Ching-E (Nobel) Ang
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy
Office: LA 246
Education
PhD, Philosophy (2009), University of Florida
MA, Philosophy (2004), University of Florida
BA, Philosophy (2001), National University of Singapore
My philosophical interests are in normative ethics, moral psychology, as well as certain areas of bioethics such as the ethics of stem cell research. Recently, I have also developed an interest in Continental philosophy, in particular, the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre. I am currently trying to work out what a Sartrean ethics would look like.
Even though I enjoy thinking about philosophical problems, I enjoy thinking and talking about philosophical problems with other people even more. In particular, I very much enjoy teaching Introduction to Philosophy, and getting students to form a connection with the ideas and methods of different thinkers from different philosophical traditions.
I am also an avid chess player. I am keenly aware that there is a strong connection between chess and philosophy which draws me to both activities, but I have yet to really figure out exactly what that connection is. Perhaps this is a start: There is no room for existential angst within a chess game. All the pieces know what their roles are, and the end goal (checkmate) is always crystal clear!
Recent Publications
"Positive Freedom as Exercise of Rational Ability: A Kantian Defense of Positive Liberty", The Journal of Value Inquiry, Volume 48, Issue 1 (March 2014), pp. 1-16, DOI:10.1007/s10790-013-9399-4.
"Procrastination as Rational Weakness of Will," The Journal of Value Inquiry, Volume 46, Issue 4 (2012), pp. 403-416, DOI: 10.1007/s10790-013-9357-1.
Courses Taught
4425/5525: Existentialism
4400/5500: Philosophy of Art
2230: Medical Ethics
1103: Introduction to Ethics
1101: Introduction to Philosophy
Ralph Baergen
Professor of Philosophy; Chair, Human Subjects Committee
Office: LA 247
Education
PhD, Philosophy (1990), Syracuse University
MPH (2008), Idaho State University
MA, Philosophy (1989), Syracuse University
BA, Religion (1983), University of Manitoba
Although my philosophical roots are in epistemology, over the last decade or so my interests have moved into medical ethics. Much of my work involves collaborating with people in other disciplines. For instance:
(2021) C. Owens, R. Baergen, “Pharmacy Practice in High-Volume Settings: Barriers and Ethical Responsibilities,” Pharmacy 9 (2), 74. https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmacy9020074.
(2013) C. Owens, R. Baergen, D. Puckett, "Online Sources of Herbal Product Information" American Journal of Medicine.
(2013) S. Lawyer, R. Baergen, B. Kuruvilla, "Ethical Conduct of Laboratory Experimental Research on Fear and Anxiety: Review and Recommendat ions." Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry vol. 15, no. 3.
(2013) R Baergen, W Woodhouse "Surrogates and Extra-Familial Interests," centerpiece of a special section in The Journal of Clinical Ethics.
Courses Taught
6600: Ethics in Healthcare
4460/5560: Theories of Knowledge
2230: Medical Ethics
1103: Introduction to Ethics
1101: Introduction to Philosophy
Joshua Fox
Visiting Assistant Professor
Office: LA 249
EDUCATION
PhD, Philosophy (2021), University of Chicago
BA, Philosophy and Fundamentals (2013), The University of Chicago
My research focuses on human well-being. In order to approach this topic, I study historical debates about life’s value. In understanding why philosophers have taken particular doubts about life’s value seriously, I hope to learn more about what is involved in living well.
The central historical figures in my research are Mill, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. However, I am interested in historical and contemporary ethics quite broadly, and have also published on the thought of Plato and Amarya Sen.
In my teaching, I have the privilege of introducing students to many of the same ethical questions that I find so gripping.
Selected Publications
“Does Schopenhauer Accept Any Positive Pleasures?” (Forthcoming). European Journal of Philosophy.
“Schopenhauer on Boredom” (2022). British Journal for the History of Philosophy 30, 3: 477-495.
“The Freedom-Based Critique of Well-Being’s Exclusive Moral Claim” (2021). The Journal of Human Development and Capabilities 22, 4: 647-662.
“Two Pessimisms in Mill” (2021). Utilitas 33, 4: 442-457.
“Gratitude to Beautiful Objects: On Nietzsche’s Claim That ‘the Beautiful Promises Happiness’” (2020). The Journal of Nietzsche Studies 51, 2: 169-187.
“Complex Wisdom in the Euthydemus” (2020). Apeiron 53, 3: 187-211.
