The John Findlay Visiting Professorship was created by the Board of Trustees on July 6, 1993 in honor of Professor John Findlay, a former faculty member of the Department of Philosophy and outstanding philosopher. The purpose of this chair is to bring an outstanding associate or full professor of philosophy to Boston University for either one semester or a full academic year.
Findlay Visiting Professors, in addition to being present in some form on campus for one to two semesters, also teach one course in the Department of Philosophy and deliver a public lecture at some point during their term. Learn more below about our current Findlay Visiting Professor and stay tuned for more details on past FVPs and more information.
2023 – 2024
Bernard Reginster (Brown)
Bernard Reginster is Romeo Elton Professor of Natural Theology in the Philosophy Department at Brown University. He studied music in the Académies of Uccle and Bouillon (Belgium), and philosophy and psychology at the University of Louvain (Belgium). He also studied philosophy at the University of Münster (Germany), and received his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on ethics and moral psychology in 19th and 20th century European philosophy, and on philosophical issues arising from psychoanalytic theory. Along with numerous articles, he has published two books, The Affirmation of Life (Harvard University Press, 2006) and The Will to Nothingness (Oxford University Press, 2021), and another, The Aim of Revenge is forthcoming (Cambridge University Press). He has received fellowships from the Princeton University Center for Human Value, the National Humanities Center, the Brown Cogut Institute for the Humanities, and the Erikson Institute, and he was awarded the John Rowe Workman Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Humanities at Brown University.
Fall 2023
Title: Shame and Resentment
Course #: CAS PH 880 A2
Meeting Time: Tue 3:30-6:15pm
Click Here to Download Course Description
Past Findlay Visiting Professors
2021 – 2022
Lydia Patton
Lydia Patton (Virginia Tech) is a philosopher of science and a historian of the philosophy of science.
2017 – 2018
Jack Copeland
Jack Copeland (University of Canterbury) is a philosopher of logic and the author of books on the computing pioneer Alan Turing.
2013
Alfredo Ferrarin
Alfredo Ferrarin (University of Pisa) is a philosopher and the author of seven books, including Hegel and Aristotle and The Powers of Pure Reason: Kant and the Idea of Cosmic Philosophy.
2012 – 2013
Drew Hyland
Drew Hyland (Trinity College) is an American philosopher who has taught at the University of Toronto, BU, the New School for Social Research, and is now the Charles A. Dana Professor of Philosophy at Trinity College. His work spans Ancient Greek philosophy, 19th and 20th century Continental philosophy, philosophy of sport, and philosophy of art.
2011 – 2012
Amélie Oksenberg Rorty
Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (BU) was an American philosopher known for her work in the philosophy of mind, history of philosophy, and moral philosophy. In addition to her work as a Findlay at BU, Dr. Rorty taught classes in philosophy at Harvard, Tufts University, Brandeis University, and a range of other institutions.
2010 – 2011
Roger Crisp
Roger Crisp (Oxford) is a professor of moral philosophy and works in the field of ethics, particularly exploring metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. While a Findlay, Dr. Crisp taught History of Ethics and led a graduate-level seminar on ethics.
2010
Mitchell Miller
Mitchell Miller (Vassar College) is an American philosopher working on the late dialogues of Plato, Hesiod, Parmenides, and Hegel.
2009
John Gray
John Gray (London School of Economics & Political Science) is a British philosopher who works in political and analytical philosophy and the history of ideas. In addition to teaching and scholarship, Dr. Grey contributes regularly to The Guardian, The Times Literary Supplement, and New Statesmen, where he is the lead book reviewer.
2008 – 2009
Susan James
Susan James (Birkbeck College) is a British professor well known for her work on the history of seventeenth and eighteenth-century philosophy, political and social philosophy, and feminist philosophy.
2007 – 2008
Peter Vanderschraaf
Peter Vanderschraaf (Arizona) is a philosopher currently working in the University of Arizona’s Political Economy & Moral Science department. His work explores political philosophy, game theory, ethics, Hobbesian and Humean moral and political theory. While a Findlay, Dr. Vanderschraaf taught Great Philosophers and Philosophy of Social Science.
