7/6/21
Robert Kelly received his Ph.D. in Philosophy at the University at Buffalo in 2021. His past research has included work in experimental philosophy, cognitive science of religion, and ethics, and currently focuses on issues in bioethics, philosophy of medicine, metaphysics and agency, and applied ontology. Kelly's dissertation ("Understanding Addiction") focused on addiction, a topic that spans all of these areas. In it, he defends a dispositionalist account of addiction, argues that addiction research should systematically incorporate applied ontology so as to remedy what he calls the 'disunification problem' abundant in the literature, and offers a start towards developing an ontology of addiction. In addition to his association with the Romanell Center, Robert is an ontology researcher with the National Center for Ontological Research Lab under Barry Smith. Some recent ontology projects include work on a DoD-funded ontology project through MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory, as well as collaborating with Janna Hastings and Robert West on the development of the addiction ontology AddictO.
