Rate My Professor Peter Godfrey-Smith
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Helps students see the joy in learning.
Always patient, kind, and understanding.
Encourages students to explore new ideas.
Always fair, kind, and deeply insightful.
Great Professor!
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About Peter
Peter Godfrey-Smith is Professor of History and Philosophy of Science in the School of History and Philosophy of Science, Faculty of Science, at the University of Sydney. A Sydney native, he obtained his Bachelor of Arts with First Class Honors and the University Medal from the University of Sydney in 1987, and his PhD in philosophy from the University of California, San Diego in 1991, supervised by Philip Kitcher. His distinguished career includes serving as Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University from 1991 to 1998, and Associate Professor there from 1998 to 2003. Subsequently, he held a part-time position at the Australian National University combined with a visiting role at Harvard University until 2006, followed by a full-time professorship at Harvard from 2006 to 2011. He then became Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center. In 2015, he took up a half-time position in the History and Philosophy of Science program at the University of Sydney, transitioning to full-time in 2017.
Godfrey-Smith's research centers on the philosophy of biology and philosophy of mind, particularly their intersections, with additional interests in pragmatism—especially John Dewey—general philosophy of science, animal behavior, metaphysics, and epistemology. His seminal publications include Complexity and the Function of Mind in Nature (Cambridge University Press, 1996), Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science (University of Chicago Press, 2003), Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection (Oxford University Press, 2009)—which earned the 2010 Lakatos Award—Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016), shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize, Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind (Collins, 2020), and Living on Earth: Forests, Corals, Consciousness, and the Making of the World (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024). With over 18,000 citations on Google Scholar, his work profoundly shapes discussions on evolutionary theory, consciousness origins, and cephalopod intelligence. Notable honors include the 2017 History and Philosophy of Science Medal from the Royal Society of New South Wales. Godfrey-Smith has delivered prestigious lectures, such as the Whitehead Lectures at Harvard in 2023, enhancing academic and public engagement in his fields.
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