Faculty

David O. Brink

dbrink@ucsd.edu

UC Distinguished Professor and Interim Department Chair
Valtz Family Endowed Chair in Philosophy
Ph.D. Cornell University, 1985
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 - Arts & Humanities - Room 0480, Phone: (858) 534-4881

Ethical theory, history of ethics, and jurisprudence; historical and systematic perspectives on practical reason, moral demands, and the normativity of ethics; nature of law and legal interpretation in substantive areas of constitutional and criminal jurisprudence

Saba Bazargan-Forward

sbazargan@ucsd.edu

Associate Professor
Ph.D. Rutgers University, 2009
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 - Arts & Humanities - Room 0458, Phone: (858) 822-2685

Normative ethics; individual responsibility for collective action; complicity; war ethics; ethics of benefiting from injustice

Reuven Brandt

rabrandt@ucsd.edu

Assistant Professor
Ph.D. University of Western Ontario, 2015
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 - Arts & Humanities - Room 0497, Tel: (858) 822-2806

Applied ethics with a focus on human reproduction and responsibility

David O. Brink

dbrink@ucsd.edu

UC Distinguished Professor and Interim Department Chair
Valtz Family Endowed Chair in Philosophy
Ph.D. Cornell University, 1985
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 - Arts & Humanities - Room 0480, Phone: (858) 534-4881

Ethical theory, history of ethics, and jurisprudence; historical and systematic perspectives on practical reason, moral demands, and the normativity of ethics; nature of law and legal interpretation in substantive areas of constitutional and criminal jurisprudence

Craig Callender

ccallender@ucsd.edu

Professor
Ph.D. Rutgers University, 1997
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 - Arts & Humanities - Room 0456, Phone: (858) 822-4911

Philosophy of physics, the metaphysics of science, and philosophy of science in general

Jennifer Carr

j2carr@ucsd.edu

Associate Professor
Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2013
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 - Arts & Humanities - Room 0466, Phone: (858) 246-2499

Theoretical philosophy, including epistemology, logic, decision theory, and philosophy of language

Nancy Cartwright

ncartwright@ucsd.edu

UC Distinguished Professor
Ph.D. University of Illinois
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 - Arts & Humanities - Room 0449, Phone: (858) 793-1979

Philosophy of the natural, social and policy sciences with specialization in physics and economics; questions of causality, objectivity in science, and evidence, especially for evidence-based policy

Eddy Keming Chen

eddykemingchen@ucsd.edu

Associate Professor
Ph.D. Rutgers University, 2019
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 - Arts & Humanities - Room 0493, Phone: (858) 534-9281

Jonathan Cohen

cohen@ucsd.edu

Professor
Ph.D. Rutgers University, 2000
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 - Arts & Humanities - Room 0453, Phone: (858) 534-6812

Philosophy of mind, language, and perception, particularly as these are informed by the cognitive sciences; color and color vision

David Danks

ddanks@ucsd.edu

Professor
Ph.D. University of California, San Diego, 2001
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 - Arts & Humanities - Room 0462, Phone: (858) 246-4549
Ethics & technology, philosophy of science, causation, and cognitive science

Matthew Fulkerson

mfulkerson@ucsd.edu

Associate Professor
Ph.D. University of Toronto, 2010
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 - Arts & Humanities - Room 0495, Phone: (858) 534-6643

Philosophy of mind and philosophy of cognitive science; philosophical issues that arise from the investigation of human haptic touch; multisensory experience, spatial representation, the affective character of perception, and the relationship between perception and bodily awareness

Rick Grush

rgrush@ucsd.edu

Professor
Ph.D. University of California, San Diego, 1995
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 - Arts & Humanities - Room 0457, Phone: (858) 822-4440

Theoretical cognitive neuroscience and the metaphysics of mind and representation; interests in linguistics and early modern; emulation theory of representation, and spatial and temporal representation

Michael Hardimon

mhardimon@ucsd.edu

Professor
Ph.D. University of Chicago, 1985
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 - Arts & Humanities - Room 0492, Phone: (858) 822-0473

Critical philosophy of race, 19th century German philosophy (especially Hegel), role theory

Mara Harrell

mharrell@ucsd.edu

Teaching Professor
Ph.D. University of California, San Diego, 2000
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 - Arts & Humanities - Room 0464, Phone: (858) 246-4548

Pedagogy, Philosophy of Physics, Ethics and Public Health, Epistemology & Metaphysics, Ethics and Social-Political Philosophy, Philosophy of Science

Monte Johnson

monte@ucsd.edu

Professor
Ph.D. University of Toronto, 2003
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 - Arts & Humanities - Room 0451, Phone: N/A

Early Greek philosophy; Aristotle Studies; Hellenistic philosophy; the reception of Greco-Roman philosophy in modern philosophy and science; the reconstruction of lost and fragmentary works; and comparative ancient philosophy

Alexander (Arc) Kocurek

akocurek@ucsd.edu

Assistant Professor
Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley, 2018
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 – Arts & Humanities - Room 0445, Phone: TBD

Philosophical logic, philosophy of language, metaphysics & epistemology

Karen Kovaka

kkovaka@ucsd.edu

Assistant Professor 
Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania, 2017
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 - Arts & Humanities - Room 0450, Phone: (858) 534-6802

Conceptual foundations of evolutionary biology, public understanding of and participation in science, and philosophy of environmental conservation

Andy Lamey

alamey@ucsd.edu

Teaching Professor
Ph.D. University of Western Australia, 2011
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 - Arts & Humanities - Room 0491, Phone (858) 534-9111

Applied ethics, normative ethics and political philosophy

Patricia Marechal

pmarechal@ucsd.edu

Assistant Professor
Ph.D. Harvard University, 2018
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 - Arts & Humanities - Room 0498, Phone (858) 534-9190

