Faculty Profiles
Chair • Professors
• Associate Professors
• Assistant Professors • Instructors • Adjunct
Faculty • Emeritus Professors
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Chair & Associate Professor
Susan J.
Dwyer
dwyer@umbc.edu
Fine Arts 537
410-455-2025
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My research and teaching interests are in moral
philosophy – pure and applied. On the pure side, I am especially
interested in what makes the human capacity for moral judgment
possible. Note that this is a very different question from why human
beings are capable of acting morally well or morally not-so-well. I
want to know what it is about our mind/brains that explains how
humans cannot help but ‘see’ the world in moral terms. What we do
with that capacity is quite another thing.
On the applied side, I work on a cluster of
issues at the intersection of philosophy and public policy: free
speech, hate speech and pornography; abortion; end-of-life
decision-making and law; and moral and political reconciliation in
transitional states (e.g., South Africa).
At UMBC, I teach a range of courses in moral
philosophy:
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PHIL 150 Contemporary Moral Issues
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PHIL 350 Ethical Theory
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PHIL 452 Advanced Topics in Ethics (recent
topics have been “Everyday Moral Psychology”, and “Moral
Cognition”.)
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PHIL 455 Applied Ethics (topics include organ
transplantation, cloning, justice and health care)
PDF versions of some of my papers and some
representative syllabi are available by clicking on the links on the
left.
I received a BA (Philosophy & Psychology) and a
BA, Honors First Class (Philosophy) from the University of Adelaide,
South Australia. My Honors Thesis was on the Frame Problem in
artificial intelligence. I did my Ph.D. work at MIT in Philosophy
and Linguistics. The title of my dissertation: “Making ‘Implicit’
Explicit: Toward an Account of Implicit Linguistic Knowledge”. |
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Professors
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Dr. Braude studied Philosophy and English at Oberlin
College and the University of London, and in 1971 he received his Ph.D.
in Philosophy from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Braude
is past President of the Parapsychological Association and the
recipient of several grants and fellowships, including Research
Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the BIAL
Foundation in Portugal. He has published more than 50 philosophical
essays in such journals as Noûs;The Philosophical Review;
Philosophical Studies; Analysis; Inquiry; Philosophia; Philosophy,
Psychiatry and Psychology; The Journal of Scientific Exploration; and
The Journal of Trauma and Dissociation. He is also the author of four
books. |
Dr. Stephen E. Braude
braude@umbc.edu
Fine Arts 524
410-455-2005
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Joseph
Berkovitz
jberkov@umbc.edu
Fine Arts 522
410-455-3282
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Dr. Berkovitz
received a B.Sc. in Economics at the Technion (Israel Institute of
Technology), a M.A. in History and Philosophy of Science at the Hebrew
University, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge.
In his research, he has used philosophical analyses of probability and
causation in order to study the nature of the quantum realm, randomness
in deterministic physical processes, closed causal loops, causal
inference, and the conceptual foundations of decision theory. He also
has a strong interest in scientific methodology and political
philosophy. Before coming to UMBC, Berkovitz taught at the London
School of Economics. He has been awarded postdoctoral and visiting
fellowships at the University of Haifa, the University of Cambridge,
the University of Konstanz and the Pittsburgh Center for Philosophy of
Science. He is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of
Maryland College Park and an Associate Fellow at the Pittsburgh Center
for Philosophy of Science, and at the Centre for Philosophy of Natural
and Social Sciences at the London School of Economics.
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"My central philosophical interests concern understanding
the conditions that make possible our thought about and action in the
physical and social worlds around us. Much of my earlier research
focused upon linguistic aspects of this issue, in particular how
meaning and communication fit in to the natural world. I have also been
interested in the relation between commonsense psychology and other
scientific explanatory schemes. More recently I have become
increasingly interested in the nature of self-knowledge and human
freedom, as well as the relation between these two issues.
The philosophy courses I teach in which some of these
issues are addresssed are PHIL 470, Philosophy of MInd - which surveys
topics such as the mind-body problem, mental causation, personal
identity and freedom of will and action, and PHIL 445, Philosophy of
Language - which surveys topics such as the nature of linguistic
meaning and reference, the relation between language and thought, the
relation between language and the social and physical environments, the
possibility of communication, and speech acts."
