Michael Bergmann

Michael Bergmann is Professor of Philosophy at Purdue University, where he began his career in 1997, the same year he received his Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame. He works mainly in epistemology, focusing on topics such as evidence, defeaters, epistemic circularity, proper function, epistemic intuition, and commonsense responses to radical skepticism. He has also done a lot of work in philosophy of religion—on the problem of evil, Reformed Epistemology, religious disagreement, and Molinist views of divine providence—as well as some work in metaphysics, where he has written on free will, possibility, and necessity.

Bergmann has published dozens of articles in epistemology, philosophy of religion, and metaphysics in journals such as The Philosophical Review, Noûs, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, and Faith and Philosophy. He is the author of Justification without Awareness (2006) and Radical Skepticism and Epistemic Intuition (2021), both published by Oxford University Press. He is also co-editor of Divine Evil? The Moral Character of the God of Abraham (2011), Challenges to Moral and Religious Belief (2014), Reason and Faith (2016), and Intellectual Assurance: Essays on Traditional Epistemic Internalism (2016), all of which were also published by Oxford UP. From 2010-2013 he was Project Director for a large grant from the John Templeton Foundation on “Knowing in Religion and Morality” and from 2016-2019 he was President of the Society of Christian Philosophers.

Outside of philosophy, he likes to return to western Canada, where he grew up, to visit family and enjoy the ocean and mountains. More recently, he spends as much time as he can enjoying his grandchildren, a pastime in which he is enthusiastically joined by his wife, daughters, and son-in-law.

Specialization

Epistemology, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Religion