University of Connecticut Philosophy Department
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Faculty Email List





Department of Philosophy
101 Manchester Hall
344 Mansfield Road
University of Connecticut
Storrs, CT 06269-2054


Phone: (860) 486-4416
Fax: (860) 486-0387
philosophy@uconn.edu



Philosophy Department Faculty


Crawford Elder (Professor and Head) (Yale) specializes in metaphysics. Recent publications include Real Natures and Familiar Objects (MIT, 2004); “Conventionalism and the World as Bare Sense-Data,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 85 (2007), pp. 261-75; and “Millikan, Sameness, and Metaphysics”, in Justine Kingsbury, Dan Ryder, and Ken Williford, eds., Millikan and her Critics (Blackwell:  forthcoming—available on Elder’s web page).  

  • Donald L. M. Baxter (Pittsburgh) has research interests in metaphysics and early modern philosophy. Recent publications include a monograph-- Hume's Difficulty: Time and Identity in the  TREATISE (Routledge, 2008)--and "Hume's Theory of Space and Time in its Skeptical Context" in  David Fate Norton and Jacqueline Taylor, eds.,  The Cambridge Companion to Hume, 2nd. Edition (Cambridge, 2009).
  • JC Beall (UMass) works mainly in philosophy of language, philosophy of logic (and mathematics), and philosophical logic, but also has interests in (and his work intersects with) philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and epistemology. In addition to various papers in Analysis, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Mind, Nous, and other journals, Beall wrote Possibilities and Paradox: An Introduction to Modal and Many-Valued Logic with Bas van Fraassen (OUP 2003), Logical Pluralism with Greg Restall (OUP, in press), and is editor of Liars and Heaps: New Essays on Paradox (OUP, in press). Beall is currently working on a monograph on truth and falsity (under contract, OUP), in addition to a paraconsistent approach to vagueness.
  • Paul Bloomfield (Syracuse) has broad research interests which range across analytic philosophy, specializing in metaphysics and moral philosophy (both ancient and contemporary). His publications include: Moral Reality, Oxford University Press, 2001; "Let's Be Realistic about Serious Metaphysics," Synthese, 2005; "Disagreement About Disagreement", in The Biology and Psychology of Morality, W. Sinnott-Armstrong (ed) (forthcoming); and, as editor, Morality and Self Interest, Oxford University Press (forthcoming).
  • Thomas D. Bontly (Wisconsin) specializes in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of science. His current research concerns mental causation, intentional content, and methodological questions in both philosophy and psychology. Recent publications include: "Individualism and the Nature of Syntactic" The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 49(1998) and "Should Intentionality be Naturalized?" in D. Walsh (ed.) Naturalism, Evolution, and Mind, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press.
  • Austen Clark (Oxford) specializes in philosophy of psychology and philosophy of mind. Recent publications include A Theory of Sentience (Oxford UP 2000); Sensory Qualities (Oxford UP 1993), "Color Perception" in A Companion to Cognitive Science, edited by William Bechtel and George Graham (Blackwell, 1998); and "Perception, Philosophical Issues About", in Lynn Nadel (ed.), Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science Macmillan, forthcoming.
  • Anne Hiskes (Indiana) specializes in the philosophy of science, the foundations of physics, and science and social issues. Her writings include "Theoretical Explanation and Unification" in Prawitz and Westerstahl eds. (1994),"Van Fraassen's Constructive Empiricist Philosophy of Science and Religious Belief: Prospects for a Unified Epistemology", and "How Metaphor Shapes Science: A Critical Discussion of Barbara Katz Rothman's Genetic Maps and Human Imaginations ".
  • Joel Kupperman (Cambridge) works mainly in ethics and aesthetics, with a strong interest in classic Asian philosophy. Current work includes Six Myths About the GoodLife (Hackett Books, 2006), Classic Asian Philosophy: A Guide to the Essential Texts, 2 nd ed. (Oxford University Press, 2006), Ethics and Qualities of Life (Oxford University Press, Spring 2007), and also "A New Look at the Logic of the 'Is'-'Ought' Relation" (Philosophy, 2005) and "The Epistemology of Non-Instrumental Value", Philosophy andPhenomenological Research, 2005.
