Edwin William McCannCurriculum vitae

School of Philosophy 712 Navy StreetUniversity of Southern California Santa Monica, CA 90405Los Angeles, CA 90089-0451 (310) 396-2242(213) 740-5169Fax: (213) 740-5174E-mail: mccann@usc.edu

POSITIONS HELDRegular faculty appointments

University of Southern California Professor of Philosophy and English, 2006- Professor of Philosophy, 2000- Associate Professor of Philosophy, 1986-2000 Assistant Professor of Philosophy, 1983-86Massachusetts Institute of Technology Assistant Professor of Philosophy, 1978-83Harvard University Assistant Professor of Philosophy, 1975-78

Visiting or adjunct faculty appointments

University of California, Berkeley Visiting Professor of Philosophy, 2004-5Harvard University Visiting Professor of Philosophy, 2000-1Claremont Graduate University Adjunct Professor of Philosophy, Spring 1993 and Spring 1994University of California, Irvine Visiting Associate Professor of Philosophy, Winter-Spring 1988University of California, Los Angeles Visiting Associate Professor of Philosophy, Spring 1988 and Winter 1989 Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy, 1979-80

EDUCATION

University of Pennsylvania Ph.D. in Philosophy, August 1975University of California at Santa Cruz A.B. in Philosophy with College Honors and Highest Honors in Philosophy, June 1971

COURSES TAUGHT

Introductory level Introduction to Philosophy (UC Irvine) Classics in the History of Philosophy (MIT); History of Western Philosophy (yearlong course--Harvard)Beginnings of Western Philosophy (USC) History of Modern Philosophy (UC Berkeley, USC)Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind (UCLA, USC)Philosophy in Literature (UCLA Extension)Science, Religion and the Making of the Modern Mind (USC)Love and its Representations in Literature, Philosophy and Film (CORE Multimedia Program, USC)Ideas on Trial (CORE and MLS programs, USC)Contemporary Moral and Social Issues (USC) Modern Philosophy and the Meaning of Life (USC)Existentialism, Death and Meaninglessness (USC)Thematic Option Core Course: Quality of Life: Culture and Values (USC)Thematic Option Core Course: Symbols and Conceptual Systems (USC)Thematic Option Core Course: The Process of Change in Science (USC)Thematic Option Core Course: Change and the Future (USC)Freshman Seminar: Existentialism (USC)Freshman Seminar: Philosophy in Literature and Film (USC)First Year Investigations: Philosophy of Film and Philosophy in Film (USC)

Intermediate level History of Ancient Philosophy (MIT)History of Modern Philosophy (MIT, USC)Theory of Knowledge (MIT)Metaphysics (MIT)Mind and Soul (USC)Aesthetics and the Film (USC)Phenomenology and Existentialism (Harvard, MIT, UCLA, USC)Descartes (UC Berkeley)Continental Rationalists (MIT, UC Irvine, USC)British Empiricists (Harvard, MIT, USC)Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (Harvard, MIT, UCLA, UC Berkeley, USC)Philosophy of Action (Harvard, USC)Wittgenstein (USC) 20th Century Continental Philosophy

Graduate SeminarsLocke's Essay (Harvard, MIT, UCLA, UC Berkeley, USC)Locke's Essay and Leibniz's New Essays (MIT, Claremont, USC)Aristotelian Essentialism and Locke’s Anti-essentialism (with Frank Lewis)(USC)

Descartes (UC Irvine)Leibniz (UC Irvine)Hume (Claremont)Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (Harvard, USC)Kant's Critique of Judgment (with Barbara Herman)(USC)Three Flavors of Phenomenalism: Berkeley, Leibniz, Kant (USC) Heidegger’s Being and Time and Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations (with Dallas Willard)(USC)Transcendental Philosophy and Its Overcoming: Husserl vs. Heidegger and Early vs. Later Wittgenstein (USC)

AWARDS AND HONORS

Mortar Board (Undergraduate honors society) Faculty of the Month, January 1993USC Associates Award for Excellence in Teaching (USC's highest award for teaching), 1997Phi Beta KappaPhi Kapp PhiDistinguished Faculty Service Award, 2011General Education Teaching Award, 2012Raubenheimer Award (Dornsife College’s highest award for excellence in teaching, research and service), 2012

CURRENT RESEARCH

“Hume’s Theory of Personal Identity in Contexts”

“The New Old Hume: Natural Belief in Objective Causal Necessity”

“Was Locke a Wittgensteinian?”

