Robert Koons is a professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas (UT). Koons has advocated for academic freedom and courses on Western civilization. He is involved in the intelligent design movement

Intelligent design movement

The intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist religious campaign for broad social, academic and political change to promote and support the idea of "intelligent design," which asserts that "certain features of the universe and of living things are...

 and a fellow of the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture

Center for Science and Culture

The Center for Science and Culture , formerly known as the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture , is part of the Discovery Institute, a conservative Christian think tank in the United States...

 at the Discovery Institute

Discovery Institute

The Discovery Institute is a non-profit public policy think tank based in Seattle, Washington, best known for its advocacy of intelligent design...

.

Educational activities

Koons has been involved in debates over issues of academic freedom and has advocated for college exit exams as he believes the measures used currently don't measure how well students learn. He led an effort at UT to create a concentration in Western Civilization and American Institutions. The goal of the program was to promote the study of the "Great Books" of the Western tradition, especially the American founding. Koons stated that the program transcended political differences.

Koons is a national Senator of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, as well as a member of the executive committee of the Society for Christian Philosophy. Koons contributed a chapter to Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing (2004).

Contemporary Metaphysics

Koons is co-editor, with George Bealer, of The Waning of Materialism: New Essays in the Philosophy of Mind (Oxford University Press, 2010), a collection of articles by leading analytic philosophers critical of physicalism and materialism. He is engage in contributing to contemporary metaphysics and the philosophy of religion, including a forthcoming textbooks, The Fundamentals of Metaphysics, under contract with Blackwell-Wiley (with co-author Timothy Pickavance).