Faculty
Department of Philosophy Faculty
Email: hagop.sarkissian@baruch.cuny.edu
Phone: (646) 312-4376
Location: VC 5-297
Personal Website
Hagop Sarkissian’s research is in ethical theory, broadly construed. He is a methodological pluralist, and uses resources from other disciplines to inform his philosophical endeavors, such as biology, game theory, and cognitive science. He also works in comparative Chinese-Western philosophy and on problems in the history of Chinese philosophy, especially the classical period (ca. 6th to 2nd century BCE).
Before joining the faculty at Baruch, he completed an M.A thesis in Chinese intellectual history in the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Toronto, and later a Ph.D. in the Department of Philosophy at Duke University.
Select Publications
Sarkissian, H. (forthcoming) “Me-knowledge and effective agency.” Oxford Studies in Epistemology. Edited by Julianne Chung
Sarkissian, H. (forthcoming) “Confucianism and ritual.” Oxford Handbook of Confucianism. Edited by Jennifer L. Oldstone-Moore
Sarkissian, H. (2022) “Meta-theories, interpretability, and human nature–A reply to Velleman.” Philosophy East & West 72.1:252-257
Sarkissian, H. (2022) “Well-functioning daos and moral relativism.” Philosophy East & West 72.1:230-247
Baimel, A., White, C., Sarkissian, H., & Norenzayan, A. (2022) “How is analytical thinking related to religious belief? A test of three theoretical models.” Religion, Brain & Behavior 11.3:239-260
Sarkissian, H. (2020). Skill and expertise in three schools of classical Chinese thought. In E. Fridland & C. Pavese (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Skill and Expertise. Routledge.
Sarkissian, H and Phelan, M. 2019. “Moral objectivism and a punishing God.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 80:1-7
Sarkissian, H. 2018. “Neo-Confucianism, experimental philosophy, and the trouble with intuitive methods.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 26.5:812-828
De Freitas, J., Sarkissian, H., Newman, G.E., Grossmann, I., De Brigard, F., Luco, A., and Knobe, J. 2018. “Consistent belief in a good true self in misanthropes and three interdependent cultures.” Cognitive Science (S1):134-160
Sarkissian, H. 2017. “Folk platitudes as the explananda of philosophical metaethics: Are they accurate? And do they help or hinder inquiry?” Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research 34:565-575
Sarkissian, H. 2017. “Situationism, manipulation, and objective self-awareness.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 20:489–503
Sarkissian, H. 2016. “Aspects of folk morality: objectivism and relativism.” In The Blackwell Companion to Experimental Philosophy. Edited by Wesley Buckwalter and Justin Sytsma.
Sarkissian, H. 2015. “When you think it’s bad it’s worse than you think: Psychological bias and the ethics of negative character assessments”. In The Philosophical Challenge from China. Brian Bruya (Ed.). MIT Press.
Sarkissian, H. 2014. “Is self-regulation a burden or a virtue? A comparative perspective.” In The Philosophy and Psychology of Character and Happiness: An Empirical Approach to Character and Happiness. Nancy E. Snow and Franco V. Trivigno (Ed.). (pp. 181-196). Routledge Press.
Knobe, J., Buckwalter, W., Robbins, P., Sarkissian, H., Sommers, T., and Nichols, S. 2012. “Experimental philosophy.” Annual Review of Psychology 63.1:81-99
Sarkissian, H., Park, J., Tien, D., Wright, J., Knobe, J. 2011. Folk moral relativism. Mind & Language, 26(4), 482-505.
Sarkissian, H. 2010. “The darker side of Daoist primitivism” The Journal of Chinese Philosophy 37.2:312-329
Sarkissian, H. 2010. Confucius and the effortless life of virtue. History of Philosophy Quarterly 27(1), 1-16.
Sarkissian, H. 2010. Minor tweaks, major payoffs: The problems and promise of situationism in moral philosophy. Philosopher’s Imprint 10(9), 1-15.
Email: Elizabeth.Edenberg@baruch.cuny.edu
Phone: (646) 312-4369
Location: VC 5-287
Personal Website
Elizabeth Edenberg specializes in political philosophy, political epistemology, and the ethics of emerging technologies. Her research investigates ways to develop mutual respect across the deep moral and political disagreements that characterize contemporary society, while securing just and legitimate structures of political cooperation that protect the equality and freedom marginalized populations. She also works in collaboration with computer scientists on broader ethical and political challenges posed by emerging technologies, especially questions of privacy, consent, and social justice as they arise within big data and artificial intelligence.
