Aleksandar Pjevalica
Lecturer & Director of Graduate Studies
Biographical Sketch:
My research focuses on issues at the cross-section of the philosophy of language, epistemology and the philosophy of science. I am currently writing a dissertation at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in which I attempt to construct a theory of linguistic reference using the resources of philosophical hermeneutics. I defend the claim that a descriptivist theory of meaning can account for the evolution of science as a progressive learning process. I received a B.A. in philosophy at the University of British Columbia, where I wrote a senior thesis on Derek Parfit’s account of personal identity. Happy to have started off my academic career exploring issues in 20th Century Anglo-American philosophy, I decided to fill in the gaps in my knowledge of Continental European philosophy by completing a M.A. in Philosophy from the Universiteit van Amsterdam. While there, I wrote a thesis exploring Paul Ricoeur’s account of narrative identity as it appears in his trilogy Time and Narrative. It was at this point that I became aware of, and deeply interested in, the affinities between issues in Anglo-American philosophy of language and Continental European philosophical hermeneutics. As part of my dissertation research, I was awarded a fellowship at the Université Paris Sorbonne – Paris IV during the 2005/2006 academic year. In addition to pursuing issues in the philosophy of language, I am also interested in feminist philosophy. To this end, I received a Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies form the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 2006. I have presented my research at various conferences including the International Association for Philosophy and Literature and the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis International Workshop and Conference. I have taught courses on the Philosophy of Science, Bioethics, Critical Thinking, Political Philosophy, Feminist Theory, Introduction to Philosophy and Ethics.
Areas of Research Specialization:
Philosophy of Language, Continental Philosophy
Office:
Department of Philosophy
College of Liberal Arts
University of Texas at El Paso
Worrell Hall 111
El Paso, TX 79968
Phone:
915/747-5249
Email:
apjevalica@utep.edu