Stuart Glennan

 Stuart Glennan is the Harry Ice Professor of Philosophy, the Director of Butler University’s Science, Technology and Environmental Studies Program and the Faculty Director of Butler Overseas.  He also serves on the steering committee of Butler's Neuroscience Program.

Professor Glennan has taught  courses in philosophy and in support of Butler’s interdisciplinary programs, and he has contributed to Butler’s Core Curriculum in the First-Year Seminar, Text and Ideas, Analytical Reasoning, and the Social World. In recent years, Glennan’s teaching assignment have included Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Mind, Introduction to Science and Technology Studies, and Logic.  

Professor Glennan’s research is the philosophy of science, with particular attention to biology, psychology and neuroscience.  He has written about causation, explanation, and model building. He is chiefly known for his work on the nature of mechanisms and the role of mechanistic models and explanations across the sciences.  He is author of The New Mechanical Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2017) and Causation: The Basics (Routledge,  2024) and he is the editor, with Phyllis Illari, of The Routledge Handbook of Mechanisms and Mechanical Philosophy (2018). He has also written on the topic of religion and science, and science education,and the philosophy of history.  Links to publications can be found on Google Scholar. 

Professor Glennan has a B.A. in philosophy and mathematics from Yale University, and a MA and PhD in philosophy from the University of Chicago.  He has worked at Butler University since 1992.