Arnold I. Davidson Ph.D. (Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

) is Robert O. Anderson Distinguished Service Professor in Philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

, Comparative Literature

Comparative literature

Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the literature of two or more different linguistic, cultural or national groups...

, History of Science

History of science

The history of science is the study of the historical development of human understandings of the natural world and the domains of the social sciences....

, and Philosophy of Religion

Philosophy of religion

Philosophy of religion is a branch of philosophy concerned with questions regarding religion, including the nature and existence of God, the examination of religious experience, analysis of religious language and texts, and the relationship of religion and science...

 at the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

. He is also a member of the Committee on the Conceptual Foundations of Science at Chicago and a professor at the Università di Pisa in Pisa, Italy. Davidson, who often speaks and teaches at French and Italian universities, has been a fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin as well as visiting professor, chaire d'Etat, at the Collège de France

Collège de France

The Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles...

. He is also the executive editor of the journal Critical Inquiry

Critical Inquiry

Critical Inquiry is a peer-reviewed academic journal in the humanities published by the University of Chicago Press. It is considered a leading journal within literary studies, and particularly in the field of critical theory....

. Davidson is a recent Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...

 recipient.

Davidson's scholarship concentrates in contemporary Continental Philosophy

Continental philosophy

Continental philosophy, in contemporary usage, refers to a set of traditions of 19th and 20th century philosophy from mainland Europe. This sense of the term originated among English-speaking philosophers in the second half of the 20th century, who used it to refer to a range of thinkers and...

, Moral Philosophy, the History of Theology

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

, and Historical Epistemology and the History of the Human Sciences. His publications (books, articles and essays) cover a wide array of ranging from the Moral Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas

Emmanuel Lévinas

Emmanuel Levinas was a Lithuanian-born French Jewish philosopher and Talmudic commentator.-Life:Emanuelis Levinas received a traditional Jewish education in Lithuania...

, Vladimir Jankelevitch

Vladimir Jankélévitch

Vladimir Jankélévitch was a French philosopher and musicologist.- Biography :Jankélévitch was the son of Russian Jewish parents, who had emigrated to France....

, and Pierre Hadot

Pierre Hadot

Pierre Hadot was a French philosopher and historian of philosophy specializing in ancient philosophy, particularly Neoplatonism. Hadot was ordained in 1944 but following Pope Pius XII's Encyclical "Humani Generis" left the priesthood...

 to Georges Canguilhem

Georges Canguilhem

Georges Canguilhem was a French philosopher and physician who specialized in epistemology and the philosophy of science .-Life and work:...

's Philosophy of Science

Philosophy of science

The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth...

. Many of Davidson's publications are written in French and Italian and published by European presses.

Much of Davidson's scholarship focuses on the theory of Michel Foucault

Michel Foucault

Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...

. Davidson is the editor of several books on or by Foucault including: Foucault and His Interlocutors, Society Must Be Defended, Abnormal, and The Hermeneutics of the Subject. Davidson's recent book "The Emergence of Sexuality:Historical Epistemology and the Formation of Concepts" applies and develops Foucauldian archeological and genealogical methodological innovations in the development of a method he calls "Historical Epistemology". This work consists of essays on epistemology, the history of sexuality and scientific concepts, and the interpretation of Foucault.