Robert Gordon Professor Emeritus gordonr@umsl.edu
Robert Gordon (Ph.D., Columbia) retired from teaching in 2002 but continues to work in philosophy of mind and cognitive science. He is best known for the theory, first introduced in 1986, that we understand others, predict and explain their actions and emotions, by mentally simulating them. This "simulation theory" challenged a view that had been widely accepted in philosophy and psychology, that understanding others is a kind of impersonal theorizing, an application of "belief-desire psychology," an implicit theory of mental states. The “theory versus simulation debate” soon became a topic of interest among developmental psychologists as well as philosophers and later received attention in linguistics, social cognitive neuroscience, and social robotics. Hundreds of papers and numerous books have been written on the topic, as well as several encyclopedia articles. Gordon has lectured on the topic in Austria, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, the UK, and the US. He has held several research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Council of Learned Societies, and in 1999 he directed a Summer Seminar for College and University Teachers, sponsored by the NEH. He chaired the program committee of the 2004 annual meeting of the Central division of the American Philosophical Association. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Helsinki and at Radboud University Nijmegen, in the Netherlands.
Gordon's influential work on the topic of emotion attributions was published in Philosophical Review, American Philosophical Quarterly, Analysis, Journal of Philosophy, and in his book, The Structure of Emotions (Cambridge University Press, 1987)
In an update of the simulation theory, Gordon argues that the human brain interprets the behavior of others by testing hypothetical ways of generating that behavior, a process of "analysis by synthesis," similar to processes known to be involved in vision and speech perception. In his chapter in a book in cognitive neuroscience, The Neural Basis of Mentalizing (Springer Nature, 2021), he suggests that the existence of such a mechanism would have major consequences for the concept of knowledge, a point Gordon is developing in other papers.
David Griesedieck Teaching Professor, Retired 552 Lucas | 516-6190 | davidgr@umsl.edu | C.V. ![John Brunero](https://www.umsl.edu/~philo/files/images/FacultyPics/GriesedieckHeadshot)
David Griesedieck, born 1943, earned his BA from St. Benedicts College (Kansas)in 1964 and his MA in philosophy from Princeton (1967) and MA in mathematics from UMSL (1988). He has been a member of the UMSL Department of Philosophy since Fall 1970. My chief scholarly interest has always been the study of Oriental philosophy in its various forms. It is a tremendous challenge to try to bring out the meaning of these ancient philosophical texts. The subject matter and the methodology are often quite different from what we are used to in Western philosophy. I believe that if one can get a clear idea of just what is so different about Indian or Chinese philosophy, one will then have an insight into the most basic questions of philosophy and life. For example, by studying Eastern conceptions of freedom and bondage, we can gain new and decisive perspectives on the classic Western problem of freedom of the will.
Ronald Munson Professor Emeritus 557 Lucas | 516-5631 | munson@umsl.edu | C.V. Ronald Munson received his Ph.D. from Columbia University and was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Biology at Harvard University. He taught as a Preceptor in Philosophy at Columbia College (Columbia University) and has been a Visiting Professor at the University of California, San Diego, the Harvard Medical School, and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He has served as bioethicist for a National Institutes of Health multicenter study, the National Cancer Institute, the Monsanto Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee, and the Washington University School of Medicine Human Subjects Committee. His expertise is in medical ethics and the philosophy of science and medicine. His articles have appeared in Philosophy of Science, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, History and Philosophy of Science, Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, and New England Journal of Medicine. His work has also been anthologized numerous times. He has been awarded grants by the National Endowment for Humanities, the Weldon Spring Fund, and the National Science Foundation. His book Intervention and Reflection: Basic Issues in Medical Ethics (Wadsworth), now in its 7th ed., is the most widely used medical ethics text in the United States. His other books include Reasoning in Medicine: An Introduction to Clinical Inference (with Daniel Albert, M.D. and Michael Resnik, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins), The Way of Words (Houghton-Mifflin), Man and Nature: Philosophical Issues in Biology (Delacorte), Elements of Reasoning, 5th ed. (with Andrew Black, Wadsworth). His most recent books are Outcome Uncertain: Cases and Contexts in Bioethicsand Raising the Dead: Social and Ethical Issues in Organ Transplantation (Oxford University Press). He has acted as a source on biomedical ethics and been interviewed by (among others) the New York Times, Washington-Post, U.S. News and World Report, St. Louis Post-Dispatch,Science Digest, Smithsonian Magazine. He has appeared on ABC Evening News, ABC Morning News, Today Show, Fox News Network, Brian Williams and the News, NBC National Radio, NYC Radio, National Public Radio, and BBC Radio. He consulted on the ethical aspects of gene therapy for Japanese National Television. Ronald Munson is the author of three well-received novels: Nothing Human (Pocket Books Hardcover; Pocket Books, paper; British Edition published by Simon and Schuster, Ltd.); Literary Guild Alternate Selection, Selection of the Doubleday Book Club and the Mystery Guild; translated into Swedish and German; optioned for film; Fan Mail (Dutton; Discus, paper); Book of the Month Club Alternate Selection; starred review in Publisher's Weekly; translated into German, Japanese, Dutch, and French; made into a German radio play; optioned for film. Night Vision (Dutton; Signet, paper); translated into Dutch, Swedish, and German. Interviews and reviews have appeared in such places as People, Los Angeles Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and the Miami Herald, as well as on CNN, Unsolved Mysteries, and Aspecta (German National Television).
Stephanie Ross Professor Emeritus 561 Lucas | 516-5634 | sross@umsl.edu | C.V. ![John Brunero](https://www.umsl.edu/~philo/files/images/FacultyPics/RossHeadshot)
Stephanie Ross received her B.A. from Smith College in 1971 and her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1977. Most of her research focuses on issues in the philosophy of art. In addition to a book on garden aesthetics, What Gardens Mean (University of Chicago Press, 1998), she has published articles on a range of topics including allusion, modern music, women and fiction, musical conducting, the death of art, landscape appreciation, and aesthetic qualities. She has also contributed invited encyclopedia entries and handbook articles on such topics as expression, the picturesque, and artistic style. Her book Two Thumbs Up: How Critics Aid Appreciation proposes a neo-Humean account of our transactions with works of art. The book explores the nature of critical disagreement and the prospects for realism in aesthetic by taking up questions like these: If you encounter a work of art and deem it to be amusing, colorful, bombastic, and original, does the work possess each of these qualities? Does it possess them in the same way? Can you convince others that this is the case? Is there a right way to appreciate each work of art? Are there experts who can guide us in these matters? What reason might we have to follow their advice? How should we seek them out? Might most of us manage only partial or imperfect appreciation of the art we encounter?
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