Current Courses
2299: Life and Death
1103: Introduction to Ethics
Melissa Norton
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy
Office: LA 245
Education
MA, Philosophy (1985), Claremont Graduate School
BA, Religion and Philosophy (1981), Whitworth College
Norton received a BA in Religion and Philosophy from Whitworth College in 1981 and an MA in Philosophy from Claremont Graduate School in 1985. Her interest is in the history of philosophy. She has worked on Plato in the ancient period, Hume and Kant in the early modern period, and Wittgenstein in 20th century analytic philosophy.
Norton teaches Introduction to Philosophy (both in class and on line), Introduction to Ethics, Logic, and Philosophy of Religion.
Michael Roche
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Office: LA 252
Education
Ph.D., Philosophy (2013), University of Wisconsin, Madison
M.A., Philosophy (2008), University of Wisconsin, Madison
B.A., Philosophy (2004), University of Utah
B.S., Psychology (2004), University of Utah
I tried not to become a philosopher. My older brother was in a PhD program in philosophy when I began my undergraduate education. And I wanted to be different. I soon found, however, that I was both more interested in, and better at, my philosophy classes than all the others. I especially appreciated philosophy’s vast range of topics: mind, language, knowledge, metaphysics, right and wrong, religion, death, meaning, etc. This is ultimately what caused me to surrender to philosophy! I moved from Utah to Wisconsin in 2005 to pursue a PhD in philosophy. After spending one year at Illinois Wesleyan and five years at Mississippi State, I was lucky enough to join the faculty at Idaho State in the fall of 2019.
I specialize in the philosophy of mind. Broadly speaking, this area of philosophy investigates the nature of the mind and its relationship to the physical world. Central questions include: What does it mean to have a particular belief or desire or intention? Is the mind identical to the brain? Can consciousness be explained in purely physical terms? Can machines have minds? Is psychology an autonomous science, or will it ultimately be reduced to neurobiology or physics? What kind of access do we have to the contents of our minds?
My published research has, to this point, primarily focused on this last question, which typically falls under the heading of ‘self-knowledge’. I am attracted to a view according to which we have a way of knowing about our own minds that relies on neither behavioral nor situational evidence about ourselves, and which—somewhat paradoxically—involves turning our attention away from the mind and towards the world. This view denies that distinctively first-personal self-knowledge requires anything like an “inner eye”; all that is required is the ability to think about the world. The publications noted below are on this topic.
I regularly teach introduction to philosophy, which I really enjoy. It allows me to expose students to the aforementioned wide variety of topics within philosophy. Nearly every student is gripped by at least one of these! I am also looking forward to teaching upper-level courses in the philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and other areas.
My personal website contains additional information about my teaching experience and research: https://sites.google.com/site/rochephilo/.
Selected Publications
Articles
“Introspection, Transparency, and Desire”, Journal of Consciousness Studies 30, 3 (2023) 132-154.
“Authority Without Privilege: How To Be a Dretskean Conciliatory Skeptic On Self-Knowledge”, Synthese 198 (2021) 1071–1087. (w/ William Roche)
"Dretske on Self-Knowledge and Contrastive Focus: How to Understand Dretske’s Theory, and Why It Matters" Erkenntnis 82 (2017) 975 - 992. (w/ William Roche)
“Knowing What One Believes – In Defense of a Dispositional Reliabilist Extrospective Account” American Philosophical Quarterly 53 (2016) 365 - 379.
“Physicalism and Supervenience: A Case for a New Sense of Physical Duplication” Erkenntnis 81 (2016) 669 - 681.
“Causal Overdetermination and Kim’s Exclusion Argument” Philosophia 42 (2014) 809 - 826.
“Povinelli’s Problem and Introspection” Review of Philosophy and Psychology 4 (2013) 559 - 76.
“A Difficulty for Testing the Inner Sense Theory of Introspection” Philosophy of Science 80 (2013) 1019 - 1030.
Book Reviews
Alex Byrne’s Transparency and Self-Knowledge (2018), Philosophical Psychology, forthcoming.
Quassim Cassam’s Self-Knowledge for Humans (2014) Philosophical Quarterly 68 (2018) 645 - 647.
Declan Smithies and Daniel Stoljar’s, eds., Introspection and Consciousness (2012) Philosophical Quarterly (2016) 66 203 - 208. (w/ William Roche)
Courses Taught
4435/5535: Metaphysics
4430/5530: Philosophy of Science
4420/5520: Philosophy of Mind
4410/5510: Philosophy of Language
2201: Introduction to Logic
1101: Introduction to Philosophy
Evan Rodriguez
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Office: LA 250
Education
PhD, Philosophy and Classics (2016), Yale University
BA, Philosophy and Classical Culture & Society (2008), Haverford College
I received my PhD from Yale’s Philosophy and Classics program in 2016, after first falling in love with both subjects in the liberal arts context at Haverford College. My work uses philosophical and philological tools to help us understand ancient texts, to put them in conversation with modern problems, and to put us in conversation with each other.
