Colin Allen

Bio

Colin Allen received his BA in Philosophy from University College London and his PhD in Philosophy from UCLA, where he also did graduate work in artificial intelligence. He has taught at Texas A&M University, Indiana University (where he also directed the Cognitive Science Program), and the University of Pittsburgh, before joining UCSB’s Department of Philosophy. He is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a winner of the Barwise Prize from the American Philosophical Association "for significant and sustained contributions to areas relevant to philosophy and computing by an APA member.” Allen's main areas of research concern the philosophical foundations of cognitive science, particularly as these relate to scientific study of animal cognition and artificial intelligence. His publications also span topics in the philosophy of mind, philosophy of biology, and humanities computing, with over 120 research articles and several edited and co-authored books, including Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong (Oxford University Press 2009) and Species of Mind (MIT Press 1997).

Research Interests & Topics

Philosophy of Cognitive Science; Philosophy of Neuroscience; Computational Humanities;  Artificial Intelligence. animal learning & cognition, machine learning, cognitive modeling, dynamical systems, learning & memory, categorization & concepts, emotions, consciousness, corpus linguistics, evolution of cognition.