Additional Faculty and Staff

Visiting Faculty

Mark Bauer
Visiting Assistant Professor, Ph.D. UNC Chapel Hill
(540) 231-1766 | Email | 226 Major Williams Hall

Mark Bauer is interested in the accommodation of psychological and semantic typing in scientific practice. His recent and present work concerns the projectibility of psychological and semantic typing within the cognitively-oriented biological sciences, the explanatory function of normative characterizations within the biological and cognitive sciences, and the explanatory relationship between autonomous explanatory domains. Much of this work assumes cognitive ethology/behavorial ecology as the primary model for a well-developed, sufficiently general cognitively-oriented science.

Phil Olson
Visiting Assistant Professor, Ph.D. Emory University, 2007
Email | 219 Major Williams Hall

Phil Olson works on (and branches out from) problems relating to virtue epistemology (in ethics and epistemology), rationality, and value theory. His approach to these problems is eudaimonistic and pragmatic, in Dewey's sense. Olson teaches both in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies and in the Philosophy Department, and he is an ASPECT affiliate. At Virginia Tech, he has taught introductory courses in ethics, metaphysics and epistemology, and ancient Greek culture, as well as advanced courses on ethical theory and philosophy of religion. In 2008-09, Olson taught a graduate seminar in the Philosophy Department on the topic of virtue epistemology, and a team-taught ASPECT seminar on neo-liberalism. In the Fall of 2009, he will teach a graduate seminar on American pragmatism.

Ted Parent
Visiting Assistant Professor, Ph.D. UNC Chapel Hill
(540) 231-8485 | Email | 221 Major Williams Hall

Ted Parent works in epistemology and the philosophy of language (especially in relation to ontology). His dissertation, entitled "Metasemantics," discusses certain epistemic limitations on semantic theorizing; it argues that under certain natural assumptions, some semantic questions cannot be resolved (even in principle). He is currently working on several articles, covering topics such as ontological commitment, two-dimensional semantics, and the apparent conflict between semantic externalism and a priori knowledge of content.

Adjunct Faculty

Jim Garrison
Professor of Education | Email

Jim Garrison is a professor of philosophy of education at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. His research interests focus on American pragmatism, and especially the philosophy of John Dewey.

Emeriti

Henry Bauer
Professor Emeritus and Dean Emeritus

James Buchanan
Distinguished Professor Emeritus

Richard M. Burian
Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and STS
220 Major Williams Hall | Email | (540) 231-6760 | Personal Website

Dick Burian has general research interests in history and philosophy of science (especially conceptual change) and epistemology. He specializes in philosophy of biology, and has specific concerns in the history of nineteenth and twentieth century evolutionary theory; theories of heredity, and theories of (biological) development; the relations among biological disciplines; the impact of the molecular biology on the theory and practice of biological disciplines; historiography and methodology in history and philosophy of science; and scientific realism.

Harlan Miller
Professor Emeritus | Email
Harlan Miller has interests in a variety of topics in metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of mind, but most of his energy recently has gone into questions in applied ethics and ethical theory. He is particularly interested in human responsibilities (if any) to the non-human world: animals, the environment, machines. This leads both to other applied topics such as ethical, social, and political questions about agriculture, and to such theoretical questions as the nature and significance of species and the use of the fact/value distinction in the environmental sciences. He retired from teaching in 2003.

Palmer Talbutt
Associate Professor Emeritus

In Memoriam

Jack Good (1916-2009)
University Distinguished Professor | Memorial Notice

Marjorie Grene (1910-2009)
Honorary University Distinguished Professor | Memorial Notice

Instructors

Brandiff Caron
M.A. | (540) 231-7879 | Email | 220 Major Williams Hall

Brandiff Caron is currently the managing editor for Perspectives on Science (an MIT Press journal published out of Tech). His general research interests include science communication, public understandings of science, theory change, philosophy of language, ontopolitics, and punk rock.

Jean Miller
M.A. Virginia Tech | (540) 231-5977 | Email | 211 Major Williams Hall

Jean Miller's main areas of interest are philosophy of science and epistemology of experiment. She is currently working on her dissertation tentatively titled, "Observation and Experiment in the Natural and Social Sciences". She has had positions as a Teaching Assistant and Instructor at Virginia Tech and as an Instructor at Roanoke College. She has also served as the main assistant for three NEH summer institutes held at Virginia Tech.

Matt Rea
M.A. | (540) 231-5977 | Email | 211 Major Williams Hall

Matt Rea is completing a Ph.D. in STS and teaches in the Department of Philosophy.

Staff

Leisa Osborne
(540) 231-4564 | Email | 229 Major Williams Hall

Leisa Osborne is the Philosophy Department's Office Services Specialist. She has been in the department since the summer of 2003. Her primary responsibilities include assisting students, as well as supporting our faculty members. Leisa's interest include reading and traveling, as well as tutoring adult readers in basic literacy. She currently serves as the treasurer for Phi Beta Kappa and is a member of IAAP.

Terry Zapata
(540) 231-4565 | Email | 229A Major Williams Hall

Terry Zapata is the Philosophy Department's Executive Secretary, and has been in the department since 1998. Her primary responsibilities include providing administrative and clerical support to the Department Head and to the Philosophy Department as a whole. Terry has been a member of IAAP since 1999 and received her CPS (Certified Professional Secretary) rating in May of 2009. Terry is married to Carlos and originally from Fuquay-Varina, NC.