The John Dewey Lectures, in memory of John Dewey, were established in 2006 by the John Dewey Foundation and the APA. They are three annual lectures, one at each divisional meeting of the APA (Eastern, Central, and Pacific), given by a prominent and senior (typically retired) philosopher associated with that Division, who is invited to reflect broadly and in an autobiographical spirit on philosophy in America as seen from the perspective of a personal intellectual journey.
Eastern Division
Philip Kitcher (Columbia University)
Philip Kitcher is the John Dewey Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Columbia University. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1974, and received an Honorary Doctorate from the Erasmus University, Rotterdam, in 2013. Before coming to Columbia, he taught at the University of California, San Diego, and at the University of Minnesota. Kitcher’s early interest was in the philosophy of biology, and he has investigated conceptual and methodological issues in biology, as well as questions about the relations of biological research to society and politics. In later years, his interests broadened further to embrace the role of scientific inquiry in democratic societies. Since coming to Columbia, that line of investigation was further elaborated in relation to pragmatism (especially William James and John Dewey). Part of his work advanced a program for naturalistic ethics, and he has developed a program of research in philosophical themes in literature and music, focusing on Joyce and Wagner, and, in a book, on Thomas Mann and Mahler. Kitcher served as Director of Undergraduate Studies (2008-11), has taught in Columbia’s Core Curriculum, serving as Chair of Contemporary Civilization from 2004 to 2007, and teaching Literature Humanities. He has taught undergraduate courses on Dewey, Science and Religion, Darwin, Philosophical Problems of Climate Change, Philosophy and Literature, Economics and Philosophy, Philosophy of Science, Contemporary Moral Problems, and (in the Department of English and Comparative Literature) on Joyce and on Finnegans Wake.
Central Division
Robin Smith (Texas A&M University)
Robin Smith is professor of philosophy at Texas A&M University. His areas of specialty are History and Philosophy of Logic and Philosophy of Language. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Claremont Graduate School in 1974. Smith’s work is primarily concerned with the interpretation of Aristotle’s logic and its relationship to Aristotle’s views on science and metaphysics. His publications include translations with commentary of Aristotle’s Prior Analytics and Topics I and VIII, as well as approximately thirty articles. He was Secretary-Treasurer of the American Philosophical Association, Central Division from 1996 until 2013. Currently, he is completing a translation with commentary of Aristotle’s On Sophistical Refutations for the Clarendon Aristotle Series.
Pacific Division
Naomi Zack (Lehman College, CUNY)
Naomi Zack (PhD, Columbia University) has taught at the University of Oregon and the University at Albany, SUNY. Her most recent book is Reviving the Social Compact: Inclusive Citizenship in an Age of Extreme Politics (2018). Other recent books are her edited 51-essay Oxford Handbook on Philosophy and Race (2017) and Philosophy of Race, An Introduction (2018). Her monographs include: The Theory of Applicative Justice: An Empirical Pragmatic Approach to Correcting Racial Injustice (2016), White Privilege and Black Rights: The Injustice of US Police Racial Profiling and Homicide (April 2015), The Ethics and Mores of Race: Equality after the History of Philosophy (2011/2015) and Ethics for Disaster, (2009, 2010-11), Inclusive Feminism: A Third Wave Theory of Women’s Commonality (2005), and Philosophy of Science and Race (2002). Her first book was Race and Mixed Race (1992).
