Horace Romano Harré | |
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Rom Harré in Tartu (2011)
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Born |
Manawatu, near Palmerston North, New Zealand |
18 December 1927
Alma mater | University of New Zealand (University of Auckland) |
Era | 20th-century philosophy |
Region | Western Philosophy |
School |
Analytic philosophy Critical realism |
Main interests
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Philosophy of the social sciences Philosophy of physics |
Notable ideas
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Ethogenics, positioning theory |
Influences
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Influenced
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Horace Romano Harré (/ˈhæreɪ/; born 1927), known widely as Rom Harré, is a distinguished British philosopher and psychologist.
Harré was born in Apiti, in northern Manawatu, near Palmerston North, New Zealand, but holds British citizenship. He studied chemical engineering (for which he retains a great affection) and later graduated with a BSc in mathematics (1948) and a Master's in Philosophy (1952), both at the University of New Zealand, now the University of Auckland.
He taught mathematics at King's College, Auckland (1948–53) and the University of Punjab in Lahore, Pakistan (1953–4). He then studied at University College, Oxford, where he completed a B.Phil. under the supervision of J. L. Austin in 1956. After a fellowship at the University of Birmingham he was lecturer at the University of Leicester from 1957 to 1959.
He returned to Oxford as the successor to Frederick Waismann as University Lecturer in Philosophy of Science in 1960 (age 34). At Oxford he was active in the founding of the Honours School of Physics and Philosophy and played an important part in the discursive turn in social psychology, a field he came to in the middle of his career. After mandatory retirement from Oxford in 1995 he joined the psychology department of Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. where he continues as Distinguished Research Professor teaching every year in the Spring Semester.