Dr Alexander Badman-King

Office Hours – Tuesdays and Fridays 11:00am-12:00pm via Microsoft Teams.

As far as possible I try to avoid specialisms. I try to be a philosopher in a very general (some might say archaic) sense.

The kind of philosophy I try to practice has been described as ‘Philosophy as a Way of Life’, which is really just a new label for a very old idea largely associated with ancient Greek traditions. It mostly means that I view philosophy as an inherently ethical business, it is about trying to be the best we can be by better understanding life, the universe and everything.

Central to my ethics is the inclusion of non-humans as significant, so a lot of what I do is focused on that inclusion (particularly the inclusion of other living things, although I also spend time on artificial minds). To this end, I am also concerned with a very practical, personally engaged way of coming to understand the lives of others (this is where I tend to argue for the coextension of philosophy and anthropology/participant observation).

Another very important element of my attempt to be a philosopher is the emphasis I place on ordinary language. I don’t only (or even primarily) mean the school of philosophy which took ordinary language as its subject, but rather the need for clear, forthright and accessible communication in academia.

The upshot here is that, despite being a full-time academic working at a university, I do not view philosophy as solely or even chiefly the business of academics but instead something which is and should be the concern of everyone.