”I am a humanist and see my work as a doctor and as a philosopher as respectively an expression of, and as setting out the case for, my humanist convictions.”
Professor Raymond Tallis is a philosopher, poet, novelist and cultural critic and was until recently a physician and clinical scientist. In the Economist's Intelligent Life Magazine (Autumn 2009) he was listed as one of the top living polymaths in the world.
 Michelangelo's Finger: An Exploration of Everyday Transcendence (Atlantic, 2010) |
  
Hunger. (Acumen, 2008) (The Art of Living series) |
 The Kingdom of Infinite Space: A Fantastical Journey Around Your Head. (Atlantic Books, 2008)Paperback Hardback 
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 Absence. (Toby Press, 2006) |
 Hippocratic Oaths: Medicine and Its Discontents. (Atlantic Books, 2005) |
 Why the Mind is Not a Computer: A Pocket Lexicon of Neuromythology. (Imprint Academic, 2004) |
 The Knowing Animal: A Philosophical Inquiry into Knowledge and Truth. (Edinburgh University Press, 2004)  |
 I am: a Philosophical Inquiry into First-person Being (Edinburgh University Press, 2004)Paperback Hardback 
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 The Hand: A Philosophical Inquiry into Human Being (Edinburgh University Press, 2003) |
Born in Liverpool in 1946, one of five children, he trained as a doctor at Oxford University and at St Thomas' in London before going on to become Professor of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Manchester and a consultant physician in Health Care of the Elderly in Salford. Professor Tallis retired from medicine in 2006 to become a full-time writer, though he remains Visiting Professor at St George's Hospital Medical School, University of London.
Ray is married to Terry, a social worker, and they have two sons in their twenties.
Over the last 20 years Raymond Tallis has published fiction, three volumes of poetry, and 18 books on the philosophy of mind, philosophical anthropology, literary theory, the nature of art and cultural criticism. Together with over a hundred articles in Prospect, Times Literary Supplement and many other outlets, these books offer a critique of current predominant intellectual trends and an alternative understanding of human consciousness, the nature of language and of what it is to be a human being. For this work, Professor Tallis has been awarded two honorary degrees: DLitt (Hon. Causa) from the University of Hull in 1997; and LittD (Hon. Causa) at the University of Manchester 2002.
His recent publications include: The Enduring Significance of Parmenides: Unthinkable Thought
Raymond Tallis makes regular appearances at Hay, Cheltenham, Edinburgh and other book festivals and lectures widely. In 2004, he was identified in Prospect Magazine as one of the top 100 public intellectuals in the United Kingdom.
Prior to his retirement from medicine to devote himself to writing, Raymond Tallis had responsibility for acute and rehabilitation patients and took part in the on call rota for acute medical emergencies. He also ran a unique specialist epilepsy service for older people. Amongst his 200 or so medical publications are two major textbooks - The Clinical Neurology of Old Age
Raymond Tallis's national roles have included: Consultant Advisor in Health Care of the Elderly to the Chief Medical Officer; a key part in developing National Service Framework for Older People, in particular the recommendations of developing services for people with strokes; membership of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence Appraisal Committee; Chairmanship of the Royal College of Physicians Committee on Ethics in Medicine; Chairman of the committee reviewing ethics support for front-line clinicians; and membership of the Working Party producing a seminal report Doctors in Society, Medical Professionalism in a Changing World (2005).
Raymond Tallis
E-mail: website@raymondtallis.com
This site was last updated on 2 September, 2010.
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