics, and published many classic papers in both of these areas (as well as their overlap). In "Functionalism and Qualia" (1975), for example, he argued that functionalism about mental states can account for the qualitative character (or 'raw feel') of mental states. In "Self-Reference and Self-Awareness" (1968), he argued that the phenomenon of absolute 'immunity to error through misidentification' is what distinguishes self-attributions of mental states (such as "I see a canary") from self-attributions of physical states (such as "I weigh 200 pounds").

In metaphysics, he defended the view that laws are metaphysically necessary, a position that follows from his view of properties as clusters of conditional causal powers. He also applied his view of properties to the problem of mental causation. He also distinguished contributions to the literature on self-knowledge and personal identity, where he defended a Lockean psychological continuity theory in his influential paper "Persons and their Pasts".{{Cite journal |last=Shoemaker |first=Sydney |date=1970 |title=Persons and Their Pasts |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20009360 |journal=American Philosophical Quarterly |volume=7 |issue=4 |pages=269–285 |issn=0003-0481 |url-access=registration}} In his later work on the content of perception he has argued for a distinctive version of representationalism.{{Cite journal|jstor=40208913|title=Shoemaker on Phenomenal Content|last1=Thompson|first1=Brad|journal=Philosophical Studies|year=2007|volume=135|issue=3|pages=307–334|doi=10.1007/s11098-005-3735-x|s2cid=6829580}}

Selected publications

= Books =

Self-Knowledge and Self-Identity (1963).
Personal Identity (co-authored with Richard Swinburne) (1984).
Identity, Cause and Mind: Philosophical Essays (1984).
The First-Person Perspective, and other Essays (1996).{{Cite journal |last=Tye |first=Michael |author-link=Michael Tye (philosopher) |date=2000 |title=Shoemaker's The First-Person Perspective and Other Essays |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2653496 |journal=Philosophy and Phenomenological Research |volume=60 |issue=2 |pages=461–464 |doi=10.2307/2653496 |jstor=2653496 |issn=0031-8205 |url-access=registration }}
Physical Realization (2007).

=Articles=

1970, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/20009360 "Persons and their Pasts"], American Philosophical Quarterly, pp. 269–285.
1988, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2214074 "On Knowing One's Own Mind"], Philosophical Perspectives, pp. 183–209.

References

External links

[http://www.reasoned.org/dir/phi/shoemaker.htm Links to some of Shoemaker's papers online]
Open University (1973) [https://www.open.ac.uk/library/digital-archive/exhibition/330/theme/1/page/14 video of a conversation featuring Sydney Shoemaker] and Hywel Lewis discussing the problem of personal identity, hosted by Godfrey Vesey.

Category:1931 births

Category:2022 deaths

Category:20th-century American male writers

Category:20th-century American philosophers

Category:20th-century American essayists

Category:21st-century American male writers

Category:21st-century American philosophers

Category:21st-century American essayists

Category:Action theorists

Category:American male essayists

Category:American male non-fiction writers

Category:American philosophy academics