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Colin Allen (PhD 1989, UCLA) is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Colin Allen (PhD 1989, UCLA) is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Allen's main areas of research concern the philosophical foundations of cognitive science, particularly as these relate to scientific study of animal cognition and artificial intelligence. His publications also span topics in the philosophy of mind, philosophy of biology, and humanities computing, with over 120 research articles and several edited and co-authored books, including Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong (Oxford University Press 2009) and Species of Mind (MIT Press 1997).
Colin Allen (PhD 1989, UCLA) is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Allen's main areas of research concern the philosophical foundations of cognitive science, particularly as these relate to scientific study of animal cognition and artificial intelligence. His publications also span topics in the philosophy of mind, philosophy of biology, and humanities computing, with over 120 research articles and several edited and co-authored books, including Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong (Oxford University Press 2009) and Species of Mind (MIT Press 1997).
Allen previously held faculty positions at the University of Pittsburgh (2017-2023), Indiana University, Bloomington (2004-2017) where he also directed the Cognitive Science Program from 2011-2015, and Texas A&M University (1989-2004). He is Associate Editor of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and has been consulting and programming for the encyclopedia since 1998. He co-founded the Internet Philosophy Ontology project (InPhO) which has received multiple national and international research grants for its work in computational humanities. He was co-PI of a project on the Evolution of Human Cognition funded by a multimillion dollar grant by the John Templeton Foundation to the Stone Age Institute in Bloomington, Indiana from 2015-2019. From 2020-2022 he is the recipient of an award from the Templeton World Charity Foundation's Diverse Intelligences program for a project titled "Wisdom in the Machine Age", and from 2022 is lead P.I. of "Joyful by Nature", with an international team investigating play and other social behaviors in kea, dolphins, and great apes, also funded by TWCF.
In 2010 Allen received a Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany, which is given "in recognition of a researcher's entire achievements to date", and in 2013 he received the Barwise Prize from the American Philosophical Association "for significant and sustained contributions to areas relevant to philosophy and computing by an APA member." From 2015-2019, he held the visiting position of "Chair Professor" at Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China and in 2017 he was designated Changjiang (Yangtze River) Scholar the Ministry of Education in the People's Republic of China. In 2020, Allen was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Colin Allen (PhD 1989, UCLA) is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Allen's main areas of research concern the philosophical foundations of cognitive science, particularly as these relate to scientific study of animal cognition and artificial intelligence. His publications also span topics in the philosophy of mind, philosophy of biology, and humanities computing, with over 120 research articles and several edited and co-authored books.
His books include Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong (Oxford University Press 2009), coauthored with Wendell Wallach, and translated into Korean (2015), Chinese (2017: Peking University Press), and Japanese (2019). Species of Mind (MIT Press 1997), co-authored with Marc Bekoff, remains in print and has also been translated into Italian. Nature's Purposes, coedited with Bekoff and George Lauder is an anthology of previously published papers about the role of teleological concepts in biological explanation. This volume was published in April of 1998, also by MIT Press. The Evolution of Mind, is a collection of original essays co-edited with cognitive psychologist Denise Cummins, which was published in May 1998 by Oxford University Press. The Cognitive Animal is a collection of 57 original essays by animal cognition experts, coedited with Marc Bekoff and Gordon Burghardt, and published in the summer of 2002 by The MIT Press.
Allen holds a B.A. in philosophy from University College London and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of California at Los Angeles where he also did graduate work in computer science as a member of UCLA's AI Lab. Prior to moving to UCSB, Allen was Distinguished Professor in the Department of History & Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. Prior to that, he held the title "Provost Professor" at Indiana University with joint appointments in Cognitive Science and History & Philosophy of Science; he also served as director of IU's cognitive science program from 2011-2015. He was formerly Professor of Philosophy at Texas A&M University, moving to Indiana in 2004, to Pittsburgh in 2017, and to the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 2023.
Since 1998 he has been consulting and programming for The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and was instrumental in helping the SEP obtain federal and private funding in its formative years. He is currently Associate Editor of the encyclopedia, as well as a subject editor.
He coauthored a logic textbook Logic Primer (MIT Press 1992, 2nd ed. 2001, 3rd ed. 2022) with Texas A&M colleague Michael Hand. In 1995 Allen created the first interactive logic site on the world wide web with Texas A&M colleague Chris Menzel at http://logic.tamu.edu/. They are also co-developers of the site at http://www.poweroflogic.com. Allen is currently director of the Internet Philosophy Ontology project (InPhO) which in 2007 was awarded a Digital Humanities startup grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and in 2009 received another grant from the NEH Division of Preservation and Access, and has been subsequently funded by the NEH jointly with JISC in the UK and DFG in Germany. Alongside four Indiana University colleagues he was co-PI of a project on the Evolution of Human Cognition funded by a multimillion dollar grant by the John Templeton Foundation to the Stone Age Institute in Bloomington, Indiana from 2015-2019. From 2020-2023 he is the recipient of an award from the Templeton World Charity Foundation's Diverse Intelligences program for a project titled "Wisdom in the Machine Age", and from 2022-2025 is lead P.I. with a team of biologists and comparative psychologists in New Zealand, Scotland, and the United States investigating the joyful nature of play and other social behaviors in kea, dolphins, and great apes, also funded by TWCF.
In 2020 Allen was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for "significant contributions to philosophy of science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of cognitive science, and in logic, computation and artificial intelligence." In 2017 he was given the Changjiang (Yangtze River) Scholar award by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China. In 2013 he received the Barwise Prize from the American Philosophical Association "for significant and sustained contributions to areas relevant to philosophy and computing by an APA member." In 2010 Allen received a Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany, which is given "in recognition of a researcher's entire achievements to date." Allen was President of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology in 2008-2009. In 2008 he was honored as Faculty Mentor of the Year by the Indiana University Graduate and Professional Students Organization. He also received the Association of Former Students Distinguished Teaching Award at Texas A&M in 2000. In 1994-1995 he spent the year at the University of Colorado, Boulder, as recipient of a Professional Development Fellowship from the National Science Foundation.
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