Department of History and Philosophy of Science

Colin Allen

Colin Allen received his B.A. in philosophy from University College London in 1982 and his Ph.D. in philosophy from UCLA in 1989. He has broad research interests in the general area of philosophy of biology and cognitive science, and is best known for his work on animal behavior and cognition. He has received funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Allen is coauthor of Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong (OUP 2009), Species of Mind (MIT Press, 1997) and coeditor of The Evolution of Mind (Oxford University Press, 1998), Nature's Purposes (MIT Press, 1998), The Cognitive Animal (MIT Press, 2002), and Philosophy Across the Life Sciences (MIT Press, in press). He is also co-editor of a special issue of the journal Biology and Philosophy (Dec. 2004) on animal cognition, in which he has a paper titled "Is Anyone a Cognitive Ethologist?" and a forthcoming special issue of the journal Synthese on "Representing Philosophy" covering the applications of digital technologies to philosophy. For a current list of publications see Allen's CV.

Allen is director of the NEH funded Indiana Philosophy Ontology (InPhO) project, Associate Editor of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Associated Editor of Noesis: Philosophical Research Online, coauthor of a logic textbook, Logic Primer, published by MIT Press, and co-developer of two logic instructional sites on the world wide web at http://logic.tamu.edu and http://www.poweroflogic.com.

Colin Allen's appointment at IU is split between HPS and the Cognitive Science Program. He is also a member of IU's Center for the Integrative Study of Animal Behavior and adjunct professor in the Philosophy Department at IU.

colallen@indiana.edu

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