Areas of Research/Interest: metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, ethics

Fellowships/Honors: Guggenheim Foundation National Endowment for the Humanities

Selected Works:
PETER UNGER (B. A., Swarthmore College, D. Phil., Oxford) has been a Professor of Philosophy at NYU for more than thirty years. During that time, he has made contributions to Metaphysics, to Epistemology, to Ethics, and to the Philosophy of Mind. He is the author of Ignorance: A Case for Scepticism (Oxford, 1975 and 2002); Philosophical Relativity (Blackwell and Minnesota, 1984; Oxford, 2002); Identity, Consciousness and Value (Oxford, 1990); and Living High and Letting Die: Our Illusion of Innocence (Oxford, 1996). (By clicking on the blue underlined titles of those works, in the just previous sentence, you can order the books, from Oxford University Press, very conveniently.)

More recently, the Oxford University Press brought forth Unger’s most substantial work, by far. And, since latish October of 2007, the OUP has made available a much more reasonably priced paperback edition of All the Power in the World, a weighty tome many of you can affordably acquire via clicking on the colorful underlined book-title just earlier in this very sentence. For a sample of the book, you can access one of its ten chapters, by clicking right here - which will also make available all its front matter, including its table of contents.

Also quite recently, the OUP brought forth a two-volume collection comprising some twenty-two of Unger's previously published philosophical papers.   No great surprise, the first of them is called Philosophical Papers, Volume 1 and the second bears the name Philosophical Papers, Volume 2.  To see an early version of front matter for Volume 1, you should click here. To see an early version of front matter for Volume 2, you should click here.

During the last two years, Unger has been working on a new book, largely concerned with metaphilosophy, which has the working title Beyond Inanity, and which he plans to work on during the next several years.   As decently readable draft-chapters emerge from this work, he will try to make them available on this Webpage.  As of April 2008, five draft-chapters are made available – hopefully their descendants will be, several years after their initial posting, the first five chapters of the completed book typescript.  In order, here’s clickable access to these five draft-chapters and the table of contents.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
                              As soon as any of these draft-chapters becomes very significantly altered, Unger intends to replace it with its very significantly changed descendant.   And, as soon as further decently readable draft-chapters emerge from his work, he intends to post them on this site, as well.   For help in improving the drafts of Beyond Inanity, Professor Unger eagerly welcomes critical comments on this on-going work, which may be sent to him at his NYU email address:   peter.unger@nyu.edu

Online Papers:

"The Survival of the Sentient", Philosophical Perspectives, Vol. 14, 2000.

"Free Will and Scientificalism", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 65, 2002.

"The Mental Problems of the Many", a (slightly) more polished draft will appear in Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, Vol. 1, edited by Dean Zimmerman, 2004.

Courses

Undergraduate

Topics in Ethics and Political Philosophy, Spring 2002
Topics in Ethics and Political Philosophy, Fall 2002
Topics in Metaphysics and Epistemology, Spring 2003
Metaphysics, Fall 2003
Topics in Metaphysics and Epistemology, Spring 2004
Metaphysics, Fall 2004
Topics in Ethics and Political Philosophy, Spring 2005

Graduate

Metaphysics, Spring 2002
Ethics: Selected Topics, Fall 2002
Advanced Introduction to Metaphysics, Spring 2004
Advanced Introduction to Metaphysics, Fall 2004