Faculty
Gordon C.F. Bearn, Ph.D.
Yale University, 1985, Professor
Professor Bearn has published a book on Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, Waking to Wonder (1997), and a number of essays on epistemological relativism, on the philosophers Cavell, Wittgenstein, Derrida, Lyotard, Deleuze, and on the architectural work of Arakawa and Gins. He has completed a book manuscript working out a Deleuze-inspired aesthetics of existence: Life Drawing: An Aesthetics of Existence. He is currently working on an interpretation of the war of succession that divided Analytic Philosophy in the 1950’s between the heirs of Russell and Carnap and the heirs of Austin and Wittgenstein. Professor Bearn’s interest in this decade is motored by a desire to develop a Sensual Semantics, that is, to provide a philosophical account of the foundational importance of the sensual dimensions of linguistic life. His hypothesis is that Sensual Semantics appeared on the horizon during the 1950’s in what is called Ordinary Language Philosophy, it was eliminated in 1967 when Grice presented his account of conversational implicature in his William James Lectures. Grice’s defense of the Russell-Carnap tradition against that of Austin and Wittgenstein begs the question.
Mark H. Bickhard, Ph.D.
University of Chicago, 1973, Henry R. Luce Professor in Cognitive Robotics and the Philosophy of Knowledge
Professor Bickhard’s extensive interest includes the Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Science, and Epistemology. For further information, CV, and publications please visit Professor Bickhard's personal website.
Robin S. Dillon, Ph.D.
University of Pittsburg, 1987, William Wilson Selfridge Professor of Philosophy and Department Chair
Professor Dillon’s academic interests are in ethics and feminist philosophy. Her research focuses on self-respect, seeking to understand what it is, why it matters morally whether and how we respect ourselves, and what the connections are between self-respect and respect for and from other people. She works in the intersection of virtue ethics, moral psychology, political philosophy, and feminist ethics, and looks to Kant and Aristotle for insight and inspiration. She regularly teaches a first-year seminar on self-respect, as well as various courses in ethics (ethical theory, contemporary ethics, bioethics, global ethics) and in social and political philosophy. In addition, she teaches a course on feminist theory, which is cross-listed with the Women’s Studies Program, with which she has been involved for many years, including seven as Program Director.
Steve L. Goldman, Ph.D.
Boston University, 1971, Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor in the Humanities
While Professor Goldman’s teaching centers on the history, philosophy, and social relations of (natural) science and technology, his core research interest is the tension between the ideas of necessity and contingency in the Western intellectual tradition, from Plato versus the Sophists through skepticism versus rationalism to analytic philosophy versus pragmatism/continental philosophy. Professor Goldman explores this tension in a variety of courses and publications ranging from philosophy to business.
Michael Mendelson, Ph.D.
University of California at San Diego, 1990, Associate Professor
In so far as taxonomy matters, it can be said that Professor Mendelson has strong interests in ancient, medieval, and modern philosophy, combined with a more than passing interest in eastern philosophy and a recurrent obsession with the endeavor that goes under the dubious rubric of “metaphilosophy” (a bit of taxonomy of which he is even less fond than usual). In both his research and teaching, Professor Mendelson attempts to examine various forms of existential and theoretical confidence often presupposed by both our pre-reflective intuitions and the philosophical reflection that arises out of these intuitions. In particular, he is interested in exploiting the philosophically neglected resources of “the gothic,” both in its quasi-canonical 18th and 19th century incarnations and in its even less respectable if more enduring sub-canonical manifestations, as a prism through which these various forms of confidence can be viewed and subjected to reflective examination.
Gregory M. Reihman, Ph.D.
University of Texas at Austin, 2001, Adjunct Professor of Philosophy, Director of Faculty Development,
co-Director of the Lehigh Lab
Professor Reihman’s teaching and research interests include the history of modern philosophy, classical Chinese philosophy, comparative philosophy, and philosophies of technology and education. On any given day, these interests might lead him to investigations into how Western philosophers have interpreted Eastern philosophy, into how modern philosophers critiqued and built on the works of their predecessors, into how technologies shape our view of what counts as real, or into how university teachers can best help students learn.For further information, please visit the following sites:
Professor Reihman's personal website
Roslyn Weiss, Ph.D.
Columbia University, 1982, Clara H. Stewardson Professor
Professor Weiss is interested in ancient Greek philosophy—and especially in Plato. She has written books and articles on several of Plato’s dialogues, including the Crito, Meno, Protagoras, Gorgias, and Republic. Taking seriously the dramatic aspects of Plato’s dialogues as well as the arguments the dialogues contain, Weiss discovers a Plato who loves and seeks wisdom rather than one who promotes a set of fixed doctrines. She also specializes in medieval Jewish philosophy, devoting most of her attention to Maimonides and to what he might be saying between the lines. She is fascinated by the difference between the Greek, or “philosophical,” way of trying to understand the world on the one hand, and faith’s way on the other, and by their divergent approaches to moral matters.
Aladdin M. Yaqub, Ph.D.
University of Wisconsin at Madison, 1991, Associate Professor
Professor’s Yaqub primary areas of research are logic, philosophy of mathematics, metaphysics, and Islamic Philosophy. However, he is also interested in philosophy of science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of mind, and the history of analytic philosophy. The questions that interest him the most are metaphysical in nature. When investigating the nature of a concept, a philosophical thesis, or a certain answer to a philosophical question, Yaqub always studies the metaphysical implications of the relevant positions.