Jerry Samet

Associate Professor of Philosophy

Departments/Programs

Philosophy
Psychology

Degrees

City University of New York, Graduate Center, Ph.D.
Yeshiva University, B.A.

Expertise

Philosophy of mind. Philosophy of psychology and cognitive science. History of philosophy.

Profile

I have always been interested in how our minds work. I started out, as many philosophers in the 1970's and 1980's did, by studying how language works. This brought me to linguistics and the philosophical issues raised by linguistics (my dissertation topic), and eventually to work in Artificial Intelligence, in which I had a post-doctoral fellowship at Yale. Out of these interests I came to focus on the issue of innateness--the nature/nurture controversy--and a number of my publications explore philosophical issues surrounding this topic. I continue to be interested in innateness and this interest has two aspect: [1] I am working on a book on innateness in the history of philosophy (especially in the work of Plato, Locke, and Leibniz), and [2] I continue to explore developments in the cognitive sciences--especially in developmental psychology. This second aspect is explored a bit in a recent article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (on-line).

I continue to have my original broad interests in how the mind works, and I teach courses on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of perception, the nature of consciousness, as well as a course that keeps tabs on developments in the empirical science(s) of the mind and strives to understand the philosophical ramifications of such findings.

Courses Taught

PHIL	6a	Introduction to Symbolic Logic
PHIL	131a	Philosophy of Mind
PHIL	137a	Nature or Nurture? The Innateness Controversy
PHIL	141b	Topics in Philosophy and Cognitive Science
PHIL	231a	Graduate Seminar in the Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science

Awards and Honors

National Endowment for Humanities Fellowship (1989 - 1990)

Bernstein Faculty Fellowship (1988 - 1989)

National Endowment for Humanities Summer Fellowship (1981)

Sloan Fellowship (1979 - 1981)

Scholarship

Samet, Jerry. "The Historical Controversies Surrounding Innateness (updated 2019)." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2019.

Samet, Jerry & Zaitchik, Deborah. "Innateness and Contemporary Theories of Cognition." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (on-line). 2012.

Samet, Jerry/Yaakov Stern. "Cognitive Reserve: Neuroethical Implications." Oxford Handbook of Neuroethics. Ed. Judy Illes and Barbara Sahakian. Oxfor University Press, 2011

Samet, Jerry. "Being Benedict Spinoza." Rev. of Conversation with Spinoza, by Goce Smilevski. JBOOKS Summer 2006

Samet, Jerry. "Let Us Now Praise Clueless Men: Peter and Philosophy." Family Guy and Philosophy. Ed. J. Jeremy Wisnewski. Blackwell Press, 2007