nat hansen
Photo by Justin Khoo
Nat Hansen
Associate Professor of Philosophy
University of Reading
I work in philosophy of language, with a focus on the intersection of ordinary language philosophy and experimental approaches to meaning. I have interests in aesthetics, the history of analytic philosophy, epistemology, and philosophy of mind.
Upcoming Events
Varieties of Realism: Aesthetics, Politics, Philosophy
Maison Française, New York·April 27-28, 2026
Edinburgh Meaning Sciences Group
University of Edinburgh·May 1, 2026
Aesthetic Judgment, Criticism, and Conversation
University of Reading·May 12, 2026
UCL Linguistics Seminar
University College London·May 20, 2026
Stanley Cavell at 100
Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne·June 4-6, 2026
Recent & Forthcoming Publications
Book
under contractMust We Measure What We Mean? Experiments in New Wave Ordinary Language Philosophy, Oxford University Press.
Articles & Chapters
forthcomingHansen, N., Liao, S. "Measuring Conceptual Inflation: The Case of 'Racist'", Ergo.
forthcomingLiao, S. and Hansen, N. "Conceptual Inflation", EurAmerica.
forthcomingGrindrod, J., Porter, J.D., and Hansen, N. "Distributional Semantics, Holism, and the Instability of Meaning", in H. Cappelen and R. Sterken (eds.), Communicating with A.I., Oxford University Press.
forthcomingHansen, N., Vilar-Lluch, S., Lepoutre, M., and Borg, E. "Legal Interpretation, Corpus Linguistics, and Waismann's Challenge to Ordinary Language Philosophy", in J. Ulatowski, D. Weijers, and J. Sytsma (eds.), Experimental Philosophy and Corpus Methods, Bloomsbury.
2026Hansen, N., Adams, Z. "The Very Idea of Seriousness", European Journal of Philosophy.
2024Hansen, N., Adams, Z. "The Hope of Agreement: Against Vibing Accounts of Aesthetic Judgment", MIND, 133(531), 742–760.
2024Hansen, N., Francis, K., and Greening, H. "Socratic Questionnaires", Oxford Studies in Experimental Philosophy, 5, 331–374.
2024Lepoutre, M., Vilar-Lluch, S., Borg, E., and Hansen, N. "What Is Hate Speech? The Case for a Corpus Approach", Criminal Law and Philosophy, 18, 397–430.
2023Porter, J.D., and Hansen, N. "A Quantitative History of Ordinary Language Philosophy", Synthese, 201(225), 1–36.
2023Liao, S., and Hansen, N. "'Extremely Racist' and 'Incredibly Sexist': An Empirical Response to the Charge of Conceptual Inflation", Journal of the American Philosophical Association, 9(1), 72–94.
2023Zahorec, M., Bishop, R., Hansen, N., Schwenkler, J., and Sytsma, J. "Linguistic Corpora and Ordinary Language", in D. Bordonaba-Plou (ed.), Experimental Philosophy of Language, Springer.