Howard WettsteinHoward Wettstein

Ph.D., City University of New York, 1976
B.A., Yeshiva College, 1965
Professor of Philosophy
HMNSS 3212
951-827-1503
howard[dot]wettstein[at]ucr[dot]edu

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Professor Wettstein has written three books—The Significance of Religious Experience, and Other Essays (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2012), The Magic Prism: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language (Oxford University Press, 2004) and Has Semantics Rested On a Mistake?, and Other Essays (PDF; Stanford University Press, 1991)—and a number of papers in the philosophy of language, for many years the focus of his research. During the last decade an additional focus has been the philosophy of religion; he has published on topics like religious experience, awe, the problem of evil, and the viability of philosophical theology. He is currently at work on a book in the philosophy of religion. He is an Editor of Midwest Studies in Philosophy, and has edited a number of other volumes including Themes From Kaplan (Oxford University Press, 1989, co-edited) and Diasporas and Exiles (University of California Press, 2002).

Research Interests

  • Philosophy of Language
  • Philosophy of Mind
  • Philosophy of Religion

Selected Publications and Talks

The Magic PrismBooks and Collections

  • The Significance of Religious Experience, and Other Essays, forthcoming Spring 2012, Oxford University Press. (To read the Introduction, click here.)

  • The Magic Prism: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language, Oxford University Press, 2004. (To read the Introduction, click here.)

  • Diasporas and Exiles: Varieties of Jewish Identity (editor), University of California Press, 2002.

  • Has Semantics Rested on a Mistake?, And Other Essays, Stanford University Press, 1990

  • Themes from Kaplan, (co-editor) Oxford, 1989

  • Midwest Studies in Philosophy (co-editor), 1977–present

Selected Articles

  • “Having in Mind.” forthcoming, 2011, in Essays on Reference: The Philosophy of Keith Donnellan, Oxford University Press volume on the work of Keith Donnellan, ed. J. Almog and F. Recanati. .

  • “God’s Struggles,” in Michael Bergmann, Michael Murray, Michael Rea, eds., (Oxford University Press): Divine Evil?: The Moral Character of the God of Abraham. This paper derives from “Concluding Remarks” I gave at the September 2009 conference at the University of Notre Dame, “My Ways Are Not Your Ways: The Character of the God of the Hebrew Bible.” I’m told by friendly critics that the written version does not quite capture the oral presentation, available here.

  • “Forgiveness and Moral Reckoning,” Philosophia, Vol. 38, Issue 3 (2010).

  • “The Significance of Religious Experience,” The Modern Schoolman, Vol. 86, nos. 2-3, 2011.

  • "Referents and Fixing Reference" in Richard Schantz (editor), Prospects for Meaning (deGruyter, Berlin and New York), forthcoming 2011.

  • "Against Theology" in Robert Eisen and Charles Manekin (eds.) Philosophers and the Bible: General and Jewish Perspectives (University Press of Maryland, 2009).

  • "Against Theodicy," Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy, 1999. Reprinted in Judaism, 2001 and in Philosophia, 2003.

  • "Doctrine," Faith and Philosophy, 1997

  • "Terra Firma," The Monist, 1995

  • "Frege-Russell Semantics?", Dialectica, 1990

  • "Cognitive Significance Without Cognitive Content," Mind, 1988

  • "Turning the Tables on Frege," Philosophical Perspectives, 1987

  • "Has Semantics Rested on a Mistake?", Journal of Philosophy, 1986

Musings: