Mark Rowlands
Mark Rowlands | |
|---|---|
| Born | Error: Need valid birth date: year, month, day Newport, Wales, UK |
| Occupation | philosopher |
| Nationality | Welsh |
| Website | |
| http://www.markrowlandsauthor.com/ | |
Mark Rowlands, D.Phil., is the Professor of Philosophy at the University of Miami.
Life
Rowlands was born in 1962, in Newport, Wales.[1] He grew up in a nearby town called Cwmbrân. He has a younger brother. His father was Chief Superintendent in the Gwent police, and his maother taught kindergarten. As a boy, he listened to the music of Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Uriah Heep. He considered himself a jock type.[2]
Rowlands is married. His wife's name is Emma. They have a son.[3]
Rowlands went to high school at Croesyceiliog Comprehensive School, in Cwmbrân, then studied engineering at the University of Manchester.It was at Oxford University that Rowlands got his D.Phil.[4]
Prior to his current employment, Rowlands was Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy at the University of Hertfordshire.[5] He is known for his popular books on philosophy, for his work on the moral status of animals, and as one of the principal architects of the view of the mind known as 'vehicle externalism' or 'the extended mind'.
In an online interview[1], Rowlands stated some of his favorite books were Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being and The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and [[The Secret Agent]], F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night.
Beliefs
In an online interview with Dan Schneider [2], Rowlands listed his three major philosophical beliefs as:
- The mind is not entirely in the head: mental processes go on in the world around us as much as inside our brains.
- Consciousness – what it is like to have or undergo an experience – is real, but nowhere at all.
- Animals have moral rights (at least, they do if humans do).
Rowlands is for euthanasia, stem cell research, and gay marriage, but equivocal on abortion.[3]
Rowlands is apolitical and an agnostic. In that same interview Rowlands stated:
"It would surprise me – it would surprise me a lot – if God existed. Then again, I’ve been surprised before. One thing I’ve learned from a lifetime of thinking about things is that I really don’t know very much at all. In fact, if the history of thought has taught me anything it is that, once we go beyond mundane beliefs that I need to get around in the world, most of what I believe is probably wrong. Therefore, while I find most religious views ridiculous, I am also deeply suspicious of the sort of anti-religious proselytizing certainty you find, in for example, Dawkins or Dennett. I think John Gray is probably right when he describes them as a late Christian movement."[6]
Writings
Book publications
- Body Language: Representing in Action, MIT Press, 2006.
- Everything I Know I Learned From TV: Philosophy for the Unrepentant Couch Potato, Ebury/Random House, 2005
- The Philosopher at the End of the Universe, Ebury/Random House, 2003; retitled Sci-Phi: Philosophy from Socrates to Schwarzenegger, 2nd edition
- Externalism: Putting Mind and World Back Together Again, Acumen/McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003.
- Animals Like Us, Verso, 2002.
- The Nature of Consciousness, Cambridge University Press, 2001.
- The Environmental Crisis: Understanding the Value of Nature, Macmillan/St Martin’s Press, 2000.
- The Body in Mind: Understanding Cognitive Processes, Cambridge University Press, 1999.
- Animal Rights: A Philosophical Defence, Macmillan/St Martin’s Press, 1998.
- Supervenience and Materialism, Ashgate, 1995.
References
- ^ The Dan Schneider Interview 14: Mark Rowlands 16 August, 2008
- ^ The Dan Schneider Interview 14: Mark Rowlands 16 August, 2008
- ^ The Dan Schneider Interview 14: Mark Rowlands 16 August, 2008
- ^ The Dan Schneider Interview 14: Mark Rowlands 16 August, 2008
- ^ The Dan Schneider Interview 14: Mark Rowlands 16 August, 2008
- ^ The Dan Schneider Interview 14: Mark Rowlands 16 August, 2008