Findlay Visiting Professor

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.

2021 – 2022

Lydia Patton (Virginia Tech)

Lydia Patton is a philosopher of science and a historian of the philosophy of science. Much of her recent work and work-in-progress centers on the philosophical analysis of science and the history of science: especially on the development of experimental and formal methods, hypotheses, frameworks, and scientific communities. Her work focuses on finding links between that development and the process of theory building and testing. Recent work focuses on the development of gravitation wave astronomy, especially the LIGO project.

Before the pandemic hit in 2020, Patton had a very active speaking career, nationally and internationally. She has been a featured speaker at the MidWest PhilMath Workshop, a keynote speaker at the Society for the Study of the History of Analytical Philosophy and the Tilburg History of Analytic Philosophy Workshop, and an invited speaker at multiple venues, notably the Institute Vienna Circle, Cambridge University, and Indiana University HPS. She has given about 60 talks overall, including at the Black Hole Institute’s inaugural conference, the Boston Colloquium for Philosophy of Science, the American Mathematical Society’s Joint Mathematics Meetings, the American Physical Society, and the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science.

In Spring 2022, Professor Patton taught CAS PH 470 Philosophy of Physics (undergraduate level) GRS PH 670 Philosophy of Physics (graduate level). Professor Patton delivered her Findlay Public Lecture in February on “Making and Breaking Theories: Multimodal Frameworks in Scientific Theory Change.”

Past Findlay Visiting Professors

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.

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 2014. 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.