Professor

1417 Hunter West
E-mail: jgarson@hunter.cuny.edu
Office Hours: Tuesday/Friday 11:30 am - 12:30 pm and by appointment

Click here to visit Justin's personal website.

Biography

Justin Garson is a philosopher of biology. His most recent book, What Biological Functions Are and Why They Matter (Cambridge University Press, 2019), gives a novel account of biological functions and develops its implications for thinking about mechanisms, mental disorders, and intentionality. A companion volume, A Critical Overview of Biological Functions (Springer, 2016), gives an up-to-date survey of the literature. His first book, The Biological Mind: A Philosophical Introduction (Routledge 2015) explores points of intersection between biology and mind, such as altruism, evolutionary psychology, the nature-nurture dispute, explanation in neuroscience, and psychiatric classification. He is also interested in environmental philosophy, and is a co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Biodiversity. He also writes on the history of neuroscience and psychiatry. He is a recipient of the 2015 Feliks Gross Endowment Award, CUNY's highest award for Assistant Professors. In 2009, he and his family lived in Gulu, Northern Uganda, and started a business to support people affected by war. He received his PhD in Philosophy and the Program in the History and Philosophy of Science at The University of Texas at Austin in 2006.  

Selected Publications

Please contact author at jgarson@hunter.cuny.edu for reprints or electronic versions, or visit his website for preprint versions of some of these papers. 

Books:

• Garson, J. 2022. Madness: A Philosophical Exploration. (New York: Oxford University Press)
• Garson, J. 2022. The Biological Mind: A Philosophical Introduction, Second Edition. (London: Routledge)
• Garson, J. 2019. What Biological Functions Are and Why They Matter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). 
• Garson, J., Plutynski, A., and Sarkar, S. (Eds.) 2017. The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Biodiversity (London: Routledge).
• Garson, J. 2016. A Critical Overview of Biological Functions (Dordrecht: Springer). 
• Garson, J. 2015. The Biological Mind: A Philosophical Introduction. (London: Routledge).

Articles: 

• Garson, J. Forthcoming. "How to be a Function Pluralist", British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
• Garson, J. 2017. "Against Organizational Functions," Philosophy of Science 84: 1093-1103. 
• Garson, J. 2017. "A Generalized Selected Effects Theory of Function," Philosophy of Science 84: 523-543. 
• Garson, J. 2016. " Two Types of Psychological Hedonism", Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 56: 7-14. 
• Garson, J., and Schulz, A. W. 2016. " Introduction: The Biology of Psychological Altruism", Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 56: 1-2. 
• Garson, J. 2015. "The Birth of Information in the Brain: Edgar Adrian and the Vacuum Tube", Science in Context 28: 31-52.
• Garson, J., and Piccinini, G. 2014. "Functions Must be Performed at Appropriate Rates in Appropriate Situations", British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 65:1-20 
• Garson, J. 2014. "What is the Value of Historical Fidelity in Restoration?", Studies in History and Philosophy of BIology and Biological Sciences 45:97-100 
• Garson, J. 2013. "The Functional Sense of Mechanism", Philosophy of Science 80: 317-333.
• Garson, J. 2012. "Function, Selection, and Construction in the Brain", Synthese: Special Issue on Neuroscience and its Philosophy 189: 451-481.
• Garson, J. 2011. “Selected Effects Functions and Causal Role Functions in the Brain: The Case for an Etiological Approach to Neuroscience”, Biology & Philosophy 26: 547-565.
• Garson, J. 2010. “Schizophrenia and the Dysfunctional Brain”, Journal of Cognitive Science 11: 215-246.
• Garson, J. 2003. “The Introduction of Information into Neurobiology”, Philosophy of Science 70: 926-936.

Book Chapters: 

• Garson, J. 2017. "A 'Model Schizophrenia': Amphetamine Psychosis and the Transformation of American Psychiatry" in Casper, S., and Gavrus, D. (Eds.), The History of the Brain and Mind Sciences: Technique, Technology, Therapy (Rochester: University of Rochester Press), pp. 208-228. 
• Garson, J. 2017. "Phenomena, Mechanisms, and Functions" in Glennan, S., and Illari, P. (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Mechanisms (London: Routledge), pp. 104-115. 
• Garson, J. 2017. "Ecological Restoration and Biodiversity Conservation", in Garson, J., Plutynski, A., and Sarkar, S. (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Biodiversity (London: Routledge), pp. 326-337.
• Garson, J. 2016. "The Hiddenness of Psychological Symptom Amplification: Some Historical Observations", in Moseley, D. D., and Gala, G. (Eds.), Philosophy and Psychiatry: Problems, Intersections and New Perspectives (London: Routledge), pp. 29-35. 
• Garson, J. 2013. “Alexander Forbes, Walter Cannon, and Science-Based Literature”, in Stiles, A, Finger, S., and Boller, F. (Eds.), Progress in Brain Research Vol 205: Literature, Neurology, and Neuroscience: Historical and Literary Connections (Amsterdam: Elsevier), pp. 241-256.
• Garson, J. 2008. “Function and Teleology”, in Plutynski, A., and Sarkar, S. (Eds.), Companion to Philosophy of Biology (Malden, MA: Blackwell).