Cora Diamond

Cora Diamond
Born	1937 (age 81–82) New York City
Alma mater	Swarthmore College St Hugh's College, Oxford
Era	Contemporary philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Analytic Postanalytic philosophy
Main interests	Moral philosophy, animal rights
Notable ideas	New Wittgenstein
Influences Ludwig Wittgenstein · Stanley Cavell · Iris Murdoch
Influenced James F. Conant · Richard Moran · Alice Crary · Aldo Gargani

Cora Diamond (born 1937) is an American philosopher who works on Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gottlob Frege, moral philosophy, political philosophy, philosophy of language, and philosophy and literature. She is currently the Kenan Professor of Philosophy Emerita at the University of Virginia.

Work

One of Diamond's most famous articles, "What Nonsense Might Be", criticizes the way that the logical positivists think about nonsense on Fregean grounds (see category mistake). Another well-known article, "Eating Meat and Eating People", examines the rhetorical and philosophical nature of contemporary attitudes towards animal rights. Diamond's writings on both "early" (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus era) and "late" (Philosophical Investigations era) Wittgenstein have made her a leading influence in the New Wittgenstinian approach advanced by Alice Crary, James F. Conant, and others.

Diamond has published a collection of essays titled The Realistic Spirit: Wittgenstein, Philosophy, and the Mind. She is the editor of Wittgenstein's Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics: Cambridge 1939, a collection of lectures assembled from the notes of Wittgenstein's students Norman Malcolm, Rush Rhees, Yorick Smythies, and R. G. Bosanquet.

Wittgenstein and the Moral Life: Essays in Honor of Cora Diamond (edited by Alice Crary) features essays by Crary, John McDowell, Martha Nussbaum, Stanley Cavell, and James F. Conant, among others.

Diamond received her BA from Swarthmore College in 1957 and her BPhil from St Hugh's College, Oxford in 1961.

See also

• American philosophy
• List of American philosophers

External links

• Diamond's home page at UVa
• An interview with Diamond from 2000 (pdf)
• Eating Meat and Eating People (pdf)