Biography

Brian L. Keeley is Professor of Philosophy at Pitzer College in Claremont, California, where he also teaches in the Science, Technology & Society, Cognitive Science, and Neuroscience Programs, in addition to serving as Extended Graduate Faculty in Philosophy at Claremont Graduate University. With research interests in both neurophilosophy and the study of conspiracy theories, he has edited a volume in the Cambridge University Press Contemporary Philosophy in Focus series on the work of Paul Churchland. He has also published over 40 articles, book chapters, and reviews on a range of topics including the philosophy of neuroscience, the nature of the senses, neuroethology, artificial life, the relationship of science to society, and the unusual epistemology of contemporary conspiracy theories.

Academic Positions

  • Present2010

    Professor of Philosophy

    Pitzer College

  • 20102005

    Associate Professor

    Pitzer College

  • 20052000

    Assistant Professor

    Pitzer College

  • Present2000

    Extended Graduate Faculty

    Claremont Graduate University, Philosophy Department

  • 20001999

    Assistant Professor of Philosophy

    University of Northern Iowa

  • 19991997

    McDonnell Philosophy/Neuroscience/Psychology Postdoctoral Fellow

    Washington University in St. Louis

Education

  • Ph.D. 1997

    Ph.D. in Philosophy and Cognitive Science

    University of California, San Diego

  • M.A. 1993

    M.A. in Philosophy

    University of California, San Diego

  • M.Sc. 1990

    Master of Science in Knowledge Based Systems

    University of Sussex (UK)

  • B.A. 1989

    Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy

    University of South Alabama

Honors, Awards and Grants

  • 2015
    Grapples & Oranges Teaching Award
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    I’m honored to have been the inaugural winner of this Pitzer College teaching award . The Grapples and Oranges Featured Teacher is an initiative created by Writing Center Fellows to thank Pitzer College professors for their dedication to teaching and mentoring writers on campus. These faculty have helped students produce their best work by offering constructive feedback and introducing new ways of writing in the disciplines.

    Certification Website

  • 2012-2013
    Visitor, Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, Lisbon, Portugal
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    The Champalimaud is a basic research team with the broad aim of understanding brain function through integrative biological approaches. Researchers at the Centre study diverse topics in neuroscience using advanced, cutting edge techniques. Research groups apply advanced molecular, physiological and imaging tools to elucidate the function of neural circuits and systems in animal models that include Drosophila, mouse, rat and zebrafish.
  • 2004
    Charles A. Ryskamp Research Fellowship
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    Awarded by the American Council of Learned Societies. I received $75,000 in support of a project entitled, “Making sense of the senses: Philosophical traditions and the nature of perception.”
  • 1995
    5-year fellowship, McDonnell Project in Philosophy & the Neurosciences
    A sub-grant from James S. McDonnell Centennial Fellow, Kathleen Akins. Her project brought together philosophers of neuroscience and philosophically-minded neuroscientists to collaborate, interact, and explore a variety of topics at the intersection of neurobiology and philosophy. My own project was entitled, “The eyes have it: The neuroethology of eye gaze information processing and other minds” ($10,000Cnd)
  • 1999
    McDonnell Philosophy/Neuroscience/Psychology Postdoctoral Fellowship
    Website
  • 1993-1996
    National Research Service Award, National Institute of Mental Health
    Title: “Philosophy, Computational Neuroethology, & Eigenmannia” ($30,594). This work was conducted in the laboratory of the later Walter Heiligenberg at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
  • 1989
    Comprehensive (Full) Fulbright Grant
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    This award allowed me a year of study (resulting in a Masters of Science) in School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences (COGS) at the University of Sussex, Brighton, UK. There I was able to work with Andy Clark, Magaret Boden, and Aaron Sloman among others. This is also where I first came into contact with the field of computational neuroethology (through the work of Dave Cliff).
  • 1988
    Younger Scholars grant, National Endowment for the Humanities
    This now-defunct program gave me the freedom (and a living stipend!) to explore a summer undergraduate research project on the topic of “Intentionality: Its formulations and implications for machine intelligence”.