Prior to joining Baruch College, she served as Senior Ethicist and Assistant Research Professor at Georgetown University’s Ethics Lab where she led translational ethics projects designed to empower both students and experts to address the urgent issues of our time. She led collaborations with a wide variety of partners beyond the academy, from public impact projects to policy teams seeking practical progress on complex ethical issues. She also led Ethics Lab’s work integrating ethics into courses across the university, from computer science to international policy and foreign service.
Recent Publications:
Edenberg, E. & Hannon, M. (eds.). Political Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021.
Edenberg, E. (2021). “The Problem with Disagreement on Social Media: Moral not Epistemic.” In Elizabeth Edenberg and Michael Hannon (eds.), Political Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Edenberg, E. (2021). “Political Disagreement: Epistemic or Civic Peers?” In M. Hannon and J. de Ridder (eds.), Routledge Handbook on Political Epistemology. New York: Routledge.
Hannon, M., & Edenberg, E. (in press). “A Guide to Political Epistemology.” In A. McGlynn and J. Lackey (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Social Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jones, M. L., & Edenberg, E. (2020). “Troubleshooting AI and Consent.” In M. Dubber, S. Das, F. Pasquale (eds.), Oxford Handbook on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (pp. 347-362). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Little, M., Edenberg, E., Luken, S., & Healey, J. (2020). “Ethics Lab: Harnessing design methodologies for translational ethics.” In E. Brister and R. Frodeman (eds.), A Guide to Field Philosophy: Case Studies and Practical Strategies. (pp. 66-79). New York: Routledge.
Edenberg, E., Hanin, M., & Little, M. (2020). Ethics of Administrative Data Sharing: Agenda-Setting Framework. White Paper available here.
Hannon, M., & Edenberg, E. (2020). “Political Epistemology.” In D. Pritchard (ed.). Oxford Bibliographies Online. Oxford University Press.
Edenberg, E., & Jones, M. L. (2019). “Analyzing the Legal Roots and Moral Core of Digital Consent.” New Media and Society, 21(8), 1804-1823.
Edenberg, E. (2018). “Growing Up Sexist: Challenges to Rawlsian Stability.” Law and Philosophy, 37(6), 577-612.
Jones, M. L., Edenberg, E., & Kaufman, E. (2018). “AI and the Ethics of Automating Consent.” IEEE Security & Privacy, 16(3), 64-72.
Edenberg, E. (2018). “Cultivating Reasonableness in Future Citizens.” On Education. Journal for Research and Debate, 1(1).
Email: Jonathan.Gilmore@baruch.cuny.edu
Phone: (646) 312-4378
Location: VC 4-247
Personal Website
Jonathan Gilmore is a philosopher of art and an art critic. He is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Baruch College and the CUNY Graduate Center.
A 2013-2014 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, he was Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Yale University, and, earlier, a Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellow in the Society of Fellows at Princeton University. He is the recipient of NEH,Whiting, Mellon, and other national fellowships and awards.
His areas of research include the emotions, the imagination, philosophy of literature, philosophy of art history, artistic style, freedom of expression, and twentieth-century European philosophy. His criticism has appeared in Artforum, Art in America, ArtNews, Tema Celeste, and Modern Painters.
Email: douglas.lackey@baruch.cuny.edu
Phone: 646 312-4370
Location: VC 5-288
Douglas P. Lackey was a student of J. N. Findlay at Yale, completing his dissertation on the metaphysics of time in 1970. His work editing Russell’s published and unpublished papers in philosophical logic led to the anthology, Essays in Analysis, released by Allen and Unwin in 1973. Professor Lackey followed Russell’s footsteps by writing about nuclear weapons policy, and this lead to a broader interest in the ethics of war and peace. In this area Lackey published “Ethics and Nuclear Deterrence,” (in Rachel’s Moral Problems, 1972), “Missiles and Morals,” (Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1982), Moral Principles and Nuclear Weapons (Rowman and Littlefield, 1984), “Taking Risk Seriously,” (Journal of Philosophy, 1986), The Ethics of War and Peace (Prentice-Hall 1989), and Ethic and Strategic Defense (Wadsworth, 1990).
In recent years, Professor Lackey has published on the history of art “Giotto’s Mirror” (Studi Danteschi, 2002), and has become an active playwright: his drama Kaddish in East Jerusalem was produced at the Theater for the New City in March 2003. He was for several years the book review editor of the Journal of Neoplatonic Studies and is currently Associate Editor of The Philosophical Forum.
The play, Kaddish in East Jerusalem, has been revised and expanded into a new play, The Gandhi Nonviolent Soccer Club.
