Education

• BA, Queen’s University
• B Ed., University of Toronto
• MA, Carleton University

Specializations / Research Interests

Animals Politics, Animal Ethics, Political Theory, Feminist Philosophy

Personal Website

About

Sue Donaldson followed an unconventional path as teacher, writer and advocate before finding a home in political philosophy. Her research, situated in the ‘political turn’ in animal rights theory, explores the implications of recognizing animals as members of social, cultural, and political communities. What would it mean to live with other animals in relationships of mutual respect and flourishing instead of tyranny and exploitation? Sue’s work centres animals’ rights to collective self-determination, and to co-authorship of their relationships with humans through practices of citizenship, denizenship and treaty diplomacy. This work draws insights from citizenship theory, feminist and decolonial political theory, disability theory, children's rights theory, democratic theory, ethology, and ecological ethics; as well as practical "experiments in living" such as animal sanctuaries and intentional communities.  Sue is the co-author (with Will Kymlicka) of Animals and the Right to Politics (Oxford UP 2025) and Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights (Oxford UP 2011). She has published more than 40 academic articles, as well as contributing dozens of essays, columns and interviews on animal-related topics for popular media. Sue is co-convenor of the Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics research group at Queen’s. APPLE sponsors animal studies talks, workshops, reading groups, public outreach, and the ‘Animal Turn’ podcast.

Books

• Animals and the Right to Politics (Oxford UP 2025). Co-authored with Will Kymlicka.
• Chimpanzee Rights: The Philosopher’s Brief (Routledge 2018) Co-authored with 12 other philosophers.
• Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights (Oxford UP 2011). Co-authored with Will Kymlicka. Winner of the 2013 Canadian Philosophical Association book prize.
• Thread of Deceit (Sumach Press 2004) Short-listed for an Arthur Ellis crime writing award.
• Foods that Don’t Bite Back (Arsenal Pulp Press/Whitecap Books, 2003)

Selected Journal Articles

• “Animal Ghosts at Canadian Universities: The politics of concealment and transparency.” Animals 13(24) 3760 (2023). Co-authored with Laura Janara.
• “Doing Politics with Animals”, Social Research 90/4 (2023). Co-authored with Will Kymlicka.
• “Realizing Interspecies Democracy: The preconditions for an egalitarian, multispecies world,” A trialogue with Jean-Paul Gagnon and Janneke Vink. Democratic Theory 8/1 (2021).
• “Animal Agora: Animal citizens and the democratic challenge”, Social Theory and Practice 46/4 (2020).
• “Animal Agency in Community: A Political Multispecies Ethnography of VINE Sanctuary”, Politics and Animals 6 (2020). Co-authored with Charlotte Blattner and Ryan Wilcox.
• “Locating Animals in Political Philosophy”, Philosophy Compass 11/1 (2016). Co-authored with Will Kymlicka.
• “A Sustainable Campus: The Sydney Declaration on Interspecies Sustainability”, Animal Studies Journal, Vol. 5/1, (2016). Co-authored with 10 colleagues.
• “Farmed Animal Sanctuaries: The Heart of the Movement?” Politics & Animals 1 (2015). Co-authored with Will Kymlicka.
• “Interspecies Politics: Reply to Hinchcliffe and Ladwig”, Journal of Political Philosophy 23/3 (2015). Co-authored with Will Kymlicka.
• “Animal Rights, Multiculturalism and the Left”, Journal of Social Philosophy 45/1 (2014). Co-authored with Will Kymlicka.
• “Unruly Beasts: Animal Citizens and the Threat of Tyranny”, Canadian Journal of Political Science 47/1 (2014). Co-authored with Will Kymlicka
• “Animals and the Frontiers of Citizenship”, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 34/2 (2014). Co-authored with Will Kymlicka.
• “Reply: Animal Citizenship, Liberal Theory and the Historical Moment”, Dialogue 52/4 (2013). Co-authored with Will Kymlicka.
• “Reply to Svärd, Nurse, and Ryland”, Journal of Animal Ethics 3/2 (2013).
• “A Defense of Animal Citizens and Sovereigns”, Law, Ethics and Philosophy 1/1 (2013). Co-authored with Will Kymlicka.