Selected Awards
(2021). CHS academic year fellowship and 8-week residency. Harvard University’s Center for Hellenic Studies.
(2021). IHC Research Fellowship, Idaho Humanities Council.
(2020). NEH Summer Stipend. National Endowment for the Humanities.
(2019). Conrado Eggers Lan Prize for Best Dissertation in Platonic Studies (for dissertations awarded between January 2014 and July 2018). International Plato Society.
Selected Publications
(2023). Problems of Being. The Cambridge Companion to the Sophists: 200-224.
(2022). A Long Lost Relative in the Parmenides? Plato’s Family of Hypothetical Methods. Apeiron 55 (1): 141-166.
(2020). Structure and Aim in Socratic and Sophistic Method. History of Philosophy and Logical Analysis 23(1): 143–166.
(2020). ‘Pushing Through’ in Plato’s Sophist: A New Reading of the Parity Assumption. Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 102(2): 159–188.
(2020). Aristotle's Platonic Response to the Problem of First Principles. Journal of the History of Philosophy 58(3): 449–469.
(2019). Untying the Gorgianic ‘Not’: Argumentative Structure in On Not-Being. Classical Quarterly 69(1):87-106.
(2019). More than a Reductio: Plato's Method in the Parmenides and Lysis. Études Platoniciennes 15.
Current Courses
4460/5560: Theory of Knowledge
3305: History of Philosophy: Greek Reason and Christian Faith
2299: Life and Death
2220: Philosophical Issues in Religion
2210: Introduction to Asian Philosophies
1101: Introduction to Philosophy
James Skidmore
Associate Professor of Philosophy; Department Vice Chair; Director of Philosophy
Office: LA 253
Education
PhD, Philosophy (2000), University of Minnesota
BA, Philosophy (1993), Washington State University
BA, English (1992), Washington State University
My main philosophical interests are in ethical theory, and in particular Kantian and utilitarian moral theory. In my dissertation I focused on Kantian theories and their inability to accommodate moral obligations toward non-human animals. I argued, and continue to argue, that their failure in this regard constitutes a serious theoretical problem. My interests are now gradually turning toward the project of developing and defending a plausible consequentialist theory (an approach that traditionally defines morally right action as action that maximizes overall, long-run value; utilitarianism is an example of such an approach). Since a crucial first step is to define consequentialism in a plausible way, my current work examines how, and how not, to do this. From here my goal is to contribute to the defense of such a theory. Since I believe there is little hope of doing so through conceptual analysis or argument a priori, my concern is to examine the extent to which a consequentialist theory can accommodate various considered judgments that are widely shared at the level of practice—in particular, features of our moral practice that appear to be thoroughly non-consequentialist in nature.
While these topics are the focus of my research, my teaching continues to be in many ways the most rewarding part of my job. I regularly teach lower-division courses in Introduction to Ethics, Introduction to Philosophy, and Bioethics. I also teach upper-division courses in Ethical Theory, Political Philosophy, and Philosophy of Law. When schedules permit, I enjoy teaching courses on special topics—recent examples include Philosophy of War and Terrorism and an Honors Seminar: Lying and Deception.
Selected Publications
"Does ‘Ought’ Imply ‘Might’? How (not) to Resolve the Conflict between Act and Motive Utilitarianism." Philosophia 46 (2018), 207-221.
“Skepticism about Practical Reason: Transcendental Arguments and Their Limits.” Philosophical Studies 109 (2002), 121-141.
“Duties to Animals: The Failure of Kant’s Moral Theory.” Journal of Value Inquiry 35 (2001), 541-559.
--Reprinted in Applied Ethics, Dimock and Tucker (eds.),Thomson Nelson (2004), 160-176.
--Reprinted in Environmental Ethics, Botzler and Armstrong (eds.), McGraw-Hill (2003).
Awards/Honors
Master Teacher, ISU, 2011
Courses Taught
4450/5550: Ethical Theory
3353: Philosophy of Law
2230: Medical Ethics
1103: Introduction to Ethics
1101: Introduction to Philosophy
POLS 3313: Political Philosophy
Emeritus Faculty
William L. King
Professor of Philosophy (retired 1994)
PhD in Philosophy (1968), Stanford University
Carl Levenson
Professor of Philosophy (retired 2016)
PhD in Social Thought (1980), University of Chicago
Russell Wahl
Professor of Philosophy (retired 2021)
PhD, Philosophy (1982), Indiana University
Jonathan A.G. Westphal
Professor of Philosophy (retired 2011)
PhD (1981), University of London