Name Robert Almeder | Role Author | |
Born December 11, 1939 ( 1939-12-11 ) Boston, Massachusetts Occupation Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Georgia State University. Awards Outstanding Educator of America Award (1973)
Georgia State University Alumni Distinguished Professor Award for College of Arts and Sciences (1984) and for University (1995) Education Georgia State University, University of Pennsylvania Known for Philosophy of science, Philosophy of mind, Epistemology, Ethics Books Death and personal survival, Human happiness and mora, Harmless naturalism, Blind Realism, Truth and Skepticism Similar People Ian Stevenson, Charles Sanders Peirce, Willard Van Orman Quine, James H Fetzer | ||
Robert F. Almeder (born December 11, 1939) is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Georgia State University. He is known in particular for his work on the philosophy of science, and has also written on the philosophy of mind, epistemology and ethics. He is the author of 24 books, including The Philosophy of Charles S. Peirce (1980), Death and Personal Survival (1992), Harmless Naturalism: The Limits of Science and the Nature of Philosophy (1998), Human Happiness and Morality (2000), and Truth and Skepticism (2010).
Contents
Almeder served as the editor of the American Philosophical Quarterly (1998–2003), and co-edited the annual Biomedical Ethics Reviews (1983–2004). He was the inaugural McCullough Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Hamilton College in New York (2005–2007), where he taught courses on human rights, biomedical ethics and the law.
Background
Almeder completed his PhD on "The Metaphysical and Logical Realism of Charles Peirce" at the University of Pennsylvania in 1969. Since then he has been the president of the Charles S. Peirce Society as well as president of the Georgia Philosophical Association. He joined the philosophy faculty at Georgia State University in 1972 as an associate professor, and became a full professor in 1980. He retired in 2005.
Almeder received the Outstanding Educator of America Award in 1973, and the Georgia State University Alumni Distinguished Professor Award for teaching and research in 1984 and 1995. He was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship in 1992 and then again in 2005.
Georgia State University instituted a student award in honour of Almeder upon his retirement, the Robert F. Almeder Prize, awarded to the student who writes the best paper at the annual Georgia State Student Philosophy Symposium.
Views on mind
Almeder was strongly influenced by Charles Sanders Peirce, Ian Stevenson, and W.O. Quine, and subscribes to Cartesian dualism, broadly rejecting scientism and materialism. Stevenson's reincarnation research work on children who claimed to remember past lives convinced Almeder that minds are irreducible to brain states. He has argued in several papers and in his Beyond Death: The Evidence for Life After Death (1992) that Stevenson's critics, most notably the philosopher Paul Edwards, have misunderstood the nature of Stevenson's work.
Editorial roles
Almeder served as the editor of the American Philosophical Quarterly from 1998–2003, and co-edited the annual Biomedical Ethics Reviews from 1983 to 2004. He has also served on several editorial boards, including:
Selected books
Almeder has authored and co-authored 24 books, including: