Tufts Prof. To Join Philosophy Department

Mark E. Richard—a tenured faculty member at Tufts University since 1984—has been named a professor of philosophy, effective July 1, 2010.

Richard specializes in the philosophy of language, philosophical logic, metaphysics, and epistemology.

Department Chair Sean D. Kelly said that Richard will join a department that includes faculty engaged in similar research, including Philosophy Professors Warren Goldfarb ’69, Bernhard Nickel, and Susanna Siegel.

“We’re expecting that Professor Richard will work together with others in the department, and in neighboring departments such as Linguistics, to bring Harvard to pre-eminence in philosophy of language,” Kelly said. “For at least the past 50 years, philosophy of language has been at the center of English speaking philosophy.”

Philosophy Professor Edward J. Hall said that hiring Richard may attract more graduate students studying Richard’s specialities to the school and could possibly expand the size of Harvard’s philosophy department, which Hall added is one of the smaller departments in the nation.

“His coming will make our department an even better place to forge ties with linguistics, which is something that Bernhard Nickel has already done,” Hall said. “If you reach a critical number of people specializing in an area, prospective graduate students start to take notice.”

Richard is perhaps best known for his work on the semantical analysis of propositional-attitude ascriptions—phrases such as “hope that” and “believe that”—and their connection to theories of direct reference, which posit that the meaning of a noun or noun phrase is that which it picks out in the world.

“Professor Richard is an original, rigorous, and creative scholar who has made important and impressive contributions to the philosophy of language,” said FAS Divisional Dean for the Arts and Humanities Diana Sorensen in a press release yesterday. “His work ranks with the best being done in his field today.”

Given the University’s current fiscal situation, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences has had to curb adding new faculty. Kelly said that even though it is “unusual” for academic departments to hire in this financial environment, he was “grateful” for the opportunity to bring Richard into the department.

“This was a search that had been going on for quite some time, though we recognize [that] that doesn’t distinguish it from some others that were canceled,” he said.

Richard is currently Lenore Stern Professor in the Humanities and Social Sciences at Tufts University. He received his B.A. from Hamilton College and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is the author of three books, including his 2008 work entitled “When Truth Gives Out.”

—Staff writer Manning Ding can be reached at ding3@fas.harvard.edu.