Martin Davies (philosophy of mind), formerly Wilde Reader in Mental Philosophy at Oxford before he moved to the Australian National University in 2000, has now accepted the Wilde Professorship of Mental Philosophy at Oxford, to start not later than October 2006. Professor Davies has also declined the offer of the Kornblith Chair from the City University of New York Graduate Center. This is a good break for Oxford which had, for a period of time in the 1990s, been having serious difficulty filling its Chairs with philosophers of international distinction. But now the Wilde Chair will be held by Davies, the Wykeham Professorship in Logic is held by Timothy Williamson, and the White's Chair in Moral Philosophy by John Broome. Oxford is now looking to fill the Waynflete Chair in Metaphysical Philosophy (Dorothy Edgington, the current holder, is retiring); although I have no inside information, my guess as an outside observer is that Oxford would be well-served (as the Law faculty was in filling the Jurisprudence Chair with John Gardner) by going for some of the first-rate younger philosophers still in Britain, such as Michael Martin (at University College London) or Ian Rumfitt (moving from Oxford to Birkbeck College, London).
Meanwhile, the distinguished political philosopher G.A. Cohen, holder of the Chichele Professorship of Social & Political Theory in the Politics faculty, will soon be forced to retire, creating another Chair vacancy which has sometimes been filled by philosophers.
UPDATE: A reader from Oxford points out, correctly, that the Chair in Ancient Philosophy is also vacant, due to the retirement of Michael Frede.
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