Raymond D. Boisvert Ph.D, Professor of Philosophy

Raymond D. Boisvert, Ph.D.
On Sabbatical Spring 2013
Siena Hall 423
518-783-2501
boisvert@siena.edu

 Raymond Boisvert joined the philosophy department after receiving an M.A. from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. from Emory University. A specialist in American philosophy, he has two books on John Dewey and many articles on Pragmatism. Lately, an interest in philosophy of culture has led him to reflect on the intersection of food practices and philosophy. He has just completed a manuscript Food Transforms Philosophy. His new project, growing out of research done for the food book, is to explore the virtue of hospitality. Examining the role of this virtue in the philosophical and literary works of Albert Camus is the first step in this project. While at Siena, Professor Boisvert has been Coordinator of the College Core and Chair of the General Faculty Committee.  In 2008, he received the Raymond Kennedy Excellence in Scholarship Award.

During his Spring 2013 sabbatical, Dr. Boisvert will be working on a book project entitled: Philosophers at Table: Food and the Quest for Wisdom.  Writing with his colleague Lisa Heldke from Gustavus Adolphus College, Dr. Boisvert will explore the new field, philosophy of food.  As noted by his editor at Reaktion Press:

‘Given the many ways and levels in which food is involved in human life, I think it is an excellent idea to use it to unlock the range of philosophical problems it proposes. The way in which food is used to shadow the four traditional forms of philosophical preoccupation, ethics, aesthetics, epistemology and ontology, is very skillful and inventive. The result seems likely to be, not just a philosophy of food, but a kind of alimentation of philosophy (saying which makes me think that there might also be room in such a book for a discussion of the many ways in which thinking and eating have in fact been run together in the past).’  

Dr. Boisvert will spend the semester researching, writing, (and eating) in Paris, France.

Research