Ruth Porter Groff
Department of Political Science
Saint Louis University
St. Louis, MO 63108
EDUCATION
York University (Canada), Ph.D., 2003; Dissertation: “Knowledge After the ‘Fact’: Critical Realism & the Post-positivist Quagmire”
University of Toronto, M.A.; Thesis: "Reason Reconsidered"
Swarthmore College, B.A. in Philosophy, with Honors
ACADEMIC POSITIONS
Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO - Associate Professor, (2014 - ); Assistant Professor, (2008-14)
University at Albany/SUNY, Albany, NY - Visiting Assistant Professor (2006-2008)
Williams College, Williamstown, MA – Visiting Assistant Professor (2004-06)
Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI - Visiting Assistant Professor (2003-04)
PUBLICATIONS
Books and edited volumes
A Critical Introduction to Causal Powers and Dispositions, Bloomsbury, under contract.
Subject & Object: Frankfurt School Writings on Epistemology, Ontology and Method, (editor), Bloomsbury, 2014.
Ontology Revisited: Metaphysics in Social and Political Philosophy, Routledge, 2012.
Powers and Capacities in Philosophy: The New Aristotelianism, (co-editor w/John Greco); Routledge, 2012.
Revitalizing Causality: Realism About Causality in Philosophy and Social Science, (editor), Routledge, 2007.
Critical Realism, Post-Positivism and the Possibility of Knowledge, Routledge, 2004.
Articles and book chapters
"Sublating the Free Will Problematic: Powers, Agency and Causal Determination," Synthese (Special Issue on Free Will and Determinism), January, 2019.
"What Does the Doing? On Things, Powers and Powerful Things," in (ed. Anne Sophie Meincke) Dispositionalism: Perspectives from Metaphysics and Philosophy of Science, Synthese Library, forthcoming (2019 expected).
"Causal Mechanisms and the Philosophy of Causation"; Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, Vol. 47, Issue 3, September 2017.
"On the Ethical Contours of Thin Aristotelian Marxism," in (ed., Michael Thomson) Constructing Marxist Ethics, Brill, 2015.
"Aristotelian Marxism/Marxist Aristotelianism: MacIntyre, Marx and the Analysis of Abstraction," Philosophy & Social Criticism, Vol. 38, No. 8, October 2012.
“Getting Past Hume in the Philosophy of Social Science,” in (eds. McKay, Russo and Williamson) Causality in the Sciences, Oxford University Press, 2011.
Introductory essay (Guest Editor), Special Issue on Causal Powers, Journal of Critical Realism, November, 2009.
“The Truth of the Matter: Roy Bhaskar’s Critical Realism and the Concept of Alethic Truth,” Discussion, Philosophy of Social Science, Vol. 30, Number 3, September 2000.
Reference Entries and Reviews
"The Fetishism of Commodities," in (ed. Michael Gibbons) The Encyclopedia of Political Thought, Wiley-Blackwell, 2014.
"Critical Realism,” entry in (ed.) Ronald L. Jackson, Encyclopedia of Identity, Sage, 2010.
"Truth," major concept entry in (ed.) Mervyn Hartwig, Dictionary of Critical Realism, Routledge, 2007.
(Review Essay) "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Causal Powers and Contemporary Metaphysics": (eds., Bird, Ellis and Sankey; 2012), Properties, Powers and Structures; (ed., Marmodoro; 2009), The Metaphysics of Powers, Routledge; Mumford and Anjum (2011), Getting Causes From Powers; (ed., Tahko; 2012) Contemporary Aristotelian Metaphysics; in Journal of Critical Realism, 2014.
(Review Respondent) “Taking Relativism Seriously: Review Symposium of Critical Realism, Post-Positivism and the Possibility of Knowledge (Groff, 2004)” Journal of Critical Realism, Vol. 4, Number 1.
(Review) "Wholes, Parts, Form and Powers": Dave Elder-Vass (2010), The Causal Power of Social Structures: Emergence, Structure and Agency; in Metascience, 2012, Vol. 21, Issue 2.
