Michael R. Hicks

Education

• Ph.D., Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University, 2009
• B.A. B.S. University of Pittsburgh

Teaching Interests

I work in the intersection of the philosophy of language and epistemology, also known as the philosophy of mind. A lot of my recent work has concerned the history of analytic philosophy, especially Wilfrid Sellars.

• Philosophy of Language
• Philosophy of Mind
• Epistemology
• History of Analytic Philosophy

Work In Progress

I have two current projects.

1. Understanding the metaphysics of mind: what are we asking when we ask whether someone is thinking? Why does this matter? My answer to these questions has two parts. First, when we say someone is thinking, we are characterizing them as engaging in an activity that can in principle be shared: another can think the same way, can understand them. Second, this matters because characterizing someone as thinking is conceiving of them as someone with whom one can have certain moral relationships.
2. Locating Wilfrid Sellars's work in relationship to the history of analytic philosophy, in specific in relationship to the Vienna Circle. On my interpretation, especially early in his career, he is continuing the project of logical empiricism rather than rejecting it. This depends on what logical empiricism is. I argue that it is a project in the ethics of discourse, concerned with facilitating collaboration and communication.

Courses Taught

• PHL 273: Formal Logic (every semester)
• PHL 373: Symbolic Logic (every 4th semester)
• PHL 404: What is Philosophy?
• 400/500-level seminars in the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language, epistemology, and the history of analytic philosophy

Research Interests

• Philosophy of Language
• Philosophy of Mind
• Epistemology
• History of Analytic Philosophy; especially Wilfrid Sellars

Selected Publications

• "Sellars's Transcendental Philosophy," International Journal of Philosophical Studies (2022)
• "Singular Mental Abilities" European Journal of Philosophy (2022)
• "Idealism, quietism, conceptual change: Sellars and McDowell on the knowability of the world" Giornale di Metafisica (2022)
• "Sellars and the Task of Philosophy": Synthese (2021)
• "Sellars, Price, and the Myth of the Given" Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy (2020)
• "The Presentational Use of Descriptions" Analytic Philosophy (2019)
• "Connotation and Frege's Semantic Dualism" History of Philosophy Quarterly (2019)