Ian N Proops
Professor — PhD, Harvard University

Contact
- Phone: 471-6752
- Office: WAG 209
- Office Hours: Thursdays from 2:15p to 3:15p and by appointment
Interests
Kant, History of Analytic Philosophy, Early Modern Philosophy
Biography
Professor Proops joined the Philosophy Department in 2009. He is affiliated with the Center for European Studies.
He works on Kant's theoretical philosophy (especially, The Critique of Pure Reason) and on History of Analytic Philosophy (especially, Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein).
His current research interests include: Kant's First Critique (all topics, but especially those discussed in the Aesthetic and Dialectic), Russell's 'Gray's Elegy' argument, Russell on the logical construction of matter, Russell's views on ontology, Kant's views on nonsense and their relationship to Wittgenstein's.
He has teaching interests in Early Modern Philosophy (especially Descartes and Leibniz), Metaphysics, Hegel/German Idealism, and Kant's Ethics.
Professor Proops's recent publications include: "Kant on the Ontological Argument" Nous, 2015); "Russellian Acquaintance Revisited" (Journal of the History of Philosophy, 2014), "Kant on the Cosmological Argument" (Philosophers' Imprint, 2014); "Russell on Substitutivity and the Abandonment of Propositions" (The Philosophical Review, April 2011); "Kant's First Paralogism" (The Philosophical Review, October 2010) and "What is Frege's 'conept horse problem'?" (in Sullivan and Potter eds., Wittgenstein's Tractatus" (2013)).
He is currently finishing up a book for Oxford University Press on Kant’s criticisms of dogmatic metaphysics in the "Dialectic" of the first Critique.
Professor Proops spent six years a founding editor of The Review of Symbolic Logic, where handled submissions on the history of analytic philosophy, and served for more than a decade as a section-editor (in the same subfield) for Philosophy Compass.
He earned his B.A. in PPE and a B. Phil. (on Kant's Transcendental Idealism under the supervision of Ralph Walker) at Oxford. He went on to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard, where he wrote a disseration on Wittgenstein's Tractatus under the supervision of Warren Goldfarb, Richard Heck, and Charles Parsons. Before coming to Texas, he taught for ten years at the University of Michigan.
Courses
PHL 610QB • Probs Of Knwldg/Valuation-Wb
41915-41925 • Spring 2021
Meets M 4:00PM-5:30PM
Internet; Synchronous
PHL 610QB • Probs Of Knowledge & Valuation
41180-41205 • Spring 2020
Meets MW 4:00PM-5:30PM WAG 101
PHL 396W • Dissertation Seminar
41514 • Spring 2020
Meets M 12:00PM-3:00PM WAG 310
PHL 610QA • Probs Of Knowledge & Valuation
40830-40855 • Fall 2019
Meets MW 4:00PM-5:30PM WAG 101
PHL 301L • Early Modern Philosophy
41560 • Spring 2019
Meets TTH 12:30PM-2:00PM WAG 308
PHL 610QB • Probs Of Knowledge & Valuation
41685-41695 • Spring 2019
Meets TTH 3:30PM-5:00PM WAG 302
PHL 301 • Introduction To Philosophy
41820-41845 • Fall 2018
Meets TTH 3:30PM-4:30PM WAG 302
PHL 610QA • Probs Of Knowledge & Valuation
42020-42030 • Fall 2018
Meets TTH 12:30PM-2:00PM WAG 302
PHL 301L • Early Modern Philosophy
41815 • Spring 2018
Meets TTH 12:30PM-2:00PM WAG 308
PHL 610QB • Probs Of Knowledge & Valuation
41950-41960 • Spring 2018
Meets TTH 3:30PM-5:00PM WAG 214
PHL 610QA • Probs Of Knowledge & Valuation
42345-42355 • Fall 2017
Meets TTH 12:30PM-2:00PM WAG 302
PHL 381 • Kant's Critique Of Pure Reason
42595 • Fall 2017