PRESENTATIONS
"What Can We Learn From Marx That Aristotle Didn't Already Say?" Centre for Aristotelian Studies and Critical Theory, Mykolas Romeris University, Vilnius, Lithuania, May 2019.
"The Devil is in the Categories: Metaphysics in Social and Political Thought," Northern Illinois University Philosophy Department, April 2019.
"On the Metaphysics of Alienation and Reification." Critical Social Ontology Workshop, October 2018.
"Are Social Structures (a) Entities; (b) Properties; (c) Essences; (d) Other?" Critical Social Ontology Workshop, June 2017.
"Social Ontology and Capital," Midwest Annual Workshop on Metaphysics (invited program), University of Nebraska, October 2016.
"The Fetishism of Commodities and the (Metaphysical) Secret Thereof," Creighton University Philosophy Department, October 2016.
"Powers, Essentialism and Agency: A Reply to Alexander Bird," international conference on "Powers, Dispositions and the New Essentialism," American University of Beirut, April 2016.
"What Do Social Structures Do?" Causal Powers and Social Science international conference, Yale University, March 2016.
Keynote public lecture, "Powers, Categories and the Metaphysics of Agency," international conference on "Real Possibilities, Indeterminism and Free Will," University of Konstanz, Germany, 2015.
Cheryl Frank Memorial Lecture, "On the Myth of Metaphysical Neutrality," International Association for Critical Realism annual meeting, University of Notre Dame, 2015.
"Contemporary Humean Metaphysics and the Commodity-Form," International Society for MacIntyrean Enquiry annual meeting, 2015.
Participant, "Author Meets Readers Roundtable on Ruth Groff's Ontology Revisited" Midwest Political Science Association, 2015.
"Essence, energeia and Species-Being," Marx and Philosophy Association panel; American Philosophical Association, Central Division, 2015.
What Exactly is a Causal Mechanism, Again?" CauSCI international workshop on metaphysics and science, 2014.
"I Blame Hume. Also, Bad Readings of Kant. Plus (For What It's Worth) the Commodity Form," invited talk for "Theory After Postmodernism" conference, Williams College, 2014.
"Causal Mechanisms," Social Theory Workshop, University of Michigan, 2013.
"Metaphysics, Causal Powers and Social Theory," international symposium on realism and explanation, Yale Department of Sociology, 2013.
Keynote speaker, "Practices, Institutions and the Self-Valorization of Value," International Society for MacIntyrean Enquiry, July, 2013.
"What Does the Doing?" international symposium on the ontology of powers and dispositions, Innsbruck, 2013.
"What a Powers-Based Theory of Free Will Should Not Be About," CauSCI international workshop on the metaphysics of free will, Oslo, 2013.
"Agency, Ontology and Political Theory," American Political Science Association, 2010.
"Getting Past Hume in the Philosophy of Social Science," Philosophy of Social Science Round Table, 2010.
“Aristotle, Critical Theory and the Critique of Liberal Formalism” Midwest Association for Political Science, 2009.
“Situating Critical Realism Philosophically,” Society for the Philosophical Study of Marxism, American Philosophical Association, 2008.
“Utilitarianism, Empiricism and Flourishing: The Clash of Categories in the Work of John Stuart Mill,” American Political Science Association, 2007.
“Realism, Causality and Relativism,” Invited Plenary Speaker, International Association for Critical Realism annual meeting, 2007.
“Why Social Scientists Should Care About Metaphysics,” Invited Presenter, Conference on Realism, Queen’s University (Canada), 2004.
“Contemporary Anti-Essentialism and the Empiricist Tradition,” American Political Science Association, 2003.
PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITY
Editor (working under a General Editor), Journal of Critical Realism, 2007-2010
Reviews Editor, New Political Science, 2008-2010
Member of Steering Committee, International Society for MacIntyrean Inquiry (ISME), 2011-2015
Research Associate, Centre for Contemporary Aristotelian Studies in Ethics and Politics (CASEP)
Project Collaborator, Causation in Science: An Interdisciplinary Study of Causal Processes [multi-year, international research project]
Project Collaborator, Human Flourishing and Critical Realism in the Social Sciences [multi-year international research project]