James Justus
Florida State University
Spring Term 2018

James “Jack” Justus is associate professor of philosophy and core member of the proudly boutique HPS Program at Florida State University. Before FSU, he worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at Sydney University on a project heroically attempting to integrate decision theory and environmental ethics. His research interests include philosophy of science (esp. biology), history of analytic philosophy (esp. Carnap and Quine), environmental philosophy, formal epistemology, philosophical methodology, and philosophy of mathematics. At the Center he will complete a book manuscript on the philosophy of ecology, and then turn to several papers: three organized around the title “Semantic Information in a Biological World,” another criticizing the niche concept’s role in ecological theorizing, another defending Ayer's maligned significance criterion, and another rebutting the charge that normativity challenges naturalism, among sundry others. Besides philosophy, Jack enjoys noncompetitive bird-watching, raising progeny (usually), and attempting non-awkward interjections of aphorisms and colloquialisms into everyday conversation.