Meets T 3:30PM-6:30PM WAG 310
PHL 301L • Early Modern Philosophy
42300 • Spring 2017
Meets MWF 2:00PM-3:00PM WAG 302
PHL 610QB • Probs Of Knowledge & Valuation
42430-42440 • Spring 2017
Meets MWF 12:00PM-1:00PM WAG 214
PHL 301 • Introduction To Philosophy
42154 • Fall 2016
Meets MWF 12:00PM-1:00PM WAG 302
PHL 610QA • Probs Of Knowledge & Valuation
42305-42315 • Fall 2016
Meets MWF 2:00PM-3:00PM WAG 420
PHL 610QB • Probs Of Knowledge & Valuation
41565-41575 • Spring 2016
Meets MWF 1:00PM-2:00PM WAG 214
PHL 396W • Dissertation Seminar
41860 • Spring 2016
Meets M 3:00PM-6:00PM WAG 312
PHL 610QA • Probs Of Knowledge & Valuation
41415-41425 • Fall 2015
Meets MWF 11:00AM-12:00PM CLA 0.102
PHL 381 • Kant
41720 • Fall 2015
Meets W 12:30PM-3:30PM WAG 210
PHL 301L • Early Modern Philosophy
41550-41560 • Spring 2015
Meets MW 3:00PM-4:00PM WAG 201
(also listed as CTI 310)
PHL 610QB • Probs Of Knowledge & Valuation
41765-41775 • Spring 2015
Meets MWF 1:00PM-2:00PM WAG 214
PHL 610QA • Probs Of Knowledge & Valuation
42840-42850 • Fall 2014
Meets TTH 3:30PM-5:00PM PAR 301
PHL 301L • Early Modern Philosophy
42980-42990 • Spring 2014
Meets MWF 2:00PM-3:00PM WAG 201
(also listed as CTI 310)
PHL 396W • Dissertation Seminar
43548 • Spring 2014
Meets M 3:30PM-6:30PM WAG 312
PHL 610QA • Probs Of Knowledge & Valuation
42940-42950 • Fall 2013
Meets TTH 2:00PM-3:30PM WAG 302
PHL 381 • Kant
43185 • Fall 2013
Meets M 12:30PM-3:30PM WAG 312
PHL 301L • Early Modern Philosophy
42230-42240 • Spring 2012
Meets TTH 12:30PM-1:30PM WAG 302
PHL 610QB • Probs Of Knowledge & Valuation
42440-42450 • Spring 2012
Meets TTH 3:30PM-5:00PM WAG 302
PHL 610QA • Probs Of Knowledge & Valuation
42305-42315 • Fall 2011
Meets TTH 2:00PM-3:30PM WAG 302
PHL 381 • Russell 1900-1914
42605 • Fall 2011
Meets W 3:00PM-6:00PM WAG 312
PHL 301L • Early Modern Philosophy
42670-42680 • Spring 2011
Meets TTH 12:30PM-1:30PM WAG 302
PHL 610QB • Probs Of Knowledge & Valuation
42950-42960 • Spring 2011
Meets TTH 3:30PM-5:00PM WAG 302
PHL 375M • Hegel's Phenomenol Of Spirit
42535 • Fall 2010
Meets TTH 3:30PM-5:00PM WAG 308
Wr
PHL 301 • Introduction To Philosophy
42705-42760 • Spring 2010
Meets TTH 12:30PM-1:30PM WCH 1.120
PHL 610QB • Probs Of Knowledge & Valuation
43045-43055 • Spring 2010
Meets TTH 2:00PM-3:30PM CBA 4.324
PHL 381 • Kant's Critique Of Pure Reason
43490 • Fall 2009
Meets T 12:30PM-3:30PM WAG 307
Publications
"Kant's First Paralogism," The Philosophical Review, vol. 119, no. 4, October 2010, 449-495.
"Russell and the Universalist Conception of Logic," Noûs, 41: 1, 2007, 1–32.
"Russell‘s Reasons for Logicism," Journal of the History of Philosophy, 2006, 44:2, 267–92.
"Soames on the Metaphysics and Epistemology of Moore and Russell," Philosophical Studies, 2006, 129: 627–635.
"Kant‘s Conception of Analytic Judgment," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, May 2005, vol. 70, no. 3, 588–612.
"Wittgenstein on the Substance of the World,", European Journal of Philosophy, April 2004, 12: 1, 106–126.
"Kant's Legal Metaphor and the Nature of a Deduction", Journal of the History of Philosophy, April 2003, 41: 2, 209–29.
"The Tractatus on Inference and Entailment,"in Erich Reck, ed., From Frege to Wittgenstein: Essays on Early Analytic Philosophy (O.U.P.) 2002, 283–307.
"The New Wittgenstein: a Critique,"European Journal of Philosophy, December 2001, 9: 3, 375–404.
"Logical Syntax in the Tractatus," in Richard Gaskin, ed., Grammar in Early Twentieth-Century Philosophy (Routledge), 2001.