Peter Michael Stephan Hacker (15 julho 1939) é um filósofo britânico. Seu foco é na filosofia da mente e filosofia da linguagem. Ele é conhecido por sua detalhada exegese do trabalho de Ludwig Wittgenstein e sua crítica conceitual da neurociência cognitiva. Para Hacker a filosofia não é uma contribuição para o conhecimento humano, mas para o entendimento humano". Isso o levou a discordar diretamente dos "neuro-filósofos": neurocientistas ou filósofos como Antonio Damasio e Daniel Dennett, que pensam que a neurociência pode lançar luz sobre questões filosóficas como a natureza da consciência ou o problema mente-corpo.
Hacker sustenta que todos os problemas filosóficos, não são problemas reais, mas sim miragens decorrentes da confusão conceitual. Segue-se que a investigação científica (aprender mais fatos sobre os seres humanos ou o mundo) não ajuda a resolvê-los. Seu livro de 2003, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, escrito em co-autoria com o neurocientista Max Bennett, contém uma exposição dessas visões e críticas às ideias de muitos neurocientistas e filósofos contemporâneos.
Bibliografia
Insight and Illusion: Wittgenstein on Philosophy and the Metaphysics of Experience (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1972)
Insight and Illusion – themes in the philosophy of Wittgenstein (extensively revised edition) (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1986) (ISBN0-19-824783-4)
Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning, Volume 1 of an analytical commentary on the Philosophical Investigations (Blackwell, Oxford, and Chicago University Press, Chicago, 1980)(ISBN0-631-12111-0)(ISBN1-4051-0176-8)(ISBN1-4051-1987-X), co-authored with G.P. Baker.
Language, Sense and Nonsense, a critical investigation into modern theories of language (Blackwell, 1984) (ISBN0-631-13519-7) co-authored with G.P. Baker.
Scepticism, Rules and Language (Blackwell, 1984) (ISBN0-631-13614-2) co-authored with G.P. Baker.
Wittgenstein: Rules, Grammar, and Necessity – Volume 2 of an analytical commentary on the Philosophical Investigations (Blackwell, Oxford, UK and Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1985) (ISBN0-631-13024-1)(ISBN0-631-16188-0) co-authored with G.P. Baker.
Appearance and Reality – a philosophical investigation into perception and perceptual qualities (Blackwell, 1987) (ISBN0-631-15704-2)
Wittgenstein: Meaning and Mind, Volume 3 of an Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations (Blackwell, Oxford and Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1990) (ISBN0-631-18739-1)
Wittgenstein: Mind and Will, Volume 4 of an Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations (Blackwell, 1996) (ISBN0-631-18739-1)
Wittgenstein's Place in Twentieth Century Analytic Philosophy (Blackwell, Oxford, UK and Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1996) (ISBN0-631-20098-3)
Wittgenstein on Human Nature (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1997) (ISBN0-7538-0193-0)
Wittgenstein: Connections and Controversies (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2001) (ISBN0-19-924569-X)
Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (Blackwell, Oxford, and Malden, Mass., 2003) (ISBN1-4051-0855-X), co-authored with Max Bennett
Neuroscience and Philosophy: Brain, Mind, and Language (Columbia University Press, New York, 2007) (ISBN978-0-231-14044-7), co-authored with Max Bennett, D. Dennett, and J. Searle
Human Nature: The Categorial Framework (Blackwell, 2007) (ISBN1405147288)
Of knowledge and of knowing that someone is in pain, in A. Pichler and S. Säätelä eds., Wittgenstein: The Philosopher and his Works ((The Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen, Bergen, 2005)), pp.203–235.
When the Whistling had to Stop, in D.O.M. Charles and T.W. Child eds. Wittgensteinian Themes: Essays in Honour of David Pears (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2001).
Was he Trying to Whistle it? in A. Crary and R. Read eds. The New Wittgenstein (Routledge, London, 2000), pp.353–88.