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| John Martin Fischer | |
|---|---|
| Name | John Martin Fischer |
| Birth date | 1952 |
| Birth place | Santa Monica, California |
| Occupation | Philosopher |
| Institutions | University of California, Riverside, University of California, Davis, Rutgers University, Brown University |
| Alma mater | University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Santa Barbara |
| Notable works | The Metaphysics of Free Will; The Nature of Death; My Way |
John Martin Fischer was an American analytic philosopher known for influential work on free will, moral responsibility, death, and immortality. He was a professor at the University of California, Riverside and taught at institutions including Rutgers University, Brown University, and the University of California, Davis. Fischer's scholarship engaged with debates across metaphysics, ethics, philosophy of religion, and philosophy of action, bringing rigorous argumentation to controversies involving figures such as David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Harry Frankfurt, P. F. Strawson, and Daniel Dennett.
Fischer was born in Santa Monica, California and completed undergraduate studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He pursued graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a Ph.D. His doctoral training placed him in intellectual contexts involving scholars from Stanford University, Harvard University, Princeton University, and Yale University, exposing him to debates shaped by proponents of compatibilism and incompatibilism such as Galen Strawson and Peter van Inwagen.
Fischer held faculty positions at the University of California, Davis, Rutgers University, and Brown University before joining the University of California, Riverside. He served on editorial boards and participated in conferences hosted by American Philosophical Association, Society for Philosophy and Psychology, and the APA Pacific Division. His academic appointments brought him into collaborative and adversarial exchanges with philosophers at Oxford University, Cambridge University, Princeton University, Columbia University, and New York University. Fischer advocated positions that sought to reconcile intuitions from Kantianism and Humeanism with contemporary analytic treatments found in the work of Harry Frankfurt and Thomas Nagel.
Fischer is best known for articulating and defending a version of semi-compatibilism and for developing the notion of guidance control in debates over free will and moral responsibility. He engaged directly with historical theorists and contemporary critics including Aristotle, Augustine of Hippo, Saint Thomas Aquinas, David Hume, Galen Strawson, Peter van Inwagen, Harry Frankfurt, and P. F. Strawson. Fischer argued that responsibility does not require the kind of metaphysical freedom claimed by strict incompatibilists such as Derk Pereboom and Gal en Strawson; instead, he proposed that adequate sensors of agency are found in the psychological mechanisms discussed by Daniel Dennett and in reasons-responsiveness theories developed in dialogue with R. Jay Wallace and Susan Wolf. His influential book, The Metaphysics of Free Will, formulated conditions for guidance control and reason-responsive mechanisms, engaging with positions defended at venues like the Society for Applied Philosophy and debated in journals associated with Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press.
Fischer authored and edited work on the metaphysics and ethics of death, life after death, and immortality, interacting with traditions stemming from Plato, Epicurus, Thomas Nagel, and Derek Parfit. He analyzed classic puzzles such as the survival question debated by scholars at Princeton University Press and in symposia involving contributors from Rutgers University and Harvard Divinity School. Fischer explored arguments about personal identity influenced by John Locke, challenges posed by Elizabeth Anscombe, and contemporary accounts by David Lewis. His work examined whether immortality would be desirable in light of frameworks advanced by Bernard Williams and whether death is intrinsically bad in the manner discussed by Thomas Nagel.
Beyond free will and death, Fischer contributed to discussions on moral luck, blame, and the structure of practical reason, dialoguing with philosophers such as Thomas Scanlon, Derek Parfit, John Rawls, and T.M. Scanlon. He addressed applied ethical questions including the permissibility of retributive punishment and the philosophical foundations of punishment debated in forums at Yale Law School and University of Chicago Law School. Fischer also engaged with issues in the philosophy of mind and action, interacting with research by Frank Jackson, Jaegwon Kim, Hilary Putnam, and Donald Davidson.
Fischer's major books and edited volumes include The Metaphysics of Free Will, My Way: Essays on Moral Responsibility, and The Nature of Death. He published articles in leading journals such as Philosophical Review, Noûs, Mind, and Journal of Philosophy, and contributed chapters to volumes published by Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press. Fischer delivered invited lectures at institutions including Oxford University, Cambridge University, Princeton University, Harvard University, and the American Philosophical Association meetings. His collaborations and debates featured coauthors and interlocutors such as Mark Ravizza, R. Jay Wallace, Der k Pereboom, Galen Strawson, and David Wiggins.
Category:American philosophers Category:20th-century philosophers Category:21st-century philosophers