Philosophy

Deane Curtin Professor, Philosophy Chair

I am fascinated with the multiple ways people connect with place. My scholarship and teaching focus on international ethics, particularly the ethics of community development, and environmental ethics. These interests are reflected in two recent books: Environmental Ethics for a Postcolonial World (2005), and Chinnagounder's Challenge (1999). Recent…   (continue reading)

George Georgacarakos Professor

I was born and raised in a small, industrial town in southern Maine named Biddeford. It is near the coast and about 17 miles south of Portland. I received my Bachelor's degree from the University of Maine at Orono in philosophy. I later did graduate study in philosophy at the University of Missouri at Columbia where I earned my Master's and Doctorate…   (continue reading)

Lisa Heldke ’82 Professor

I am still interested in the questions that kept me awake nights when I first began studying philosophy as an undergraduate; questions about the nature of knowing, about certainty and truth, and about reality. I explore these with students in my courses in Modern Philosophy and American Philosophy. (Does that tree falling alone in the forest make a…   (continue reading)

Douglas Huff Professor

For many years now (really more than I care to count), my primary philosophical interests have focused on a variety of problems in virtue ethics, philosophy of religion, and issues raised by Wittgenstein. A brief sample of some of my recent articles concerning these issues may illustrate this tendency, "The Role of Character in Moral Judgments", "Wittgenstein…   (continue reading)

Margaret O'Connor Professor

I fell hard for Wittgenstein as an undergraduate philosophy major. I was simultaneously perplexed, charmed, befuddled, dubious, challenged, and so importantly, engaged by Wittgenstein's writings. Who could resist someone who wrote "What is your aim in philosophy? To shew the fly the way out of the fly-bottle." Years later (how many I will not say)…   (continue reading)