A. W. Moore

In the areas of ethics and religious philosophy, one of the main questions addressed by Moore is this: Is it possible for ethical thinking to be grounded in pure reason? In Noble in Reason, Infinite in Faculty: Themes and Variations in Kant's Moral and Religious Philosophy, Moore looks at Kant’s moral and religious philosophy and uses it to arrive at a distinctive way of understanding and answering this question. Moore identifies three Kantian themes – morality, freedom and religion – and offers variations on each of these themes in turn. He concedes that there are difficulties with the Kantian view that morality can be governed by ‘pure’ reason, but defends a closely related view involving a notion of reason culturally and socially conditioned.

Moore also has a special interest in the work of Bernard Williams, with whom he was a colleague in Cambridge and about whom he has written extensively. After Williams’ death in 2003 Moore was appointed as one of his literary executors. He edited one of Williams’ posthumously published collections of essays, Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline.

Moore's most recent work has been devoted to a thorough study of the history of metaphysics since Descartes, published under the title The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics: Making Sense of Things. Taking as its definition of metaphysics ‘the most general attempt to make sense of things’, the study charts the evolution of metaphysics through various competing conceptions of its possibility, scope and limits: it deals with the early modern period, the late modern period in the analytic tradition and the late modern period in non-analytic traditions. Moore challenges the still prevalent conviction that there is some unbridgeable gulf between analytic philosophy and philosophy of other kinds. He also advances his own distinctive conception of what metaphysics is and why it matters.

In September 2016 he presented a ten-part BBC Radio 4 series entitled A History of the Infinite.

He is currently a delegate of the Oxford University Press, and he has been editor of the journal MIND since 2015, joint with Lucy O'Brien. In October 2017 he was appointed vice-principal of St Hugh’s College.

His monograph The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics: Making Sense of Things was published in 2012 by Cambridge University Press, and it has been called an “important and remarkable book” and said to represent “an extremely impressive achievement.”

Moore was awarded the Mind Association Research Fellowship (1999–2000) and a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship (2006–09).

This was followed by Points of View (Oxford University Press 1997): "... a superb book. It brings the rigour, clarity and precision of the best analytical philosophy to bear on a topic that has until now been of pointedly little concern within analytical philosophy." His third book, Noble in Reason, Infinite in Faculty: Themes and Variations in Kant's Moral and Religious Philosophy was reviewed very laudatorily in Mind, Times Literary Supplement and Kantian Review.

Described as "one of our very best... contemporary philosophers", his first book, The Infinite, published by Routledge in 1990, was considered an "authoritative overview of a topic of considerable philosophical importance", a "fine book... admirably clear... [subtle and] sensitive to the philosophical issues." The book was also reviewed favourably in Philosophia Mathematica, International Philosophical Quarterly, Times Higher Education Supplement, and Choice.

After receiving his doctorate, Moore spent three years as a lecturer at University College, Oxford, where he also acted as the junior dean. He then returned to Cambridge as a junior research fellow at King's College. Since 1988 he has been a tutorial fellow at St Hugh's College, Oxford, and a university lecturer in philosophy. Since 2004, he has been a university professor of philosophy. He has also been the chairman of the Oxford University Philosophical Society (1995–96), chairman of the Sub-faculty of Philosophy (1997–99), and president of the Aristotelian Society (2014–2015).

A. W. Moore was educated at The Manchester Grammar School. He graduated with a B.A. in philosophy from King's College, Cambridge, after which he went to Oxford, where he studied at Balliol College for his B.Phil and D.Phil. in philosophy, completing the latter with a thesis on Language, Time and Ontology under the supervision of Michael Dummett. During his time as a postgraduate at Oxford, Moore was awarded the John Locke Prize in Mental Philosophy (in 1980).

Adrian William Moore (born 1956) is a British philosopher and broadcaster. He is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford and tutorial fellow of St Hugh's College, Oxford. His main areas of interest are Kant, Wittgenstein, history of philosophy, metaphysics, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of logic and language, ethics and philosophy of religion.