  • Michael P. Lynch (Syracuse) works primarily in epistemology, metaphysics and the philosophy of language, although he has abiding interests in the history of philosophy and the theory of value. He is the author of Truth in Context (1998, 2001), True to Life (2004), and Truth as One and Many (2009), and is the editor of The Nature of Truth (2001), Perspectives on the Philosophy of William P. Alston (with Heather Battaly, 2004), and Truth and Realism (with Patrick Greenough, 2006). He is an NEH Fellow for 2009-10.
  • Serena Parekh (Boston College) has interests in social and political philosophy, philosophy of human rights, continental philosophy, and feminist theory. Her book, Hannah Arendt and the Challenge of Modernity [italics] was recently published by Routledge (2008). Other publications include, "Conscience, Morality, and Judgment" in Philosophy and Social Criticism (2008), "Resisting 'Dull and Torpid' Assent: Returning to the Debate Over the Foundations of Human Rights" in Human Rights Quarterly (2007), and "When Being Human Isn¹t Enough: Reflections on Women¹s Human Rights² in Global Ethics: Feminist Ethics and Social Theory edited by Rebecca Whisnant and Peggy Desautels (Rowman and Littlefield 2008). Professor Parekh is the book review editor for the Journal of Human Rights.
  • Marcus Rossberg (St Andrews) works primarily in the philosophy of logic and mathematics, and philosophical logic, but also has research interests in the philosophy of language, metaphysics, the philosophy of art, and philosophical methodology. Some specific topics that occupy his mind currently are higher-order logic, inferentialism, ontological commitment, plural quantification, logical pluralism, and the role of model theory in philosophy. Publications include, next to some papers on the philosophy of logic, a book on Nelson Goodman (co- authored with Daniel Cohnitz, 2006) and a forthcoming paper on mereology. Rossberg is also about to finish (in collaboration with Philip Ebert and Crispin Wright) the first complete translation of Gottlob Frege's Grundgesetze der Arithmetik [Basic Laws of Arithmetic].
  • Lionel Shapiro (Pittsburgh) has research interests in the philosophy of language, of mind, and of logic, as well as in early modern philosophy.  Recent publications include "Naïve Truth-Conditions and Meaning" in The Philosophical Quarterly (2008), “The Rationale Behind Revision-Rule Semantics” in Philosophical Studies (2006), and “Brandom on the Normativity of Meaning” in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (2004).
  • John Troyer (Harvard) has research interests in normative theory, Early Modern Philosophy, and Wittgenstein. Recent publications include an edited volume of Roderick Firth's writings, In Defense of Radical Empiricism (Rowman & Littlefield, 1997) and "Human and Other Natures" (in Evolutionary Origins of Morality, Imprint Academic, 2000).
  • Steven Wall (Oxford) specializes in political philosophy. Recent publications include “Collective Rights and Individual Autonomy,” Ethics (2007), “Democracy and Equality,” Philosophical Quarterly (2007) and “Self-Ownership and Paternalism,” Journal of Political Philosophy (forthcoming). He is the author of Liberalism, Perfectionism and Restraint ( Cambridge, 1998) and has co-edited two books: Perfectionism and Neutrality: Essays in Liberal Theory, with George Klosko (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003) and Reasons for Action, with David Sobel ( Cambridge, forthcoming).
  • Samuel C. Wheeler III (Princeton) writes in metaphysics, ethics, deconstruction, and ancient philosophy. Recent publications include " Derrida's Differance and Plato's Different," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, December 1999, "Plato's Enlightenment", History of Philosophy Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 2 (1997), "Reparations Reconstructed", American Philosophical Quarterly 1997, and "Arms as Insurance," Public Affairs Quarterly, April 1999. His book Deconstruction as Analytic Philosophy, was published in June 2000 by Stanford University Press.