“Were Kant’s Criticisms of Locke Fair (to Locke, and to Truth)?”

"The Skeptical Mechanist: Locke’s Anti-Metaphysics", a book-length study of Locke'sarguments against Aristotelian essentialism and their connection with his overall commitment to corpuscularian mechanism (in progress)

PUBLICATIONS

"The Conditional Analysis of 'Can': Goldman's 'Reductio' of Lehrer," Philosophical Studies 28 (1975): 437-41.

Review of G. H. von Wright's Causality and Determinism in Philosophical Review 87 (1978): 88-92.

"Skepticism and Kant's B Deduction," History of Philosophy Quarterly 2 (1985): 71-89.

"Lockean Mechanism," in A. Holland, ed. Philosophy, Its History and Historiography (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1985), pp. 213-36. Reprinted in Vere Chappell, ed. Locke (Oxford Readings in Philosophy) (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998); excerpts reprinted, with commentary by Lisa Downing, in Stewart Duncan and Antonia LoLordo, eds. Debates in Modern Philosophy: Essential Readings and Contemporary Responses (New York and London: Routledge, 2013)

"Cartesian Selves and Lockean Substances," The Monist 69 (1986): 458-482.

"Locke on Identity: Matter, Life, and Consciousness," Archiv fuer Geschichte der Philosophie 69 (1987): 54-77. Reprinted in Vere Chappell, ed. Essays on Early Modern Philosophers Vol. 8: John Locke: Theory of Knowledge (New York: Garland, 1992), and in Margaret Atherton, ed. The British Empiricists: Critical Essays (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998).

"Report on the Past Masters Project. II: Past Masters, Locke Database," Archiv fuer Geschichte der Philosophie 75 (1993): 91-5.

"Locke's Philosophy of Body" a chapter in The Cambridge Companion to Locke ed. Vere Chappell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 56-88.

"History: Philosophy of Mind in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries" a chapter in the Blackwell Companion to the Philosophy of Mind ed. Samuel Guttenplan (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), pp. 338-47.

"Locke's Theory of Substance under Attack!" Philosophical Studies, Volume 106, Nos. 1-2, November 2001, pp. 87-105. Reprinted in Peter Anstey, ed. John Locke, Critical Assessments of Leading Philosophers, Series II (Routledge, 2006)

"Locke," a chapter in the Blackwell Companion to Early Modern Philosophy ed. Steven Nadler (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002)

"Locke and the Idea of Substance" in The Cambridge Companion to Locke's 'Essay concerning Human Understanding, ed. Lex Newman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)

"Identity, Essentialism, and the Substance of Body in Locke" in Early Modern Metaphysics: Essays in Honor of Vere Chappell ed. Gideon Yaffe, Paul Hoffman, and David Owen (Peterborough, Ontario and Orchard Park, New York: Broadview Press, 2007)

“Locke's Distinction between Primary Primary Qualities and Secondary Primary Qualities” in Primary and Secondary Qualities: The Historical and Ongoing Debate ed. Lawrence Nolan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)

PAPERS PRESENTED

"Skepticism and Kant's B Deduction" presented at UC Berkeley (1978), UC Irvine (1978), Cornell (1978), U. of Michigan (1978), UC San Diego (1978), UC Santa Barbara (1978), Northwestern (1978), Princeton (1979), Columbia (1981), U. Mass. Amherst (1981)

Comment on D. Soles, "Locke on the Reality of Knowledge," Eastern Division APA meeting 1979.

"Why the Self is not a Substance," presented at UC Berkeley (1980), UC Irvine (1980), UCLA (1980), Dartmouth (1981), Occidental (1985).

Comment on L. Russow, "Berkeley's Mistake," Eastern Division APA meeting 1982.

"Lockean Mechanism," presented at Rutgers Conference on Locke's Philosophy, June 1983 and at the Royal Institute of Philosophy conference on Philosophy and its History, University ofLancaster, September 1983.

"Cartesian Selves and Lockean Substances," presented at UC SantaBarbara (1980), Tufts (1982), Wellesley (1982), Stanford (1985).

Comment on G. Matthews, "Descartes on Other Minds," Pacific Division APA meeting 1985.

"Three Flavors of Phenomenalism: Berkeley, Leibniz, Kant," presented at UC Berkeley (1985).

"Locke and the Idea of Substance," Invited Paper, Pacific Division APA Meeting 1986, UC Irvine (1988), Claremont Graduate School (1989), UC Santa Cruz (1989).

