Dr Mark Pinder

Professional biography

Mark Pinder is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at The Open University. He has been at the OU since September 2018. Prior to joining, he held lecturing positions at the University of Bristol, the University of Birmingham and elsewhere, and a research fellowship supported by The Analysis Trust at the University of Reading.

Mark received his PhD in 2014 from the University of Bristol. The research was funded by the AHRC. His thesis, Meaning and Paradox, explored the implications of various paradoxes of truth [such as the liar paradox] for different theories of linguistic meaning. The core ideas in this work have since been published across two papers in Philosophical Studies.

More recently, Mark has been working in the field of philosophical methodology, with a particular (but not exclusive) interest in conceptual engineering. His work has been published in Mind, Synthese, and elsewhere.

Selected publications:

• Pinder, M. 2021. Conceptual engineering, metasemantic externalism and speaker-meaning. Mind​ 130(517): 141–163.
• Pinder, M. 2017. Does experimental philosophy have a role to play in Carnapian explication? Ratio 30(4): 443–461.
• Pinder, M. 2022. The phenomenon objection to conceptual engineering. Philosophical Studies 179(11): 3281–3305.

Mark is happy to hear from potential PhD students with interests connected to his own - see below for more details.

Research interests

Mark has a wide range research interests, and has published on issues in philosophical methodology, philosophy of language, philosophical logic, epistemology, philosophy of science and moral and social philosophy. He is currently working on questions about methodology in philosophy and the sciences more generally, specifically concerning the process of conceptual engineering.

Here are some of the questions currently animating Mark's research:

• What is philosophy and how is it related to science?
• What are the best strategies for tackling philosophical problems?
• (How) can philosophers have a positive impact on issues of equality and justice in society?
• What are truth and meaning, and how are they related to language? 

A list of publications can be found via Open Research Online​.

Teaching interests

Mark has taught a wide range of topics, including:

• Ancient Philosophy
• Epistemology
• Logic
• Meaning of Life
• Metaethics
• Metaphysics
• Philosophy of Language
• Philosophy of Religion
• Social and Politial Philosophy

Impact and engagement

Mark has written for the popular magazine Philosophy Now​. One article he has written introduces ​experimental philosophy​, using it to critically examine Hilary Putnam's views on natural kinds​, the building blocks of nature. It is available online, via this link. He has also published a philosophical short story for the magazine, available here.