Jay Odenbaugh
James F. Miller Professor of Humanities
“Philosophy in its best moments is about instilling intellectual accountability. As William James noted, ‘a great many people think they are thinking when they are re
Teaching
Fall 2023 Courses:
PHIL 215: Philosophy and the Environment
TTH 9:40AM - 11:10AM
Investigation of philosophical questions about our relationship to the environment. Topics include the value of individual organisms, species, ecosystems; the concepts of wildness and wilderness; aesthetics of natural environments; and the relationship between ecological science and environmental policy.
Prerequisites: None.
PHIL 217: Philosophy and Climate Change
MWF 12:40PM - 01:40PM
This course is an examination of climate science and ethics using
the tools of the philosophy of science, moral theory, and political
philosophy. First, we focus on epistemological issues: how does
climate science provide us with reliable predictions and explanations
about the past, present, and most importantly the future climate and
its impacts?Second, we will consider ethical and political issues raised by climate science, with an eye on policy-makers and the public. Roughly speaking, we’ll move from the science to questions of “what should we do?”
Prerequisites: None.
PHIL 313: Philosophy of Science
TTH 1:50PM - 3:20PM
Issues concerning scientific knowledge and its epistemological and ontological implications from the perspective of history and practice of the natural sciences, such as explanation, testing, observation and theory, scientific change and progress, scientific realism, instrumentalism.
Prerequisites: PHIL 101. PHIL 250. PHIL 102 or one course in the history of philosophy sequence (PHIL 301 through PHIL 307) recommended.
Restrictions: Sophomore standing required.
Research
Copenhaver, R. and Odenbaugh, J. (2020). Experiencing emotions. In D. E. Gatzia and B. Brogaard (Eds.), The Epistemology of Non-Visual Perception, pp. 213–235. Oxford University Press.
Griffiths, P. and Odenbaugh, H. (2020). Philosophy of biology. Stanford encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Odenbaugh, J. (2020) Conservation biology. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Odenbaugh, J. (2019). Ecological Models. Cambridge University Press.
Odenbaugh, J. (2018). Building trust, removing doubt? Robustness analysis and climate modeling. In Climate Modelling (pp. 297-321). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Odenbaugh, J. (2018). Models, models, models: a deflationary view. Synthese, 1-16.