William Child

Authored Books

Wittgenstein London: Routledge, 2011

Causality, Interpretation, and the Mind, Oxford University Press, 1994

Edited Book

Wittgensteinian Themes: Essays in Honour of David Pears, Oxford University Press, 2001 (with David Charles)

Published Papers

1. “Therapeutic Insight and Aspect Perception”, with Adrian Kind.  Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, published online 2026.  https://doi.org/10.1111/phpr.70163
2. “Charity Versus Knowledge Maximization”. Topoi, 44, 2025, pp. 1227–1239. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-025-10225-0
3. “Philosophical in Confronting Rejection: language confusion in the correspondence between editor and author”, with Neal S. Young.  Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 68, 2025, 3-21.  https://doi.org/10.1353/pbm.2025.a953450.
4. "Following according to a rule is FUNDAMENTAL to our language-game'. Rules and Meaning in Wittgenstein". Journal for the Philosophy of Language, Mind and the Arts, 5, Special Issue, 2024, pp. 87-104 http://doi.org/10.30687/Jolma/2723-9640/2024/03/006
5. “‘We Can Go No Further’: Meaning, Use, and the Limits of Language”, in H. Appelqvist (ed.) Wittgenstein and the Limits of Language, Abingdon: Routledge, 2020, pp. 93-114.
6. “Economics, Agency, and Causal Explanation”, in P. Rona and L. Zsolnai (eds.) Agency and Causal Explanation in Economics, Springer, 2020, pp. 53-67.
7. “Meaning, Use, and Supervenience”, in J. Conant and S. Sunday (eds.) Wittgenstein on Philosophy, Objectivity, and Meaning, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019, pp. 211-230.
8. “‘Two Kinds of Use of “I”’: The Middle Wittgenstein on ‘I’ and the Self”, in D. Stern (ed.) Wittgenstein in the 1930s: Between the Tractatus and the Investigations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018, pp. 141-157.
9. “Wittgenstein, Seeing-As, and Novelty”, in B. Harrington, D. Shaw and M. Beaney (eds.) Aspect Perception After Wittgenstein: Seeing-As and Novelty, Abingdon: Routledge, 2018, pp. 29-48.
10. “Sensations, Natural Properties, and the Private Language Argument”, in K. Cahill and T. Raleigh (eds.) Wittgenstein and Naturalism, Abingdon: Routledge, 2018, pp. 79-95.
11. “Wittgenstein, Scientism & Anti-Scientism in the Philosophy of Mind”, in J. Beale and I. J. Kidd (eds.) Wittgenstein and Scientism, Abingdon: Routledge, 2017, pp. 81-100.
12. “Wittgenstein and Davidson on First-Person Authority and the Univocality of Mental Terms”, in C. Verheggen (ed.) Wittgenstein and Davidson on Thought, Language and Action, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017, pp. 186-204.
13. “The Inner and the Outer”, in H-J. Glock and J. Hyman (eds.) A Companion to Wittgenstein, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2017, pp. 465-477.
14. “Wittgenstein and Phenomenal Concepts”, in M. Campbell and M. O’Sullivan (eds.) Wittgenstein and Perception, Abingdon: Routledge, 2015, pp. 84-103.
15. "First-Person Authority”, in E. LePore and K. Ludwig (eds.) A Companion to Donald Davidson, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013, pp. 533-49
16. "Does the Tractatus Contain a Private Language Argument?", in P. Sullivan and M. Potter (eds.) Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: History and Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. 143-169.
17. "Vision and Causal Understanding", in J. Roessler, H. Lerman and N. Eilan (eds.) Perception, Causation, and Objectivity, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 161-80.
18. "Wittgenstein on the First Person", in O. Kuusela and M. McGinn eds., The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 375-401.
19. "Remembering Intentions", in A. Ahmed (ed) Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations: A Critical Guide, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 218-34.
20. "Verificationism and Wittgenstein’s View of Mind", in P. Frascolla, D. Marconi & A. Voltolini (eds) Wittgenstein: Mind, Meaning and Metaphilosophy, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, pp. 13-30.
21. "Wittgenstein’s Externalism" in The Later Wittgenstein on Language, ed. Daniel Whiting, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, pp. 63-80.
22. “Wittgenstein, Dreaming and Anti-Realism: A Reply to Richard Scheer”, Philosophical Investigations, 32, 2009, 329-337.
23. “Davidson on First Person Authority and Knowledge of Meaning”, Nous, 41, 2007, 157-177.
24. “Memory, Expression, and Past-Tense Self-Knowledge”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 73, 2006, 54-76 (published May 2007).
25. “Dreaming, Calculating, Thinking: Wittgenstein and Anti-Realism about the Past”, Philosophical Quarterly, 2007, 252-272.
26. “Interpreting People and Interpreting Texts”, International Journal of Philosophical Studies, (Special Issue: Donald Davidson), 2006, 423-441.
27. “Wittgenstein’s Externalism: Context, Self-Knowledge and the Past”, in What Determines Content?  The Internalism/Externalism Dispute, edited by Tomas Marvan, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006,  198-220.
28. “On Having a Meaning Before One’s Mind”, Teorema, 25, 2006, (special issue edited by Angel Garcia Rodriguez, Aspects of the Philosophy of John McDowell) pp. 161-75.
29. “Autonomy and Self-Knowledge”, Intellectica 36/37: Repenser le corps, l’action et la cognition avec les neurosciences, 2003, ed. J. L. Petit, 2003, 227-246.
30. “Wittgenstein’s Externalism and Modern Externalism”, Filosoficky Casopis, 2002, 459-77.
31. “Pears’s Wittgenstein: Rule-following, Platonism and Naturalism”, in Wittgensteinian Themes: Essays in Honour of David Pears, eds. D. Charles and W. Child, Oxford University Press, 2001, 81-113.
32. “Triangulation: Davidson, Realism and Natural Kinds”, Dialectica, 55, 2001, 29-49.
33. “Wittgenstein and Common-Sense Realism”, Facta Philosophica, 2, 2000, 179-202.
34. “Solipsism and First Person/Third Person Asymmetries”, European Journal of Philosophy,1996.
35. “On the dualism of scheme and content”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1994, 53-71.
36. “Anomalism, uncodifiability, and psychophysical relations”, Philosophical Review, 1993, 215-45.
37. “Vision and Experience: the Causal Theory and the Disjunctive Conception”, Philosophical Quarterly, 1992, 297-316.

Discussion Replies

1. “Reply to ‘Simulation theory and mental concepts’ by Alvin Goldman”, in J. Dokic and J Proust (eds.) Simulation and Knowledge of Action, (Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2002), pp. 21-31.
2. “Crane on Mental Causation”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1996, 97-102.
3. “Vision and Causation: Reply to Hyman”. Philosophical Quarterly, 1994, 361-9.