Dr Lawrence Lengbeyer

Larry Lengbeyer, Ph.D., is currently on sabbatical from the United States Naval Academy, where he is an Associate Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Leadership, Ethics, and Law.  Larry has a longstanding interest in cognitive compartmentalization and its practical implications.  His current projects reflect the diversity of intellectual interests fostered by his wide-ranging education (applied math at Harvard; social & political sciences at Cambridge; law, and hermeneutics, at Yale; finally, philosophy at Stanford, with a dissertation "The Disintegration of Belief" under Michael Bratman):  the mental mechanisms of conscience; a notion of belief suited to humans having compartmentalized minds; a defense of some non-deference by laypersons to the professional recommendations of scientific experts; a neglected species of linguistic generality, and its connection to ordinary language philosophy; journalistic ethics in reporting; self-control over disruptive upwellings of emotion or desire; self-identification rhetoric in law enforcement, and the behavioural potency of analogies; filial piety as a vice; and a possible bifurcation between two varieties of critical thinking.  Larry is joined in Oxford this year by his wife Audrey and their four cheerful daughters, Cassia (20), Anya (16), Sabina (13), and Jojo (9) (who have not yet been made aware of the filial piety paper!).