Email: Eric.Mandelbaum@baruch.cuny.edu
Phone: 646 312-4379
Location: VC 4-245
Research
I research foundational issues in cognitive science, mostly pertaining to cognitive architecture and the structure of thought. My current projects (as of fall 2022) are focused on: a comprehensive specification and defense of the Language of Thought using only contemporary empirical evidence from unconscious cognition, visual cognition, artificial intelligence, comparative psychology, and developmental psychology; the viability of whole brain emulation and the computational theory of mind; rationality and beliefs in delusional thinking; the role of fluency in belief acquisition and in judgments of (pseudo)profundity, as well as thinking about what constitutes actual profundity and whether it exists at all. Other recent work addresses models of unconscious inference and associative thinking, modularity, visual categorization, the mechanics of ensemble representations, the iconicity of language, the phonetics of slurs, computational theories of cognition and consciousness, the structure of mental representations, and broad topics in belief acquisition, storage, and change. I’m currently writing a book on the Psychofunctional Theory of Belief (for OUP) and another on the Divided Mind.
Teaching
Recent courses include Philosophy & Psychology; Introduction to Cognitive Science; Capstone on Belief; Doxastic Cartography (Graduate); Noncanonical Cognition (Graduate); Evil and Stupidity (Graduate). I also oversaw the ZTC/OER/hybrid overhaul of Phil 1600 (Logic and Moral Reasoning), which I also program manage, and teach.
REPRESENTATIVE PUBLICATIONS
“The Best Game in Town: The Re-Emergence of the Language of Thought Hypothesis Across the Cognitive Sciences” (with Jake Quilty-Dunn & Nic Porot) Behavioral and Brain Sciences. Target article. Forthcoming.
“How the Cognitive Science of Belief Can Transform the Study of Mental Health” (with Nic Porot). JAMA Psychiatry, forthcoming.
“The Sound of Slurs: A Phonoaesthetic Theory” (with Steven Young). Oxford Studies in Experimental Philosophy (eds. Joshua Knobe and Shaun Nichols), forthcoming.
“Everything and More: The Prospects of Whole Brain Emulation” Journal of Philosophy, 19, no. 8: 444-459, (2022). https://doi.org/10.5840/jphil2022119830.
“The Science of Belief: A Progress Report,” (with Nic Porot) WIREs Cognitive Science, (2021). https://doi.org/10.1002/wcs.1539
“The Outlier Paradox: The Role of Iterative Ensemble Coding in Discounting Outliers” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance (with Michael Epstein, Jake Quilty-Dunn, & Tatiana Emmanouil), 46, no. 11: 1267–1279, (2020). https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000857
“Modularist Explanations of Experience and Other Illusions.” Consciousness and Cognition 76 (2019).
“Troubles with Bayesianism: An Introduction to the Psychological Immune System”, Mind and Language (2019)
“Against Dispositionalism: Belief in Cognitive Science”, (with Jake Quilty-Dunn) Philosophical Studies (2018)
“Inferential Transitions”, (with Jake Quilty-Dunn) Australasian Journal of Philosophy (2018).
“Seeing and Conceptualizing: Modularity and the Shallow Contents Of Perception,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (2018) 94:3
“Attitude, Inference, Association: On the Propositional Structure of Implicit Bias”, Nous (2016).
Email: Sandeep.Sreekumar@baruch.cuny.edu
Phone: 646 312-4363
Location: VC 5-286
B.A. , LL.B (Hons) National Law School of India
BCL , DPhil Oxford University
Rhodes Scholarship 1999, Oxford University
Academic Interests: Legal, political and moral philosophy
Email: thomas.teufel@baruch.cuny.edu
Phone: 646-312-4368
Location: VC 5-296
Prof. Teufel’s research focuses on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, particularly on the intersection between Kant’s theoretical philosophy in the Critique of Pure Reason and his philosophy of beauty and life in the Critique of the Power of Judgment.
He is currently working on two book projects: a volume on Kant’s Teleology (CUP), and a monograph on Kant’s third Critique, working title: Nature, Purpose, Sentiment: Kant’s ‘Critique of the Power of Judgment.’
Education
Ph.D., Harvard University
Research Interests
Kant, Early Modern Philosophy, Aesthetics
Selected Publications
(forthcoming) “Stanley Cavell and the Critique of the Linguistic Power of Judgment.” In: S. Marino, P. Terzi (eds.), Kant’s Critique of Aesthetic Judgment in the 20th Century. De Gruyter.
(forthcoming) “Teleological Power of Judgment: Dialectic.” In: M. Timmons, S. Baiasu (eds.), The Kantian Mind. Routledge.
(forthcoming) “Aesthetic Idea.” In: J. Wuerth (ed.), The Cambridge Kant Lexicon. Cambridge University Press.
(forthcoming) “Power of Judgment.” In: J. Wuerth (ed.), The Cambridge Kant Lexicon. Cambridge University Press.
