J. David Velleman

Contributions to the philosophy of action, moral philosophy, and philosophy of mind, including work on personal identity. Explored the central roles of our concerns with self-understanding in our agency and our practical thinking, including our moral reflection, and in the nature of the self and of personal identity. This led to an understanding of the idea of what one has reason to do/ought to do in terms of concerns with self-intelligibility. Since at least one central form of self-intelligibility is narrative intelligibility, this led to deep insights about the roles of narrative understanding. Proceeded to show how these ideas about our concerns with self-understanding support a plausible and philosophically rich model of our shared thought and action, of how we get along. Work had significant influence in these different areas of humanistic research. Founding coeditor of Philosophers' Imprint, a major, open access journal. Awarded Guggenheim and NEH Fellowships.