Research: Cora Diamond: Realism, Imagination, and Concepts
CORA DIAMOND: REALISM, IMAGINATION, AND CONCEPTS
Cora Diamond’s philosophy constitutes one of the most sophisticated contemporary reflections on ethics and how it should proceed. Furthermore, Diamond advanced an original interpretation of Wittgenstein’s works, which has contributed significantly to shaping the exegetical and theoretical debate on the author. Despite Diamond’s significant contributions to contemporary moral philosophy, however, her work remains underexamined as a cohesive philosophical project. My doctoral research aims to fill this gap by providing a comprehensive study of the philosopher's diverse contributions, exploring, in particular, her peculiar role as a critic within the analytic tradition.
The primary focus of the research is moral philosophy; however, just as for Diamond ethics is not a separate and independent dimension of our lives, her ethical reflection cannot be easily separated from the other topics she addresses. Throughout her intellectual biography (which began in the 1960s and continues to this day), we find books and articles dedicated to the reading of Wittgenstein, others to methodological reflection on the role and tasks of philosophy and ethics—particularly in relation to literature—and finally on issues of practical ethics and political philosophy. Consequently, my research develops along three guidelines:
i) the first part is dedicated to Diamond's original re-reading of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and, more generally, of Wittgenstein's philosophy, which clearly brings out the "ethical sense" of which the author speaks.
ii) The second part is predominantly metaethical and focuses more specifically on Diamond’s view of ethics, which is not limited to normative reflection on choices and practical deliberation, but is understood as a work of conceptual and imaginative analysis of moral experience.
iii) The third part, in light of this broad and (in a Wittgensteinian sense) “transcendental” conception, concerns Diamond’s original, non-theoretical, and anti-moralistic perspective on several classic themes of moral philosophy, such as justice, rights, and animal ethics.