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“One of the most enduring and salient features of the Western philosophical tradition is its openness to disagreement and debate, its propensity to self-reflection, self-critique, and even self-doubt; not as a path toward skepticism or despair, but as a means of pursuing the truth.”
— Ian Church
Faculty Information
Additional Faculty Information for Ian M. Church
Education
B.A., Ball State University, 2005
M.Litt., St. Andrews-Stirling Joint Programme, 2008
Ph.D., St. Andrews-Stirling Joint Programme, 2012
Academic Specializations
Epistemology
Philosophy of Psychology
Experimental Philosophy
Fellowships and Awards
University of St. Andrews Ph.D. Teaching Prize, 1st Place (2011)
Visiting Scholar, Rutgers University (2010)
University of St. Andrews Ph.D. Teaching Prize, 2nd Place (2010)
James Gregory Scholarship (2009)
University of St. Andrews/University of Stirling Graduate Funding (2008-2010)
Co-Principal Investigator (with Duncan Pritchard) on the Intellectual Humility Massive Open Online Course project at the Eidyn Centre at the University of Edinburgh, (2015-2018)
“Experimental Philosophy of Religion.” The Compact Compendium of Experimental Philosophy (Walter de Gruyter), edited by A.M. Bauer & S. Kornmesser, forthcoming.
“Humility in Positive and Personality Psychology” [with Peter Samuelson]. An invited chapter for The Philosophy of Humility (Routledge), edited by Mark Alfano, Michael P. Lynch, and Alessandra Tanesini, 2020.
“The Gettier Problem.” The Routledge Handbook of Theories of Luck, edited by Ian M. Church and Bob Hartman, 2019.
“Is God Hidden, Or Does God Simply Not Exist?” An invited chapter for Philosophy, Science and Religion for Everyone (Routledge), edited by Duncan Pritchard and Mark Harris, 2017.
“Intellectual Humility” [with Justin Barrett]. An invited chapter for the Routledge Handbook of Humility, edited by Everett L. Worthington Jr., Don E. Davis, and Joshua N. Hook, 2016.
Philosophy is good for people. It develops critical thinking skills—giving us the tools to competently reason through complex, pressing issues and helping us understand the mechanics of an argument. It helps us know ourselves—highlighting our presuppositions, helping us to aptly and congenially express, defend, and revise our views, and enabling us to address life’s “big questions.” It helps us understand others—teaching us to show consideration for and learn from diversity and helping us discern and assess the dizzying array of arguments and suppositions that bombard us in our everyday lives. And, frankly, philosophy is good for people because it is fun—offering a wide range of intrinsically interesting puzzles, paradoxes, and conundrums. My goal as a philosophy teacher is to confer these benefits to students.
My areas of specialization are epistemology and philosophy of psychology, but I am also able to teach general philosophy of science, ethics, philosophy of religion, logic, the history of analytic philosophy, and early modern philosophy at all undergraduate levels. I am a teaching enthusiast, and it is a pleasure to also teach Hillsdale’s Western Philosophical Tradition course.
Starting in August of 2016, I joined Hillsdale College as an assistant professor of philosophy. I am the principal investigator on the “Launching Experimental Philosophy of Religion” project (generously funded by the John Templeton Foundation), and I am the director of the newly minted Arete Research Center for Philosophy, Science, and Society.
My research currently centers on taking the tools of cognitive science and psychology and bringing them to bear on seminal debates within epistemology and philosophy of religion. I also am keenly interested in virtue epistemology, social epistemology, and the philosophy of David Hume. My hobbies include strength training, travel, literature, ichthyology, and academic ancestry.
My wife and I have been married for 15 years, and we have four children.