Ian M. Church
- Delp 305
- [email protected]
- (517) 607-2695
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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)
Ball State Alumni Legacy Scholarship (2004)
Notoriety
Principal Investigator on the Launching Experimental Philosophy of Religion project, (2021-2024)
Principal Investigator on the Problem of Evil and Experimental Philosophy of Religion project, (2018-2020)
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)
Memberships
The Aristotelian Society
The Society of Christian Philosophers
The Society of Philosophy and Psychology
The American Philosophical Association
Books
Intellectual Humility: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Science [co-authored with Peter L. Samuelson]. Bloomsbury Academic, 2017.
The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy and Psychology of Luck [co-edited with Bob Hartman]. Routledge, 2019.
Select Scholarly Articles
“The Context of Suffering: Empirical Insights into the Problem of Evil” [with Isaac Warchol and Justin Barrett]. TheoLogica: An International Journal for Philosophy of Religion and Philosophical Theology, forthcoming.
“Experimental Philosophy of Religion.” The Compact Compendium of Experimental Philosophy (Walter de Gruyter), edited by A.M. Bauer & S. Kornmesser, forthcoming.
“Virtue Epistemology and the Gettier Dilemma.” Metaphilosophy, forthcoming.
“Intellectual Humility, Testimony, and Epistemic Injustice.” The Philosophy of Humility (Routledge), edited by Mark Alfano, Michael P. Lynch, and Alessandra Tanesini, 2020.
“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.
“The Limitations of the Limitations-Owning Account of Intellectual Humility.” Philosophia, 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.
“On Epistemic Consequentialism and the Virtue Conflation Problem” [with J. Adam Carter]. Thought, 2016.
“A Doxastic Account of Intellectual Humility.” Logos & Episteme, 2016.
“50 Years of Gettier: A New Direction in Religious Epistemology?” The Journal of Analytic Theology, Vol. 3, 147-171, 2015.
“Implicit Theories of Intellectual Virtues and Vices: A Focus on Intellectual Humility” [with Justin L. Barrett, Sam Hardy, Matthew Jarvinen, Thomas Paulus, and Peter L. Samuelson]. The Journal of Positive Psychology, Vol. 10 (5), 389-406, 2014.
“When Cognition Turns Vicious: Heuristics and Biases in Light of Virtue Epistemology” [with Peter L. Samuelson]. Philosophical Psychology, Vol 28 (8), 1095-1113, 2014.
“Should Cognitive Science of Religion give Atheists Epistemic Assurance? On Beer-Goggles, BFFs, and Skepticism Regarding Religious Beliefs” [with Justin L. Barrett]. The Monist, Vol. 96(3), 311–324, 2013.
“Manifest Failure Failure: The Gettier Problem Revived.” Philosophia, Vol. 41(1), 171–177, 2013.
“Getting ‘Lucky’ with Gettier.” The European Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 21(1), 37–49, 2013.
Biography
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.