Selected Chapters in Books

• “Solidarity with Animals: The case of domesticated animals” in A. Cochrane and M-D Cojocaru (eds) Solidarity with Animals: Promises, pitfalls and potential. (OUP 2024). Co-authored with Will Kymlicka.
• “Transformative Animal Protection”, in V. Giroux, A. Pepper and K. Voigt (eds) The Ethics of Animal Shelters. (OUP 2023). Co-authored with Will Kymlicka.
•  “Animal Labour in a Post-Work Society”, in C.Blattner, K. Coulter and W. Kymlicka (eds) Animal Labour: A new frontier in interspecies justice? (OUP 2019). Co-authored with Will Kymlicka.
•  “Metics, Members and Citizens”, in Rainer Bauböck (ed) Democratic Inclusion: Rainer Bauböck in Dialogue (Manchester UP 2018). Co-authored with Will Kymlicka.
• “Rethinking Membership and Participation in an Inclusive Democracy: Cognitive Disability, Children, Animals” in Barbara Arneil and Nancy Hirschmann (eds) Disability and Political Theory (Cambridge UP 2017). Co-authored with Will Kymlicka
• “Born Allies: Children and Animals” in Laura Buzzard et. al (eds) The Broadview Anthology of Expository Prose, 3rd Canadian Edition (Broadview Press 2017). Co-authored with Will Kymlicka.
• “Between Wild and Domesticated”, in Bernice Bovenkerk and Jozef Keulartz (eds) Animal Ethics in the Age of Humans: Blurring boundaries in human-animal relationships (Springer 2016). Co-authored with Will Kymlicka.
• “Make it So: Envisaging a Zoopolitical Revolution” in Paola Cavalieri (ed) Philosophy and the Politics of Animal Liberation (Palgrave Macmillan 2016). Co-authored with Will Kymlicka.
• “Animal Rights and Aboriginal Rights”, in Vaughan Black, Peter Sankoff and Katie Sykes (eds), Perspectives on Animals and the Law in Canada (Irwin Law, 2015). Co-authored with Will Kymlicka.
• “From Polis to Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights” in Karen Wendling (ed) Ethics in Canada: Ethical, Social and Political Perspectives (OUP 2015). Co-authored with Will Kymlicka.

Encyclopedia & Handbook Entries

•  “Sanctuary Communities” in Y. Athanassakis et al (eds) The Plant-based and Vegan Handbook (Springer 2024).
• “Refuge d’animaux”, in Renan Larue (ed.) La pensée végane (PUF 2020).
• “Rights”, in Lori Gruen (ed) Critical Terms in Animal Studies (University of Chicago Press 2018). Co-authored with Will Kymlicka.
• “Children and Animals” in Routledge Handbook on the Philosophy of Childhood and Children (Routledge 2018). Co-authored with Will Kymlicka.
• “Inclusive Citizenship beyond the Capacity Contract” in Ayelet Shachar et al. (eds) Oxford Handbook of Citizenship (OUP 2017). Co-authored with Will Kymlicka.
• “Animals in Political Theory” in Linda Kalof (ed) The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies (OUP 2017). Co-authored with Will Kymlicka.

Education

• BA, University of Toronto
• PhD, Yale University

Specializations / Research Interests

Early Modern Philosophy, Epistemology, Philosophy of Creativity

Personal Website

About

My research spans three areas: (1) the history of early modern philosophy, (2) contemporary epistemology, and (3) the philosophy and cognitive science of creativity. Much of my work in the first two areas focuses on the phenomenon of clarity, or clear perception. This project develops along two parallel tracks.

(1) The first track is historical, as I analyze the role that clarity plays for Descartes and other figures stretching back to the Stoics. This project culminates in a book, Clarity First: Re-envisioning Descartes’s Epistemology (forthcoming 2026, Oxford). I argue that clarity is the central notion in Descartes’s epistemology—and indeed in his philosophy as a whole. On my reading, every epistemic notion Descartes posits is either defined or explained in terms of clarity. Thus I attempt to systematically reinterpret his epistemology by unpacking his views on clarity: what it is, what it does, and how we get it.

