Robert A. Wilson

I am professor of philosophy at La Trobe University in Melbourne, having taught over the past 25 years in North America at the University of Alberta (2000-2017), the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (1996-2001), and Queen’s University (1992-1996). I was born in Broken Hill in New South Wales and grew up there and in Perth in Western Australia. I have a B.A. with first class honours in philosophy from the University of Western Australia, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where I was a Fulbright Scholar from late 1987 until early 1992.

My philosophical interests are various, and on this site you can find representative work in the areas I’ve published in, such as mind and cognition, biological science, eugenics, social science. For the past ten years or so, I have also led two large-scale projects in engaged philosophy that aim to integrate philosophical thinking more directly with community-based concerns. While they don’t have your standard academic output—complicated talks and papers that can be understood by the author and at most three other people—they do represent ongoing areas of interest for me if there are any students, postdocs, or others interested in developing and deploying their philosophical skills in public and community-oriented spaces.