Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics, Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Mind. In History of Philosophy: Descartes, Kant, the Pragmatists.   

Carol Rovane’s current research focuses on several interrelated topics:  the first person, personal identity, relativism, the foundations of value, group vs. individual responsibility.  An abiding theme of her work, both recent and earlier, concerns what is a first person point of view.  In her book on personal identity, The Bounds of Agency:  An Essay in Revisionary Metaphysics, she explored the differences and interrelations (or rather lack thereof) between three notions of a point of view:  the bodily point of view of an animal, the phenomenological point of view of consciousness and the rational point of view of deliberation.  The book argues that groups and parts of human beings may have rational points of view, from which they can engage in distinctively interpersonal relations, and thereby qualify as individual persons in their own rights.  This amounts to a new interpretation of and argument for Locke’s distinction between personal and animal identity, one that has significant implications for the issue of group vs. individual responsibility.  The premise of her next book is that there is no general consensus in philosophical discussions of relativism about what the doctrine actually is.  She raises and meets a challenge that seems to stand in the way of making sense of the doctrine at all, and goes on to assess what speaks for and against it in the domains of science and ethics.  The emerging account has surprising consequences about how the issue of relativism relates to other metaphysical issues, most especially realism.  Her other current interests include knowledge of other minds, agency, and rationalism in ethics.

Publications - Books 
The Bounds of Agency:   An Essay in Revisionary Metaphysics, Princeton University Press, 1998 

For and Against Relativism, Columbia University Press, in progress.

Publications - Articles
“Williams on Ethical Relativism,” Reading Williams, Blackwell, forthcoming. 

“Can we Frame a Coherent Relativism?”,  Mind, Meaning and Knowledge:  Essays in Honor of Crispin Wright, vol. 1, ed. A. Coliva, Oxford University Press, forthcoming.

“How Realism may Support Relativism,” volume on naturalism, ed. Mario de Caro, Harvard University Press, forthcoming.  

“Why do Individuals Matter?,” Daedalus, Special Issue on Identity, 2006.   

“On Anti-Representationalism,”  Protosociology, 2006.   

“Personal Identity:  Ethical not Metaphysical”  Essays on John McDowell, ed. C. MacDonald, Oxford University Press, 2006.   

“Mind-Body and the Limits of Inquiry,” Cambridge Companion to Chomsky, ed. J. McGilvray, Cambridge University Press, 2005.   

“Alienation and the Alleged Separateness of Persons,” Monist, 2005. 

“Anti-Representationalism and Relativism,  Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2005.   

“What is an Agent?” Synthese, 2005.   

“A Non-naturalist Account of Personal Identity,” Perspectives on Naturalism, ed. M. deCaro, Harvard University Press, 2004.  

“Rationality and Persons,” Oxford Handbook on Rationality, ed. A. Mele, Oxford University Press, 2003.   

“From a Rational Point of View,” Philosophical Topics, 2003.   

“Earning the Right to Realism and Relativism in Ethics,” Philosophical Issues, vol. 12 (2002). 

“Genetics and Personal Identity,” Oxford Companion to Genetics, ed. J. Burley et al, 2001.   

“Mind-Body or Mind-Mind?”, Journal of Consciousness Studies, Spring 2000.   

"Rationality and Identity," Library of Living Philosophers:  Donald Davidson, ed. L. Hahn (founding ed. P. Schilpp), Open Court, 1999).  

"Charity and Identity," Donald Davidsons Philosophie des Mentalen, ed. W. Kohler, Forum fur Philosophie, 1998.   

"The Personal Stance," Philosophical Topics, Fall 1995 

"The Problem of Philosophy" (A Symposium with Colin McGinn), Philosophical Studies, vol. 76, 1994. 

"God Without Cause," Reason, Will and Sensation:  Studies in Cartesian Metaphysics, ed. J. Cottingham, Oxford University Press, 1993.   

"Self-Reference:  The Radicalization of Locke," Journal of Philosophy, February 1993.   

"Branching Self-Consciousness," Philosophical Review, July 1990. 

(Reprinted in The International Research Library of Philosophy, series ed. J. Skorupski, volume ed. H. Noonan.) 

 "The Epistemology of First Person Reference," Journal of Philosophy, March 1987.   

"The Metaphysics of Interpretation," in Truth and Interpretation, ed. E. LePore, Basil Blackwell, 1986.   

Publications – Reviews and Encyclopedia Articles 
“The Self,” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 2002.   

Review, Divided Minds and Successive Selves, J. Radden, Ethics, 2001.    

Critical Notice on Peter Unger's Identity, Consciousness and Value, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 1994.   

Review, Knowing Who, S. Boer and W. Lycan, Philosophical Review, July 1989.  

Teaching
PHIL C1010 Methods and Problems of Philosophical Thought
PHIL C3912 Senior Seminar: Relativism