(2) The notion of "clear (and distinct) perception" has fallen out of favour in modern philosophy, but in new work I argue that we need to bring it back. I think the right conception of clarity illuminates a wide range of philosophical concerns, including cognitive phenomenology, perception and perceptual bias, reasons for belief (and reasons for doubt), introspection (and its limits), self-knowledge, intuition, inference, and even freedom.

(3) In my third area of research—creativity—I explore questions such as: What is creativity? Can it be explained? Does being creative involve a distinctive kind of agency, or even freedom? My current projects include a monograph called Creative Agency, to be co-authored with Dustin Stokes, under contract with Oxford.

Before joining the faculty at Queen's in 2018, I was a Bersoff Fellow at New York University and then an Assistant Professor at Barnard College of Columbia University.

Book

• Clarity First: Re-envisioning Descartes’s Epistemology (Forthcoming 2026) Oxford University Press.

Edited Book

• The Philosophy of Creativity: New Essays (2014) with Scott Barry Kaufman, Oxford University Press.

Selected Journal Articles

• “Agency and Objectivity: Gomesian Faith, Cartesian Clarity, or both?” (Forthcoming) Canadian Journal of Philosophy.

• “The Rational Force of Clarity: Descartes’s Rejection of Psychologism” (2024) Res Philosophica 101 (3):431–457.

• “Creativity” (2023) with Dustin Stokes, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman. URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/creativity/

• “Cartesian Intuition” (2022) British Journal of the History of Philosophy, pp. 1-31.

• “Cartesian Clarity” (2020) Philosophers’ Imprint, 20(19), pp. 1-28.

• “Descartes’s Anti-Transparency and the Need for Radical Doubt” (2018) Ergo, 5(41), pp. 1083-1129.

• “Creativity and Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders Across the Arts and Sciences” (2014) with Scott Barry Kaufman, Frontiers in Psychology, 5(1145), pp. 1-4.

Selected Book Chapters

• “Historical Treatments of Creativity in the Western Tradition” (Forthcoming) in Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Imagination and Creativity, edited by Amy Kind and Julia Langkau, Oxford University Press.

• “Descartes’s Clarity First Epistemology” (Forthcoming) in Blackwell Companion to Epistemology, 3rd edition, edited by Jonathan Dancy, Ernest Sosa, Matthias Steup, and Kurt Sylvan.

• “Descartes’s Method for Achieving Knowledge” (Forthcoming) in Blackwell Companion to Epistemology, 3rd edition, edited by Jonathan Dancy, Ernest Sosa, Matthias Steup, and Kurt Sylvan.

• “Attributing Creativity” (2018) with Dustin Stokes, in Creativity and Philosophy, edited by Berys Gaut and Matthew Kieran, Routledge, pp. 193-210.

• “Naturalistic Approaches to Creativity” (2016) with Dustin Stokes, in The Blackwell Companion to Experimental Philosophy, edited by Justin Sytsma and Wesley Buckwalter. West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 318-333.

• “Introducing The Philosophy of Creativity” (2014) with Scott Barry Kaufman, in The Philosophy of Creativity: New Essays(above), pp. 3-16.

Reviews

• “Review of Rafaella De Rosa’s Descartes and the Puzzle of Sensory Representation” (2014)with John Morrison, Mind v.123, pp. 1187-1191.

Public Philosophy

• Contribution to roundtable “On Art and Artificial Intelligence” (2023), with Dustin Stokes, in Aesthetics for Birds.

• “Computer creativity is a matter of agency” (2021), with Dustin Stokes, in Institute of Arts and Ideas.

Book in progress

• Creative Agency, with Dustin Stokes, under contract with Oxford University Press.

Education

• BA, Carleton College 
• MA, University of Wisconsin
• PhD, University of Toronto

Specializations / Research Interests

Early Modern Philosophy (esp. rationalism), Ancient Philosophy (esp. Stoicism)

About

Jon Miller is a specialist in early modern and ancient philosophy. His particular interest lies in the reception of ancient philosophy by early modern philosophers. He is best known for his work on Spinoza and the Stoics, though he has also published on other early modern thinkers such as Grotius and Descartes, and other ancients, including Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus and the Skeptics. Miller’s many publications include six books, numerous journal articles and book chapters, an array of encyclopedia entries, and more. Miller has been fortunate to have his research supported by various grants, including several from SSHRC, a Chancellor’s Research Award (Queen’s), and others.

