I am a Canada Research Chair (tier 1), Director of the Bertrand Russell Research Centre, and Associate Professor of Philosophy at McMaster University. My research focuses on the histories of analytic philosophy and of pragmatism, with a special emphasis on naturalistic philosophy of mind in that historical context (i.e., late 19th and early 20th century). William James has been a central focus. I have a monograph forthcoming with Oxford entitled Consciousness Is Motor: Warp and Weft in William James. That work has led me to an interest in Russell in his naturalistic phase as well.
I am in the process of establishing the Digital Philosophy Laboratory, whose mission will be to cultivate new methods for employing computational techniques like topic modeling in the study of philosophy, particularly in the history of philosophy. Our connection with the Russell Archives (housed at McMaster) puts us in a special position to apply these digital methods in the study of early analytic philosophy.
Other figures on whom I also have material either published or forthcoming include Moore, T. H. Green, Quine, Mach, and Peirce. Relatedly, I have broader interests in the history and philosophy of empirical psychology, particularly in figures who informed so-called scientific philosophy, like Helmholtz, T. H. Huxley, G. H. Lewes, and Francis Galton.
Recently, I completed a Fulbright year at the University of Sheffield (2016 - 2017), which is where my book on James's account of consciousness was born. In 2019, I came to McMaster from the philosophy Department at Cal State Long Beach. In 2008-2009 I was a Mellon Fellow in Philosophy at Cornell, and before that I held a postdoc at the University of Toronto. My PhD comes from the Philosophy Department at Indiana University, Bloomington, and I also have an MA from Indiana's History and Philosophy of Science Department.
Click here for a letter to prospective graduate students.
I am in the process of establishing the Digital Philosophy Laboratory, whose mission will be to cultivate new methods for employing computational techniques like topic modeling in the study of philosophy, particularly in the history of philosophy. Our connection with the Russell Archives (housed at McMaster) puts us in a special position to apply these digital methods in the study of early analytic philosophy.
Other figures on whom I also have material either published or forthcoming include Moore, T. H. Green, Quine, Mach, and Peirce. Relatedly, I have broader interests in the history and philosophy of empirical psychology, particularly in figures who informed so-called scientific philosophy, like Helmholtz, T. H. Huxley, G. H. Lewes, and Francis Galton.
Recently, I completed a Fulbright year at the University of Sheffield (2016 - 2017), which is where my book on James's account of consciousness was born. In 2019, I came to McMaster from the philosophy Department at Cal State Long Beach. In 2008-2009 I was a Mellon Fellow in Philosophy at Cornell, and before that I held a postdoc at the University of Toronto. My PhD comes from the Philosophy Department at Indiana University, Bloomington, and I also have an MA from Indiana's History and Philosophy of Science Department.
Click here for a letter to prospective graduate students.
My CV (August 2020) is here.
Area of Research Specialization
Early Analytic Philosophy
American Pragmatism (esp James)
History and Philosophy of Science (esp Psychology)
Other Areas of Teaching Competence
British Empiricism (17th – 19th C.)
Early Modern Philosophy
Theories of Perception
General Philosophy of Science
Philosophy of Biology
Philosophy of Art
Here is a complete set of teaching evaluations from a recent introduction to philosophy class I taught (Phil 100).
And here is a complete set of teaching evaluations from a recent graduate seminar in the history of analytic philosophy (Phil 681).
Area of Research Specialization
Early Analytic Philosophy
American Pragmatism (esp James)
History and Philosophy of Science (esp Psychology)
Other Areas of Teaching Competence
British Empiricism (17th – 19th C.)
Early Modern Philosophy
Theories of Perception
General Philosophy of Science
Philosophy of Biology
Philosophy of Art
Here is a complete set of teaching evaluations from a recent introduction to philosophy class I taught (Phil 100).
And here is a complete set of teaching evaluations from a recent graduate seminar in the history of analytic philosophy (Phil 681).
Photograph: Natasha Calzatti
The background picture is a diagram of one of G. H. Lewes's physiological frog experiments, from Problems of Life and Mind, Second Series: The Physical Basis of Mind (London: Trübner & Co., 1877) p. 178.
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