Matthew Boyle works on topics in the philosophy of mind and on some issues in the history of philosophy. In the former area, he has been especially concerned with the question of how we know our own minds and with debates about the scope and limits of such knowledge. In the latter field, he has written mainly on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, although he also has interests in the work of Aristotle, Aquinas, Fichte, Hegel, and Sartre.
He is presently at work on a book on the distinction between rational and nonrational minds, the connection between rationality and the capacity for first-person awareness of one’s own cognitive activity, and the continuing relevance of these topics to contemporary debates in philosophy and psychology. The book, to be called The Significance of Self-Consciousness, is under contract with Oxford University Press.
Before moving to the University of Chicago in 2016, Boyle was Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. He has held visiting positions at the Universität Leipzig, Germany, and the Universität Basel, Switzerland. He has been the recipient of a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship, an ACLS Fellowship, a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship, and a Rhodes Scholarship. He received his PhD from the University of Pittsburgh and a BPhil from Oxford University.
Selected Publications
“Two Kinds of Self-Knowledge,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 58:1 (2009)
“Transparent Self-Knowledge,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 85 (2011)
“'Making up Your Mind’ and the Activity of Reason,” Philosopher’s Imprint 11:17 (2011)
“Additive Theories of Rationality: A Critique,” European Journal of Philosophy 24:3 (2016)
“Kant on Logic and the Laws of the Understanding,” forthcoming in Logical Aliens, ed. Charles Travis (Harvard University Press)