Though Miller’s published works fall mostly in the history of philosophy, he maintains a wide range of philosophical interests. These are reflected in the courses that Miller regularly teaches or co-teaches, including first-year introduction to philosophy, second-year metaphysics and epistemology, third-year history of philosophy, African philosophy, and more. Miller enjoys teaching and he is often named for teaching awards.

Sample Monograph

• Spinoza and the Stoics (Cambridge UP, 2015); translated into two other languages

Sample Edited Collection

• (with Brad Inwood) Hellenistic and Early Modern Philosophy (Cambridge UP, 2003)

Selected Other Publications

• “A distinction regarding happiness in ancient philosophy”, Social Research:  An International Quarterly of the Social Sciences, vol. 77 (summer 2010)
• “Hugo Grotius and his new approach to the law of nations” in Christianity and Global Law, ed. by Rafael Domingo Osle and John Witt (Routledge, 2020)
• “Grotius” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Selected Work in Progress

• “Rights in Hellenistic Thought” in The Cambridge History of Rights, vol. 1, ed. by Clifford Ando et al. (Cambridge UP, 2021)

Teaching

Miller has held faculty positions at Queen’s, the University of Minnesota, and Uppsala University. He has taught numerous different courses through the years, though these days he tends to teach PHIL 111 plus an upper-level course in the history of philosophy and a seminar.

Education

• M.A., Glasgow
• Ph.D., Queen’s

Specializations / Research Interests

Moral, Social & Political Philosophy, Philosophy of Law

About

A graduate of Queen's University and the University of Glasgow, Alistair Macleod is the author of two books (Social Justice, Progressive Politics and Taxes and Paul Tillich: An Essay on the Role of Ontology in his Philosophical Theology) and many articles in such journals as Analysis, The Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Hume Studies, and The Journal of Philosophy. He has held a C.D. Howe Memorial Fellowship at the University of Oxford and a Research Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh. He has also been awarded Leave Fellowships by the Canada Council and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. His research interests are principally in social and political philosophy and the philosophy of law. 

Monographs

• Paul Tillich: An Essay on the Role of Ontology in his Philosophical Theology, Contemporary Religious Thinkers Series, Allen & Unwin, London 1973 (Reprinted by Routledge, 2017)
• Social Justice, Progressive Politics, and Taxes, University of Victoria, 2003

Edited Journal Issues

• Democracy and Globalization, Special Issue of The Journal of Social Philosophy, Vol 37 No 1, 2006 (coedited with Carol Gould)

Selected Journal Articles

• “Justice and the Market,” The Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Vol 13 No 4 (1983)
• “Distributive Justice, Contract, and Equality,” The Journal of Philosophy, Vol 81 No 11 (1984)
• “Equality under the Law, Efficiency, and Market-based Provision of Legal Services,” International Bar Association Publications, London, 1998
• “Invisible Hand Arguments: Milton Friedman and Adam Smith,” The Journal of Scottish Philosophy, Vol 5 No 2 (2007)
• “Rights and Recognition: The Case of Human Rights,” The Journal of Social Philosophy, Vol 44 Issue 1 (2013), Symposium on Rights and Recognition (with John Deigh, David Lyons, & Rex Martin)
• “Promises and Promissory Obligations: When There is No Obligation to Keep Promises,” The Journal of Social Philosophy Vol 50 No 1 (Special 50th Anniversary Issue) (2019)

Selected Chapters in Books

• “Equality of Opportunity,” in Moral Issues (ed. Jan Narveson), Oxford University Press, 1983
• “Rights, Law, and Justice,” in Legal Theory Meets Legal Practice (ed. Bayefsky), Academic Printing and Publishing, Edmonton, 1988
• “Freedom versus Equality: a False Antithesis,” in Liberty, Equality, and Pluralism (eds. May, Shonsheck & Sistare), Kansas University Press, 1997
• “The Structure of Arguments for Human Rights,” in Universal Human Rights (eds. Mortimer Sellers & David Reidy), Rowman and Littlefield, 2005
• “Voting without Voice: How Votes can be Counted without Counting (or Democracy and the Wasted Vote Problem,” in Democracy, Populism, and Truth (eds. Navin & Nunan), Springer, 2020