"Gravity and Occult Qualities: Leibniz, Newton, Locke and Boyle," Pitzer College, Claremont (1989)

Comment on P. Peterson, "Primary Quality Ideas," Pacific Division APA Meeting 1987.Comment on Louis Loeb, "Permanence of Belief in Hume and Descartes," Hume Society meeting at Pacific Division APA 1988.

Comment on David Owen, "Locke on Real Essence," Pacific Division APA Meeting 1989.

"Identity, Essentialism, and the Essence of Body in Locke" invited Symposium paper for the Tercentenary of the Essay concerning Human Understanding at the Pacific Division APA, March1990.

Comment on Ira Singer, "The Nature of Cartesian Ideas," Pacific Division APA Meeting 1991.

"Are Persons Substances? Locke vs. Kant" Presented at University of Washington, November 1993; UC Irvine, November 1994.

Comment on Charles Huenemann, "Spinoza and Corporeal Substance: Ethics IP15S,"Pacific Division APA Meeting 1996.

Critic in Author meets critics session on Thomas Lennon, The Battle of the Gods and Giants, Pacific Division APA 1997.

“Tinkering with Lockean Mechanism,” Fourth Annual California Scholars in Early Modern Philosophy Meetings, Berkeley, CA, September 1998; UC Irvine, January 2000; UC Riverside, May 2000; University of Pennsylvania, December 2000;; New England Conference on the History of Early Modern Philosophy, March 2001; Knowledge and Reality conference, Wadham College, Oxford, August 2003; UC Santa Cruz, October 2003.

“Are Powers Dummies, or Are We? Comments on Michael Jacovides, ‘Construction of Locke’s Concept of Power’,” Pacific Division APA 1999.

“Amphibolizing Leibniz: Kant’s Criticisms of Leibniz in the Amphiboly of Concepts of Reflection Section of the Critique of Pure Reason,” UC Santa Barbara, May 1999; Harvard University, April 2001.

“Locke’s Theory of Substance Under Attack!” Invited Symposium Paper, Pacific Division APA March 2000;1 New England Colloquium on Modern Philosophy, December 2000.

Panelist, "Ranking graduate programs in philosophy," a panel organized by the Committee on the Status and Future of the Profession, Pacific Division APA meeting, March 2003

"Why the Self is not a Substance, and why it's (maybe) not a Person, either: Kant vs. Locke and Leibniz on Unity of Self and Unity of Consciousness," invited Symposium paper, Pacific Division APA, March 2004; invited paper at conference 'Self and Unity in Modern Philosophy,' University of Turku, Finland, December 2005

"The Skeptical Mechanist: Locke and the New Philosophy" an invited symposium paper, Eastern Division APA meeting December 2004

“Hume’s Treatment of Personal Identity in contexts” department colloquium, UC Davis, May 2005

"Still Tinkering with Lockean Mechanism" invited paper at Margaret Wilson Memorial Conference, UC San Diego, June 23, 2006

“How Hume went looking for the substance of the self and found Spinoza”, refereed paper presented at the Texas A & M University/Southwest Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy, Octover 25, 2008

“Locke’s Distinction between Primary Primary Qualities and Secondary Primary Qualities”, refereed paper presented at the Midwest Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy, Marquette University, November 7-9, 2008

“Carving Nature at the Joints We Put There: Locke vs. Kripke and Putnam on Natural Kinds” invited colloquium paper, Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto, October 1, 2009

“Freedom and Strength of Will: Descartes, Albritton, Hoffman” invited paper, Pacific Division APA meeting, April 2011.

Comment on Peter Anstey, ‘Locke on the Nature of Mind’, Pacific Division APA meeting, April 5, 2012

“How Locke Didn’t Argue For the Primary/Secondary Quality Distinction” presented at Locke Workshop, University of St. Andrews, June 2012 (refereed)

Comment on Patrick Connolly, ‘Locke and the Laws of Nature’, Pacific Division APA meeting, Aprill 2014

‘Amphibolizing Leibniz: Kant’s Criticism of Leibniz’s Unifying Account of Unity, orMonads, Bodies, Concepts and Sense in Kant's Criticisms of Leibniz', invited presentation, Midwest Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy, Milwaukee, October 2014

‘Locke didn’t have an I-Concept’ invited paper at Columbia University conference on the I-Concept, March 2015

‘Locke on the Idea of Identity: This Time It’s Personal’ invited paper at UCLA Early Modern Philosophy conference, April 2015

