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Philosophy: People

Hannah Dawson

Hannah Dawson (MA, MPhil, PhD (Cambridge)) joined the University of Edinburgh in January 2006 where she holds a joint appointment in the Schools of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences and of History and Classics. She completed her doctoral thesis on 'John Locke and the problem of language in seventeenth century philosophy' in 2003. Prior to coming to Edinburgh, she held a Junior Research Fellowship at Queen's College, Cambridge, where she was also Director of Studies in Philosophy.

Research Interests

History of philosophy (especially moral and political thought and the philosophy of language; Hobbes; Pufendorf; Locke; Hume; antiquity and its reception)

Teaching

History of Modern Philosophy; Legal and Political Philosophy; history of ideas from antiquity to Marx

Publications

Books

  • Locke, Language and Early-Modern Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

Editorial work

Disputations on the Law of Nature for the Clarendon Edition of John Locke (Oxford University Press, in progress)

Articles

  • ‘A ridiculous plan: Locke and the universal language movement', Locke Studies (2007), pp. 137-58.
  • ‘The rebellion of language against reason in early-modern philosophy', Intellectual History Review , 17 (3), (2007).
  • ‘English Republicanism' in Continuum Encyclopaedia of British Philosophy , ed. A.C. Grayling, Andrew Pyle and Naomi Goulder , 4 vols. (Bristol, 2006), vol. 4, pp. 2697-700.
  • ‘Locke on language in (civil) society', History of Political Thought , 26 (3), pp. 398-425 (2005).
  • Review article of Walter Ott, Locke's philosophy of language ( Cambridge , 2003), Locke Studies , pp. 255-76 (2004).
  • ‘Locke on private language', British Journal for the History of Philosophy , 11 (4), pp. 609-38 (2003). Republished in John Locke: Critical Assessments of Leading Political Philosophers, 2 nd Series , ed. Peter Anstey ( London , 2006), vol. II.

Under contract

  • ‘A mist before our eyes', Think (2008).
  • ‘Laws of Nature', A Companion to Locke , ed. Matthew Stuart ( Oxford , forthcoming in 2008).
  • ‘Meaning and signification'; ‘Names'; ‘Imperfections and Abuses of words', Encyclopaedia of Locke and his times , ed. Sami-Juhani Savonius, Paul Schuurman, Jonathan C. Walmsley ( London and New York : Thoemmes Continuum, 2008).
  • ‘Language', Routledge History of Eighteenth-Century Philosophy , ed. Aaron Garrett (Routledge: London , 2009).

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Hannah Dawson

Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh

Contact details

Philosophy,
School of Philosophy,
Psychology and Language Sciences,
Dugald Stewart Building,
3 Charles Street,
George Square,
Edinburgh EH8 9AD

TEL:+44 (0)131 650 3772
Fax: +44 (0)131 650 3660
Email: hannah.dawson@ed.ac.uk