Ancient Greek philosophy, especially Plato and Aristotle's moral psychology and ethics. And Greco-Roman medicine, especially Galen

Kerry McKenzie

kmckenzie@ucsd.edu

Associate Professor
Ph.D. University of Leeds, England, 2012
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 - Arts & Humanities - Room 0499, Phone (858) 534-2566

Metaphysics of science, especially modality, fundamentality, structuralism, naturalism, and realism

Dana Nelkin

dnelkin@ucsd.edu

Professor
Ph.D. University of California, Los Angeles, 1995
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 - Arts & Humanities - Room 0479, Phone: (858) 822-3658

Moral psychology, ethics, and philosophy of action

Samuel Rickless

srickless@ucsd.edu

Professor
Ph.D. University of California, Los Angeles, 1996
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 - Arts & Humanities - Room 0494, Phone: (858) 822-4910

Ancient philosophy (particularly Plato), early modern philosophy (particularly Locke and Berkeley), ethics, and jurisprudence

Rachel Rudolph

rrudolph@ucsd.edu

Assistant Professor
Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley, 2019
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 – Arts & Humanities - Room 443, Phone: TBD

Philosophy of language and mind, especially their intersections with value theory and social philosophy; conceptual engineering; philosophy of artificial intelligence

Gila Sher

gsher@ucsd.edu

Professor
Ph.D. Columbia University, 1989
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 - Arts & Humanities - Room 0482, Phone: (858) 534-8504

Foundational issues involving knowledge, truth, and logic

Christopher Shields

cjshields@ucsd.edu

UC Distinguished Professor
Henry E. Allison Endowed Chair in the History of Philosophy
Ph.D. Cornell University, 1986
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 - Arts & Humanities – Room 0447, Phone: (858) 534-3072

Ancient Philosophy and Metaphysics

Clinton Tolley

ctolley@ucsd.edu

Professor
Ph.D. University of Chicago, 2007
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 - Arts & Humanities - Room 0496, Phone: (858) 822-2686

History of modern European philosophy, with focuses on Kant and German Idealism, early analytic philosophy, phenomenology, philosophical psychology, critical theory and the philosophy of culture (incl aesthetics); the reception-history of European philosophy in the Americas (esp the US and Mexico); Mexican philosophy

Manuel Vargas

mrvargas@ucsd.edu

Professor
Ph.D. Stanford, 2001
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 - Arts & Humanities - Room 0468, Phone: (858) 534-8135

Moral psychology, free will, moral responsibility, Latin American and Latinx philosophy

Eric Watkins

ewatkins@ucsd.edu

UC Distinguished Professor
Ph.D. University of Notre Dame, 1994
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 - Arts & Humanities - Room 0486, Phone: (858) 822-0082

Kant's theoretical philosophy and its place within modern philosophy and science; early modern philosophy (especially Leibniz), German idealism and the history of philosophy of science

Yuan Yuan

yuy100@ucsd.edu

Assistant Professor
Ph.D. Yale University, 2020
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 – Arts & Humanities - Room 0470, Phone: TBD

Ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of law, and just war theory

Mary Devereaux

mdevereaux@ucsd.edu 

Chief of Bioethics, Rady Children’s Hospital
Director, UCSD Biomedical Ethics Seminars
Assistant Director, Research Ethics Program & San Diego Research Ethics Consortium
Department of Pathology
Ph.D. in Philosophy, University of Chicago, 1981
Office: BSB 2092, Phone: (858)822-5764

Bioethics, Clinical Ethics, Research Ethics, Stem Cell Ethics, Medical Humanities, Aesthetics

David Wiens

dwiens@ucsd.edu 

Associate Professor, Political Science; Faculty Affiliate, Philosophy
Ph.D. in Philosophy, University of Michigan, 2011
Office: SSB 387

Political philosophy, philosophy of social science, game theory and social choice theory, political economy.

Henry E. Allison

hea@surewest.net

Professor Emeritus

Kant, Spinoza, German idealism, and eighteenth and nineteenth-century philosophy 

Georgios Anagnostopoulos

ganagnostopoulos@ucsd.edu

Professor Emeritus
Ph.D. Brandeis University, 1971

Ancient philosophy centered around ethics, metaphysics, science, technology and human values

Richard Arneson

rarneson@ucsd.edu

Professor Emeritus
Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley, 1975
Ridge Walk Academic Complex - Bldg 1 - Arts & Humanities - Room 0489, Phone: (858) 534-6810

Political and moral philosophy, with an emphasis on theories of justice; some applied ethics 

William Bechtel

bill@mechanism.ucsd.edu

Patricia Churchland

pschurchland@ucsd.edu

Professor Emerita
B.Phil. Oxford University, 1969

Interface between neuroscience and philosophy; explores the impact of neuroscientific developments on our understanding of consciousness, the self, free will, decision making, ethics, learning, and religion

Paul Churchland

pchurchland@ucsd.edu

Professor Emeritus
Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh, 1969

Philosophy of science (neurosciences, physics, astronomy); philosophy of mind (psychology); epistemology (cognitive science, artificial intelligence); philosophy of language; and the history of philosophy 

Gerald Doppelt

gdoppelt@ucsd.edu

Professor Emeritus
Ph.D. Johns Hopkins University, 1969

Philosophy of science and political philosophy including theory of justice, Rawls work, political liberalism, multiculturalism, the role of self-respect in political theory, communitarianism, and issues of gender and race

Edward Lee

enlee@ucsd.edu

Professor Emeritus
Ph.D. Princeton University

Donald Rutherford

drutherford@ucsd.edu

Professor Emeritus
Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley, 1988

Early modern philosophy and the reception of ancient philosophy in the early modern period; Kant's critical philosophy and its development, and Nietzsche