Kenneth Allen Taylor

Kenneth Allen Taylor (born 1954) is an American philosopher. He was the chair of the department of philosophy at Stanford University from 2001 to 2009. Professor Taylor specializes in philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. His interests include semantics, reference, naturalism, and relativism. He is the author of numerous articles, which have appeared in journals such as Noûs, Philosophical Studies, and Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, and two books, Truth and Meaning: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Language (Blackwell Publishers) and Reference and the Rational Mind (CSLI Publications).

Taylor received his Ph.D. in 1984 from the University of Chicago, where he completed his dissertation under the supervision of Leonard Linsky. He received his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame in 1977.

Before coming to Stanford, Taylor taught in the philosophy departments at Rutgers University, University of Maryland at College Park, Wesleyan University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Middlebury College. He is the co-host, with John Perry, of the radio program Philosophy Talk. His newest book, Referring to the World: An Introduction to the Theory of Reference, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.