(2018) “‘Much that is Unnameable’ in Nature and in Art: Kant’s Doctrine of Aesthetic Ideas.” In: V. Waibel (ed.), Freedom and Nature. Proceedings of the XII International Kant Congress. DeGruyter, pp. 3113-3121.
(2017) “Kant’s Transcendental Principle of Purposiveness and the ‘Maxim of the Lawfulness of Empirical Laws.’” In: M. Massimi & A. Breitenbach (eds.), Kant and the Laws of Nature. Cambridge University Press, pp. 108-127.
(2016) “Hannah Ginsborg: The Normativity of Nature.” (Book Review) Internationales Jahrbuch des deutschen Idealismus, vol. 11, pp. 339-343.
(2016) “Nathaniel Goldberg: Kantian Conceptual Geography.” (Book Review) Philosophical Forum, vol. 47.1, pp. 79-82.
(2015) “Jennifer Mensch: Kant’s Organicism.” (Book Review) HOPOS, The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science vol. 5.1, pp. 190-194.
(2014) “Giuseppe Motta: Die Postulate Des Empirischen Denkens Überhaupt.” (Book Review) https://virtualcritique.wordpress.com.
(2014) “The Impossibility of a Newton of the Blade of Grass in Kant’s Teleology”. In: J.H. Smith & O. Nachtomy (eds.), The Life Sciences in Early Modern Philosophy. Oxford University Press, pp. 47-61.
(2013) “Merely Mechanistic Laws: Causal Mechanism and Kant’s Antinomy of the Teleological Power of Judgment.” In: C. Rocca (ed.), Kant and Philosophy in a Cosmopolitan Sense. Proceedings of the XI International Kant Congress. Berlin: DeGruyter, pp. 261-270.
Temporary Appointments (AY 2022-2023)
Email: amyelizabeth.trautwein@baruch.cuny.edu
Adjunct Assistant Professor 3-Year Appointment PhD, University of Iowa
Graduate Teaching Fellows (AY 2022-2023)
Email: Corey.Beckford@baruch.cuny.edu
Corey Beckford is a doctoral student at the City University of New York, Graduate Center. He specializes in 18th-Century German Philosophy, particularly Immanuel Kant; and the History of Philosophy of Race and Racism. For more information, visit his website at https://www.coreybeckford.org.
Adjunct Professors and Lecturers (AY 2022-2023)
Robert Carleo iii
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Patricia Cipollitti
Adjunct Lecturer
Email: Ross.Colebrook@baruch.cuny.edu
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Ph.D., CUNY GC
Ross Colebrook’s research is at the intersection of moral psychology, metaethics, and experimental philosophy. He is especially interested in how people conceive of their own morality, the psychological underpinnings of moral judgment, and whether right and wrong are objective and universal, or subjective and culturally relative. His most recent article, “The Irrationality of Folk Metaethics” appeared in the journal Philosophical Psychology. Having lived in New York City for the past ten years, he has taught philosophy at Brooklyn College, Hunter College, Medgar Evers College, Baruch College, St. Francis College, and New York University. Recently, he has been working on explaining the psychological processes and personality factors that cause people to label judgments ‘moral’ in the first place.
Jessica Polish
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Juliette Vazard is a Postdoctoral researcher at CUNY Graduate Center. She works at the intersection of philosophy of mind, epistemology, and cognitive science.
She completed her PhD at the University of Geneva (Switzerland) and the Institut Jean Nicod (France). You can visit her website: https://www.juliettevazardphilosophy.com/
Emeritus
William J. Earle
Professor PhD, Columbia University Metaphysics; Contemporary Philosophy (Analytical and Continental)
Email: william.earle@baruch.cuny.edu
Phone: 646 312-4369
Location: VC 5-287
William James Earle is Professor of Philosophy at Baruch College and the Graduate Center, The City University of New York. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University, where he studied with Justus Buchler and Arthur Danto, and wrote a dissertation on William James entitled “James’s ‘Stream of Thought’ As Point of Departure for Metaphysics.”
He has taught at Baruch College since 1983. A former Woodrow Wilson and National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, he has written many scholarly articles, including the article on William James in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy. His textbook, Introduction to Philosophy: A Guidebook, is used internationally. He thinks philosophy, at every level, has a single goal: to increase by all possible means clarity-of-mind or lucidity, and this focus is reflected in his approach to teaching, as well as his special affection for the introductory course. He specializes in contemporary metaphysics, whether from a continental or analytical perspective. Professor Earle is also the editor-in-chief of the international quarterly, The Philosophical Forum.
Administrative Staff
Henry Ngai
FWS Student Aide