Emeritus Faculty

  • Susan Anderson (Professor Emeritus) has interests in the Self, applied ethics, critical reasoning/logic, 19th century philosophy and philosophy in literature. She has published articles on the Self, free will and applied ethics and has co- authored logic software. She is author of three books in the Wadsworth Philosophers Series: On Kierkegaard, On Mill, and On Dostoevsky; and she is currently working on a book titled Equal Opportunity Individualism: An Interpretation of the American Dream. She was one of the creators of the Stamford Campus Upper Division Scholars Program. (Ph.D., UCLA)
  • Margaret Gilbert (Professor Emeritus) has been Melden Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of California, Irvine, since September 2006. She continues to teach and write on the philosophy of social phenomena, political philosophy, and moral philosophy, among others. Her most recent book is A Theory of Political Obligation: Membership, Commitment, and the Bonds of Society.
  • Robinson Grover (Professor Emeritus)
  • Leonard I. Krimerman (Professor Emeritus) (Cornell) has research interests in recent political philosophy, theory and prospects of democracy,  philosophy and social science, and philosophy of education . Recent publications include From the Ground Up (with F. Lindenfeld) South End Press 1992, and "Should Social Inquiry Be Conducted Democratically?" (2001).  He is co-editor of  GEO, the Grassroots Economic Organizing Newsletter , in which he utilizes philosophical theory to clarify and foster democatic transformation. He is working on a book tentatively entitled, "Democracy's Dangerous Dream: Reclaiming Citizen Sovereignty", the heart of which builds on a deep analogy between fully democratic priorities and those characteristic of education.
  • Scott Lehmann (Professor Emeritus) (University of Chicago) specializes in logic, foundations of economics, policy analysis, and environmental ethics. Recent publications include Privatizing Public Lands (Oxford UP 1995); "More Free Logic" (Handbook of Philosophical Logic, 2nd edn., Vol. 5, Kluwer, 2002).
  • Robert Luyster (Professor Emeritus) specializes in the history and philosophy of religion. Most of his publications concern religious mythology and symbolism. He is also the founder and director of the Council on Peace Education, a faculty organization promoting awareness concerning global peace and justice on campus, and directs students in the field of peace studies. His most recent publication is "Nietzsche/Dionysus: Ecstasy, Heroism and the Monstrous," Journal of Nietzsche Studies, XXI (Spring 2001), p. 1-26.
  • Diana Tietjens Meyers (Professor Emeritus) is Ignacio Ellacuría SJ Chair of Social Ethics and Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University, Chicago. In Spring 2003, she was the Laurie Chair in Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers University. She works in three main areas of philosophy – philosophy of action, feminist ethics, and human rights theory. Her monographs are Inalienable Rights: A Defense (1985, Columbia University Press), Self, Society, and Personal Choice (1989, Columbia University Press; also at http://orion.it.luc.edu/~dmeyers/ ), Subjection and Subjectivity: Psychoanalytic Feminism and Moral Philosophy (1994, Routledge), and Gender in the Mirror: Cultural Imagery and Women’s Agency (2002, Oxford University Press; also available through Oxford Scholarship Online). Being Yourself: Essays on Identity, Action, and Social Life is a collection of her (mostly) previously published essays (2004, Rowman and Littlefield). She has edited seven collections and published many journal articles and chapters in books. She is currently writing on three topics: victims’ stories and human rights, art and politics, and psychocorporeal identity and agency.
  • Ruth Millikan (Professor Emeritus) (Yale) works in philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of language, philosophy of biology, ontology, and natural epistemology. Besides her books, Language, Thought and Other Biological Categories (MIT 1984), White Queen Psychology and Other Essays for Alice (MIT 1993), and On Clear and Confused Ideas (Cambridge 2000), she has published articles in The Philosophical Review, Nous, Mind, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Philosophical Perspectives, Journal of Philosophy, and given many lectures on topics in Philosophy and Cognitive Science throughout the world. She gave the Jean Nicod Lectures in Paris in 2002.
  • Robert Phillips (Professor Emeritus) (Hartford Campus) specializes in moral issues connected with wars and with other aspects of contemporary politics. He is author of War and Justice (Oklahoma) and co-author of Humanitarian Intervention: Just War vs. Pacifism (Rowman & Littlefield, 1996). He is Director of the War and Ethics Program at UConn's Hartford campus. (D. Phil., Oxford)
  • Jerome A. Shaffer (Professor Emeritus) (Princeton) spent his philosophical career trying to crack the mind-body nut. But it ended up cracking his nut. So, in 1994, he retired, went back to school and got an M. A. in Marital and Family Therapy, and is now a practicing psychotherapist, uncracking others undone by mind-body problems. However he occasionally relapses and can be seen lurking in the halls of philosophy, keeping up with others still trying to crack that damnable mind-body nut.