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Steven Yalowitz
yalowitz@umbc.edu
Fine Arts 523
410-455-2108
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Jessica Pfeifer
pfeifer@umbc.edu
Fine Arts 541
410-455-2014
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Dr. Pfeifer
received a B.A. in Philosophy and Government at Wesleyan University and
in 1999 completed her PhD in Philosophy/Science Studies at the
University of California, San Diego. The primary focus of her research
has been on the nature of modal notions, and in particular the natural
necessity involved in lawful relations. She has also done related work
on the nature of properties, the distinction between natural and
artificial kinds, and John Stuart Mill's views about natural laws and
experimentation. More recently she has focused on questions in the
philosophy of biology, such as the use of information theory in various
biological contexts and the use of probability in the theory of natural
selection. Dr. Pfeifer is co-editor (along with Sahotra Sarkar) of the
two volume Philosophy of Science: An Encyclopedia (forthcoming). She
has also been a Visiting Fellow and is currently an Associate Fellow at
the Pittsburgh Center for Philosophy of Science. |
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"My primary interest is in ancient philosophy, especially Plato and
Aristotle. Most recently I have been working on topics in Greek
political philosophy. Democracy appeared for the first time in 5th
century Athens, and quickly came under sustained attack by Plato and
Aristotle among others. One question Plato and Aristotle raise is
how a political community can attain what is actually good for it by
pandering to whatever desires the citizens happen to have. On my
view, this concern drives their critique of democracy, and also
explains their treatment of education in the virtues as central to
political success.
I first thought I might want to read, write and teach for a living
while writing an essay on Oedipus Rex as a freshman at St. John's
College in Annapolis. After St. John's I studied Greek philosophy at
Cambridge University and the University of Chicago before enrolling
in the classical philosophy program at Princeton. While at Princeton
I came to realize that some good philosophy had actually been done
since the 4th century B.C., and so I started reading and thinking
about contemporary philosophy as well, especially ethics of all
kinds, political philosophy, and the philosophy of religion." Photo
by Lizzie Maughan. |
Zena Hitz
zenahitz@umbc.edu
Fine Arts 523
410-455-2038
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Visiting Assistant Professors
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Ben Dixon
bdixon@umbc.edu
Fine Arts 524
410-455-3995
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Instructors
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| Mr. Templeton
received his B.A. in Philosophy from Albright College in
1964, and his M.A. in Philosophy from Howard University in 1977. He
specializes in teaching critical thinking. |
Roye S. Templeton
rtemplet@umbc.edu
Fine Arts 526
410-455-2155
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Lecturers
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Adjunct Faculty
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Mr. Ealick received his B.A. in Philosophy from UMBC. He received a Master’s from The William Rice Institute for his work on the metaphysics of formal rationality theory. He currently is completing his PhD at College Park, where his research involves implications evolutionary theory has for the philosophy of mind.
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Greg Ealick
ealick@umbc.edu
Fine Arts 525
410-455-2010
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James Thomas
jathomas@umbc.edu
Fine Arts 521
410-455-3843
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Phil Seng
philseng@umbc.edu
Fine Arts 522
410-455-3282
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Emeritus Professors
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John M. Titchener
titchene@umbc.edu
Fine Arts 520
410-455-2015
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"I share with
G.E. Moore the belief that philosophical problems arise not so much
from the world as from what philosophers say about it. Are their
assertions true or false? How can one know? Does it make a difference?
In asking students to read philosophy we seem to presume that there is
some value in this activity which does not necessarily have to do with
its truth or falsity. In what, then, does this value lie? In differing
ways those classes that I have regularly taught such as PHIL 321,
History of Ancient Philosophy, and PHIL 346, Deductive Systems, attempt
to provide answers to these questions. How is it possible, in
philosophy, to admire a work that one believes to be wrong? One of my
favorite courses, on the book Godel, Escher, Bach, asks such questions
about the limits of logic, the perils of self-reference, and
differences between showing and telling."
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Administrative Assistant
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| The Philosophy
Department Administrative Assistant, Nafi, can answer many of the questions you may
have about the Philosophy Department or the courses being offered at
any time. She can also put you in touch with other faculty members,
with whom you may wish to speak further. |
Nafi Shahegh
shahegh@umbc.edu
Fine Arts 539
410-455-2103
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