Carrie Jenkins

Canada Research Chair and Professor of Philosophy University of British Columbia

  • Vancover BC

Writer and award-winning public philosopher.

Contact

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Biography

I'm a writer and philosopher based in Vancouver, BC. I currently hold a Canada Research Chair in Philosophy at the University of British Columbia. I studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, and have also held academic posts at the University of St Andrews, the Australian National University, the University of Michigan, the University of Nottingham, and the University of Aberdeen. At UBC I head up a SSHRC-funded project on The Nature of Romantic Love. My new book, What Love Is And What It Could Be, is out now with Basic Books (NY).

Industry Expertise

Education/Learning
Research

Areas of Expertise

Metaphysics
Philosophy of Logic
Epistemology
Philosophy of Romantic Love
Interdisciplinary Philosophy

Accomplishments

American Philosophical Association Public Philosophy Op Ed Contest Award

2016-08-23

Winner
2016 American Philosophical Association Public Philosophy Op Ed Contest Award

Education

Trinity College, Cambridge

Ph.D.

Philosophy

Trinity College, Cambridge

M.Phil.

Philosophy

Trinity College, Cambridge

B.A.

Philosophy

Affiliations

  • University of British Columbia : Canada Research Chair

Media Appearances

UBC Profs Organize Sexual Assault Conference Amid Scandal

The Huffington Post  online

2016-02-14

Philosophy professor Carrie Ichikawa Jenkins said the conference was one of many suggestions that emerged when a group of concerned UBC faculty members met in December...

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Valentine's Day advice for the single person

CBC  online

2016-02-14

Ichikawa Jenkins studies the metaphysics of love at UBC.

"There is this perception that we can't understand love, and that it's really mysterious. Nothing we do is going to get us any closer to figuring out what it is, and you have to let it go and not overthink it. "

"Actually, we're underthinking love. If we had more of an opportunity to get into the philosophical questions, like, 'what is this thing?', 'where does it come from?'...I think that could really help people who are struggling with living up to expectations."...

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Modern Love (Part 4)

CBC Radio Early Edition  radio

2016-02-12

Is romance lost in the modern dating age?

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Articles

Epistemological Naturalisms

The Blackwell Companion to Naturalism

2015

One traditionally prominent kind of epistemological naturalism centers on the rejection of a priori knowledge. Its motivating idea is that the very idea of a priori knowledge is unscientific, because science is a purely empirical enterprise. Since anything that is unscientific is thereby unacceptable to a naturalist, the thought continues, epistemological naturalists must reject the a priori. Something like this line of thought has also been applied to epistemic normativity and armchair knowledge, both of which have been treated as similarly inimical ...

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The traditional conception of the a priori

Synthese

2015

In this paper, we explore the traditional conception of a prioricity as epistemic independence of evidence from sense experience. We investigate the fortunes of the traditional conception in the light of recent challenges by Timothy Williamson. We contend that Williamson's arguments can be resisted in various ways. En route, we argue that Williamson's views are not as distant from tradition (in particular, from Kant) as they might seem at first glance.

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What Is Love? An Incomplete Map of the Metaphysics

Journal of the American Philosophical Association

2015

The paper begins by surveying a range of possible views on the metaphysics of romantic love, organizing them as responses to a single question. It then outlines a position, constructionist functionalism, according to which romantic love is characterized by a functional role that is at least partly constituted by social matters (social institutions, traditions, and practices), although this role may be realized by states that are not socially constructed.

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