Rae Helen Langton | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1961-02-14)14 February 1961 (age 64) Ludhiana, India |
| Alma mater | University of Sydney Princeton University |
| Spouse | Richard Holton |
| Era | Contemporary philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Analytic |
Main interests | Kant,feminist philosophy,metaphysics |
Notable ideas | Pornography asspeech act |
Rae Helen Langton,FBA (born 14 February 1961) is an Australian-British professor of philosophy. She is currently theKnightbridge Professor of Philosophy at theUniversity of Cambridge. She has published widely onImmanuel Kant's philosophy,moral philosophy,political philosophy,metaphysics, andfeminist philosophy. She is also well known for her work on pornography andobjectification.
Langton was born in 1961 inLudhiana, India to David Langton and his wife Valda. A carpenter and a nurse, respectively, they were at the time lay missionaries. She attendedHebron School,Coonoor andOotacamund, India. In 1980 she moved to Australia and attended theUniversity of New England inArmidale,New South Wales. In 1981 she enrolled at theUniversity of Sydney where she majored in philosophy.[1] There she became interested in Kant. Her Honours thesis argued that Kant's scientific realism did not fit with his idealism.[2] She graduated withFirst Class Honours in 1986. She was one of a group of women honours graduates at the time encouraged to continue their studies by applying to graduate school in the United States.[3] In 1986 Langton moved to the United States and began graduate work atPrinceton University in the philosophy department.[1] While studying social philosophy at Princeton she became interested in the philosophical debates on free speech and pornography.[2]
In 1990, before writing her PhD thesis, Langton moved back to Australia. From 1990–98 she was a Lecturer andSenior Lecturer in the Philosophy department ofMonash University inMelbourne.[2]
Langton received her PhD in 1995 from Princeton.[1] Her thesis advisor wasMargaret Dauler Wilson;[2] and her thesis topic wasKantian Humility.[4]
In 1998 Langton was a Fellow in the Research School of Social Sciences at theAustralian National University. She moved to the United Kingdom in 1998. From 1998 to 1999 she was a lecturer atSheffield University. From 1999 to 2004 she was Professor of Moral Philosophy at theUniversity of Edinburgh. From 2004 to 2013 she was back in the United States as a Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology.[1]
In 2012 she was one of several philosophers who submitted evidence to theLeveson Inquiry into press ethics.[5]
She was inducted into theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in October 2013.[6]
In 2013 she joined the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge and became a Fellow ofNewnham College, Cambridge. In 2014, she was elected a Fellow of theBritish Academy, the United Kingdom'snational academy for the humanities and social sciences.[7] She gave theJohn Locke Lectures on 'Accommodating Injustice' atOxford University in 2015.[1]
In 2017 she was appointed to theKnightbridge Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge, the first woman to hold this professorship.[8]
She is married to fellow philosopherRichard Holton.[1]
In 1990, in response toRonald Dworkin'sIs There a Right to Pornography?,[9] Langton publishedWhose right? Ronald Dworkin, Women, and Pornographers.[10] In it she argued that the positions Dworkin takes on segregation and affirmative action are not consistent with his position in defence of pornography.[11] The paper was voted one of the ten best articles in philosophy that year.[12]In 1993 she published her paperSpeech Acts and Unspeakable Acts.[13]
According toMary Kate McGowan, "Rather than focus on the harms allegedly caused, Langton explores the hypothesis that pornography actually constitutes harm."[14]
Her first book,Kantian Humility: Our Ignorance of Things in Themselves,[15] is based on her thesis. According to one reviewer, "In this perspective there is no idealism in Kant, rather what Langton calls epistemic humility."[16] Another reviewer described the book as "one of the most original and thought-provoking books on Kant to have appeared for quite some time."[17]
Many of the papers she published from 1990–99 were collected in her 2009 book,Sexual Solipsism: Philosophical Essays on Pornography and Objectification, along with her responses to some of her critics.[18] Regarding this book,Wellesley College philosophy professorMary Kate McGowan wrote inNotre Dame Philosophical Reviews that "...Langton's crisp, clear, and careful argumentation proves that philosophy has much to offer the socially, politically and even legally charged issues addressed here... This is feminist scholarship at its very best. It's first-rate philosophy."[14] Langton has written more than fifty articles about subjects ranging from feminist approaches to pornography, to animal ethics, to hate speech.[1]
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