Kristen Irwin, PhD
Associate Professor; Undergraduate Program Director
All of my research is, in some way, about what we can (and do) believe about the Divine, and the implications of those beliefs for our self-understanding and existence in the world. European philosophers of the 17th century struggle in complicated ways with these questions, so I’ve trained my focus on them, but I’m interested in these questions wherever they show up! This means that I pursue topics like the limits of knowledge, what counts as good evidence for different classes of beliefs, the difference between divine and human moral norms and judgments, and how we understand the role of the Divine in various types of suffering (but especially mental disorders).
Education
PhD, University of California, San Diego
Research Interests
Skepticism (and epistemology more generally); problem(s) of evil & metaethics; philosophy of mental disorders
Professional/Community Affiliations
American Philosophical Association; Society of Christian Philosophers; Evangelical Philosophical Society; Leibniz Society of North America; The John Locke Society; Philosophers in Jesuit Education
Courses Taught
PHIL 130 (Philosophy and Persons); HONR 102 (Renaissance to Modernity); PHIL 309 (Modern Philosophy); PHIL 416 (Topics in Modern Philosophy)
Publications/Research Listings
Representative publications:
“Locke and Contemporary Philosophy of Religion” in The Lockean Mind, eds. Shelley Weinberg & Jessica Gordon-Roth (Routledge 2022), 582-591.
“Reading Bayle, Again: A Survey of the Interpretive Landscape and A Defense of the Academic-Moral Knowledge Reading” in Sceptical Doubt and Disbelief in Modern European Thought: A New Pan-American Dialogue, eds. Plinio J. Smith & Vicente Raga (Springer 2021), 143-160.
“Enabling Ivan Karamazov: Responding to Mark Murphy’s God’s Own Ethics: Norms of Divine Agency and the Argument from Evil”, Religious Studies 53:4 (November 2017), 557-563.
“The Implications of Bayle’s Qualified Academic Skepticism for Moral Knowledge,” in Academic Scepticism in Early Modern Philosophy, eds. Plínio J. Smith & Sébastien Charles; Springer 2016), 275-292.
“Pierre Bayle” in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ISSN 2161-0002, https://iep.utm.edu/pierre-bayle/
Awards
Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching Freshmen