2006
Anat Biletzki
Anat Biletzki (Tel Aviv University) is a professor of philosophy at Quinnipiac University and Tel Aviv University; she teaches and researches human rights, political thought, analytic philosophy, and digital culture. While serving as a Findlay, Dr. Biletzki taught Reasoning & Argumentation and The Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights.
2005 – 2006
Alan White
Alan White (Williams College) is an American philosopher and the former president of the Metaphysical Society of America. Dr. White presented his Findlay Public Lecture, “Can Philosophy be Systematic, and Ought it to Be?”
2005
Kenneth P. Winkler
Kenneth P. Winkler (Yale) is a philosopher whose work has explored American philosophy, metaphysics, and Early Modern philosophy.
2003 – 2004
P.J. Ivanhoe
P.J. Ivanhoe (Georgetown) is a philosopher and historian of Chinese thought, particularly on Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism. Dr. Ivanhoe taught an upper-level course on virtue ethics and a course on Chinese philosophy, and gave his Findlay Public Lecture on “The Value of Spontaneity.”
2002 – 2003
Stephen Mulhall
Stephen Mulhall (Oxford) is a philosopher and Fellow at Oxford. His research has focused on Wittgenstein, Heidegger, post-Kantian philosophy, and Stanley Cavell. Dr. Mulhall gave his Findlay Public Lecture on “Ethics in the Light of Wittgenstein.”
Spring 2002
Jenny Teichman
Jenny Teichman (University of Cambridge) was an Australian-British philosopher whose work explored ethics, philosophy of mind, pacificism, and war.
Spring 2002
Thomas Ricketts
Thomas Ricketts (UPenn) is an American philosopher whose research interes explore the development of Analytic Philosophy, especially the work of Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Carnap, and Quine.
Fall 2001
David Wiggins
David Wiggins (Oxford) is an English moral philosopher, metaphysician, and philosophical logician working especially on identity and issues in meta-ethics.
Spring 2001
Rémi Brague
Rémi Brague (Université Panthéon-Sorbonne) is a French historian of philosophy who focuses on philosophy in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism in the Middle Ages.
Fall 2000
Drew Hyland
Drew Hyland (Trinity College) is an American philosopher who has taught at the University of Toronto, BU, the New School for Social Research, and is now the Charles A. Dana Professor of Philosophy at Trinity College. His work spans Ancient Greek philosophy, 19th and 20th century Continental philosophy, philosophy of sport, and philosophy of art.
Spring 2000
Owen Flanagan
Owen Flanagan (Duke University) is a Professor of Philosophy and Neurobiology. Flanagan has done work in philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of social science, ethics, contemporary ethical theory, moral psychology, as well as on cross-cultural philosophy. Flanagan is also an alumnus of BU’d Ph.D. Philosophy program.
Spring 1999
David Wong
David Wong (Duke University) is an American philosopher with a focus on ethics, moral psychology, comparative ethics, and Chinese philosophy. He is especially well known for his defense of a version of moral relativism.
Spring 1997
William Desmond
William Desmond (Penn State University) is an Irish philosopher who has written on ontology, metaphysics, ethics, and religion. One of his most important contributions to contemporary philosophy is the concept of the “metaxological” in metaphysics.
Spring 1995
Rémi Brague
Rémi Brague (Université Panthéon-Sorbonne) is a French historian of philosophy who focuses on philosophy in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism in the Middle Ages.
Spring 1995
Henry Allison
Henry Allison (UC San Diego, BU) was a Findlay Visiting Professor before joining BU Philosophy permanently, teaching in our department until his retirement in 2004. Dr. Allison is one of the eminent English-speaking Kant scholars and also explored Spinoza, 18th and 19th-century philosophy, transcendental idealism, freedom of the will, and the concept of the purposiveness of nature.