My Joomla - John P. McCaskey

Scholarship

The main theme of my research is that the philosophical problem of induction is an artifact of a bad turn taken in the early 19th century, by which induction came to be conceived as a kind of propositional inference that depends on a suppressed uniformity principle. In antiquity and from Bacon to Whewell, induction was instead conceived as an aspect of concept-formation.

Teaching

Every year at Stanford University I teach a course on the history of scientific methods and a course on rival theories of the moral foundations of capitalism. This year, I also taught a course on history of science at Stevens Institute of Technology.

Service

• Board of Advisors, College of Arts and Letters, Stevens Institute of Technology
• Occasional referee for HOPOS
• Consulting, then Contributing, Editor, The Objective Standard, 2007–11
• Founder and Chairman, Anthem Foundation for Objectivist Scholarship, 2001–10
• Board Member, Ayn Rand Institute, 2006–10
• Advisor, John P. McCaskey Foundation

Students’ Comments

“By far been the most challenging and most rewarding course I’ve taken thus far at Stanford.”

“The discussions were fun and your feedback has always been useful and sincere.”

“I’ve always liked precision of logic but wasn't aware of how it could be applied to morality.”

“It’s one of those classes that changes the way you look at things—which is perhaps the greatest compliment a class can get.”