Marya Schechtman — LLMpedia

Marya Schechtman
Name	Marya Schechtman
Birth date	1943
Birth place	United States
Occupation	Philosopher
Institutions	University of Minnesota, Boston University, Yale University
Alma mater	Barnard College, Harvard University

Contents

Marya Schechtman is an American philosopher known for influential work in personal identity, metaethics, and philosophy of mind. Her scholarship engages with figures such as John Locke, David Hume, Derek Parfit, Immanuel Kant and institutions including American Philosophical Association and journals like Philosophical Review and Ethics. She has held appointments at major universities and contributed to debates intersecting psychology, law, and cognitive science.

Early life and education

Schechtman was born in the United States and received undergraduate training at Barnard College where she studied with scholars linked to Columbia University. She pursued graduate studies at Harvard University, completing doctoral work under influences tracing to W.V.O. Quine, Hilary Putnam, and contemporaries active at Princeton University and Yale University. During her formative years she engaged with research communities associated with Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and attended conferences organized by the Social Science Research Council and the American Philosophical Association.

Schechtman has held faculty positions at institutions including Boston University and the University of Minnesota, and has been a visiting scholar at Yale University and research fellow at centers like the Center for Philosophy of Science and the National Humanities Center. She has served on committees of the American Philosophical Association and participated in panels with scholars from Princeton University, Harvard University, University of California, Berkeley, and Oxford University. Her editorial work has appeared in venues associated with the Johns Hopkins University Press and the MIT Press.

Schechtman's research defends a narrative account of personal identity that contrasts with reductionist views from Derek Parfit and continuities emphasized by John Locke and David Hume. She articulates how narrative practices intersect with legal concepts in United States law and with psychological models developed in cognitive psychology, drawing on empirical work from laboratories at Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and University College London. Her book-length and article contributions engage debates in metaethics with interlocutors such as G.E. Moore, Philippa Foot, Bernard Williams, and Thomas Nagel. Schechtman integrates perspectives from phenomenology associated with Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty while addressing challenges posed by analytic philosophers from Cambridge University and the University of California, Berkeley. Her arguments have been discussed in forums including panels at American Philosophical Association meetings, symposia in journals like Philosophical Studies and Mind, and interdisciplinary workshops sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the Templeton Foundation.

As a professor at institutions like Boston University and the University of Minnesota, Schechtman supervised doctoral candidates who went on to positions at Princeton University, Yale University, University of Chicago, and New York University. She taught courses that connected readings from John Locke, Immanuel Kant, David Hume, and Derek Parfit with contemporary work from Saul Kripke, Hilary Putnam, and Thomas Nagel. Her pedagogical approach influenced curricula that collaborated with departments at Harvard University and interdisciplinary programs at Columbia University and Stanford University. She has participated in faculty exchanges with Oxford University and served as an external examiner for doctoral committees at University College London.

Schechtman's honors include fellowships and awards from organizations such as the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and recognition from the American Philosophical Association. Her publications have been cited in prize discussions at outlets like the Philosophy Documentation Center and honored in essay collections associated with scholars from Princeton University and Harvard University. She has been invited to deliver named lectures at venues including Yale University, Harvard University, Oxford University and at conferences sponsored by the Social Science Research Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities.