Catherine Hundleby
Graduate Director for the new interdisciplinary PhD program in Argumentation Studies
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Cross-appointed to Women’s and Gender Studies
Dr. Hundleby helped found the Association for Feminist Epistemologies, Methodologies, Metaphysics, and Science Studies (FEMMSS). She was also active in the Canadian Society for Women in Philosophy (C-SWIP) and the Ontario Society for Studies in Argumentation (OSSA).
Her primary research was in feminist epistemology and involved assessing the utility of argumentation theory for addressing the epistemologies of ignorance. Certain manifestations of ignorance — especially those involving unconscious biases — cannot be helped much by explicit reasoning. Yet, Douglas Walton’s account of argumentation schemes can help us see how knowledge and ignorance interact in the way people offer and accept reasoning: argumentation schemes understood as presumptive reasoning point to background assumptions in a way that might aid the epistemologies of ignorance.
More about Hundleby’s research, including her work on critical thinking education can be found at www.chundleby.com.