Comments on Donald Ainslie, Hume’s True Skepticism, Pacific Division APA meeting, April 2017

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

Member, Nominating Committee for Pacific Division APA, 1998

Referee for tenure and promotion cases at Oregon State University, Stanford University, University of Arizona, University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, University of California at Berkeley, University of Michigan, University of California at Irvine, University of Utah, University of Washiington, San Francisco State University, University of California at Santa Barbara, Purdue University, Indiana University

Referee for book manuscripts for Harvard University Press, Princeton University Press, Oxford University Press, and Cambridge University Press

Referee for articles submitted to Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophical Studies, Nous, Journal of the History of Philosophy, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, Canadian Journal of Philosophy

Editorial Committee, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 1998-2001

ADMINISTRATIVE AND COMMITTEE WORK (Selected; all at USC)

Faculty Master, North Residential College, 2008-2013

Director, School of Philosophy, 1997-2000 [=Department chair]

Vice-dean for Faculty Affairs in USC College, 2007-8

President [elected], Academic Senate, 2003-4; Academic vice president [elected], Academic Senate, March-July 2003; Administrative vice president [elected], Academic Senate, 2001-2003; Member of Executive Board [elected] 2012-13

President [elected], Dornsife College Faculty Council 2011-12; Vice-President [elected] 2010-11

Member, Governing Board, USC Academy for Polymathic Studies, 2011-; Quadrants Lecturer, 2011-12 and 2012-13

Dornsife College Faculty Fellow, 2011-2013

Faculty Advisor, Thematic Option Program, 2011-

Member, Program Board, Master of Liberal Studies Program (Dornsife) 2009-

Director of Faculty Outreach and Curriculum Development, Levan Institute for Humanities and Ethics, 2011-

Director, Interdisciplinary Major Program (College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences), 1994-97

Chair, Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (University), 1993-96; Co-chair, 1989-93; Member, 1986-89

Chair, General Education Committee (College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences), 1993-96, 1986-89;Member, 1989-93, 1984-86

Co-chair, Task Force on Redesigning General Education (College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences/Academic Senate/University), 1993-94

Co-chair, Steering Committee for WASC Reaccreditation, 2005-10

Chair, Committee on Faculty Rights and Responsibilities, 2005-6

Chair, Committee on Faculty Tenure and Privileges Appeals, 2006-

Member, Steering Committee, Templeton Foundation Grant, 2004-9

Member, President's Commission on Undergraduate Education (University), 1988-91; chair, Sub-committee on the Freshman Year Academic Experience and General Education, 1988-91

Member, Undergraduate Studies Committee (University), 1991-93; chair, UGSC panel on Arts and Humanities, 1991-92

Member, Selection Committee for USC Associates' Award for Excellence in Teaching (University/Center for Excellence in Teaching), 1998-2000

Chair, Diversity Requirement Committee (University), 1991-94

Member, Steering Committee, Mellon Minority Undergraduate Fellowship Program, (College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences), 1992-98; Mentor, 1999-2000

Mentor and member of judging panel, McNair Scholars Program (University), 1997-99

Member, Commission on Professional School/College Initiatives (University), 1993-95; Co- chair, Implementation committee, 1995-96

Member, Thematic Option Advisory Board (College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences), 1997- present

Chair, Task Force on Academic Technology (College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences), 1999-2000

Faculty, New Literacy Project (Multimedia in Education) (College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences/Annenberg Center) 1998-present

Chair, Humanities Personnel Committee in College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, 2003-4; member 2001-2004

Member, College Computer Committee (College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences), 1998-99, 1995- 96

Member, Strategic Planning Committee (College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences), 1993-94)

Member, Faculty Handbook Committee (Academic Senate/University), 1999-2000

Member, Task Force on Distance Education and Distributed Learning (Academic Senate/University), 1999-2000

Member, Task Force on Advisement (University), 1997

Member, Search Committee for Director of Orientation (Student Affairs), 2000

Member, Committee on Residential Colleges (University), 1995-6

Member, College Budget and Planning Committee (College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences), 1999-2000

Vice president [elected] of College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences Faculty Council, 1999-2000; member [elected], 1999-2000, 1993-95

School of Philosophy: Undergraduate advisor 1989-1996; Numerous department committees, including Recruitment committee; Scheduling committee; Library and Bookstore committee; Merit Review committee

CV current as of October 2017