Selected Reviews and Review Essays

• “Rawls’ Theory of Justice,” Dialogue: A Philosophical Review, 1974
• “Amartya Sen on Human Rights in The Idea of Justice,” Special Issue on Sen’s The Idea of Justice, Philosophy and Social Criticism, 2014

Encyclopedia Entries

• Entry on "Efficiency" in Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Law, Garland Publishing, New York 1999

Work in Progress

• Equality of Opportunity as a Principle of Distributive Justice

Education

• B.A., Queen's
• M.A., Queen's
• Ph.D., Queen's

Specializations / Research Interests

Feminist Thought, Jewish Philosophy, Narrative Reasoning, and Critical Thinking

About

In addition to her continuing adjunct appointment in the Department of Philosophy, Jacqueline Davies is cross appointed to the Queen’s Department of Gender Studies. She is also a member of the Jewish Studies Faculty Advisory Committee and a faculty associate of the new Cultural Studies graduate program at Queen’s. Teaching at Queen’s since 1990, she is convinced of the epistemic necessity of interdisciplinary research.

Her research interests include intersectionality, diaspora, and feminist thought, as well as Jewish philosophy, and twentieth century continental thought. Her recent publications focus particularly on the work of Emmanuel Levinas viewed through the lens of 20th century aesthetic and communications technologies (cinema, medical imaging, and the internet). These publications include: “Others in the Ether: On Levinasian Internet Ethics by Design”, in Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal Vol. 3, 2009; “Premature M/Othering: Levinasian ethics and the politics of fetal ultrasound imaging”, in Embodiment and Agency: New Essays in Feminist Philosophy, Sue Campbell, Letitia Meynell, and Susan Sherwin eds. (Penn State University Press, 2009); and “Reading Levinas in The Apartment", in Feminism and Hospitality: Gender in the Host/Guest Relationship, Maurice Hamington, ed. (Rowman and Littlefield, forthcoming).

Her publications of note include reflections on pornography and objectification, as well as co-authored introductory textbooks on critical thinking and on social analysis in Canada. She is a frequent reviewer of manuscripts in critical thinking, feminist thought, bioethics and applied ethics. Current research on the legalized sex trade in Germany marks a return to extended philosophical reflection on some of the grittier realities that motivate engaged feminism and critical theory.

Education

• B.A., Ottawa
• M.A., Queen's
• Ph.D., Queen's

Specialization / Research Interests

Philosophy of Mathematics, Metaphysics, Descartes & Early Modern Philosophy, Comparative Classical Philosophies

About

My research and teaching examine what (if anything) it means to be a norm-responsive thinker and agent, in all aspects of life, from logic to morals. I regularly teach courses in metaphysics, philosophy of mathematics, early modern philosophy, Descartes, and comparative classical philosophies (Greek, Indian and Chinese). 

Some Publications

• "The Uses of Thought and Will: Descartes's Practical Philosophy of Freedom", The European Legacy, 2022
• "Persons and Passions: The Mature Cartesian Account", In the Sphere of the Personal, 2016
• "Practice, Constraint, and Mathematical Concepts", Philosophia Scientiae, 2012
• "Cartesian Epistemology and the Authority of Norms", History of Philosophy Quarterly, 2010

Education

• B.A., San Jose,
• M.A., Alberta
• Ph.D., Alberta
• LLB, Toronto

Specializations / Research Interests 

Bioethics, Philosophy of Law, Disability Studies

About

Jerry Bickenbach's research is in disability studies, bioethics and philosophy of law. He currently holds a Queen's Research Chair, and was a previous holder of a Killam Fellowship, working on the law and policy of health systems performance assessment, including the legal and ethical aspects of summary measures of population health. Previous research included disability and environmental impact; functional limitation determination for disability pensions; qualitative methodologies for survey instrument development for functional limitation; disability and spirituality; political participation of persons with disabilities; and long term care reform evaluation. Currently, Bickenbach is one of the editors of a five volume Encyclopedia of Disability (Sage). After editing a collection of articles on quality of life, resource allocation and disability (CUP), Bickenbach is preparing a book on disability and equality.