Jonathan Martindale

I hold a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford (Christ Church, where I was also the Gladstone Scholar), an MA in Philosophy from Lancaster University, and – in a somewhat different vein – a BA in Professional Studies in Taxation (Personal Tax) from Manchester Metropolitan University (obtained as part of a graduate scheme).

My research brings key thinkers in the ‘Wittgensteinian’ philosophical tradition – including D. Z. Phillips, Stanley Cavell, and Raimond Gaita – into dialogue with contemporary liberal political thought, specifically in terms of a shared focus on questions of moral, cultural, and religious diversity and disagreement. While the former tradition has sought to conceptually understand the nature of such diversity and disagreement (in the context of wider philosophical reflection upon the nature of various moral, cultural, and religious beliefs and practices), a key focus of recent liberal thinkers like Chandran Kukathas and Gerald Gaus, writing in the wake of John Rawls’s Political Liberalism, has been to develop non-atomistic accounts of liberalism capable of properly acknowledging and accommodating the fact of radical normative diversity. In essence, I explore what insights the Wittgensteinian tradition might have for such a project, and, from the Wittgensteinian side, the relationship – if any – between philosophical contemplation of diverse forms of human life and a form of respect for persons and their ‘deep’ commitments itself leading naturally to a politics of toleration.

My supervisors are Sophie-Grace Chappell (for the philosophy side of things) and Dan Taylor (for the politics).