Phil Hopkins

Notable Achievements

Professor of Philosophy Phil Hopkins has completed an eight-month process as part of a community panel reviewing materials used at the Austin Police Department (APD) Training Academy. The panel was the longest-serving component of the Austin City Council’s Resolution 66 (December 2019), which initiated an investigation into bias and racism in the APD.  The final report has been presented to the community and to the Reimagining Public Safety Task Force and is being covered by a number of media sources, such as KXAN, whose coverage can be found here.

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Phil Hopkins

Professor of Philosophy

Expertise

Research: Critical Theory (Culture, Race, Police), Phenomenology of Body, Process Ontology     Teaching: Embodied Self, Identity

Philip Hopkins received his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in 2000, his MA from St. John’s College in 1990, and his BASS from Stephen F. Austin University in 1984. 

  • Biography

    Philip Hopkins received his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in 2000, his MA from St. John’s College in 1990, and his BASS from Stephen F. Austin University in 1984. 

  • Research

    I have two areas of primary research.  One area explores how process ontology (world as event) impacts our thinking about pretty much everything, but particularly identity, including racialized and gendered identities.

    Related to the first, but distinct, is critical police theory, including a phenomenology of embodied policing, and critical theory of policing systems and structures. 

  • Publications

    “…As He Says in His Poetical Way: Empedocles and Anaxagoras on the Motive Forces of the Kosmos,” in Companion to Ancient Philosophy, Northwestern University Press (2018)

    Mass Moralizing: Marketing and Moral Storytelling, Lexington Press (2015)

    “Mass Moralizing,” in Advertising and Reality, Continuum Press (2012)

    “Weaving the Fishbasket: Heraclitus on Riddles and the Relation of Word and World” Epoche 13:2 (2009).

    “To Say What is Most Necessary: Expositional and Philosophical Practice in Thucydides and Plato,” in Philosophy in Dialogue: Plato’s Many Devices, Gary Scott, ed. (Northwestern University Press, Topics in Historical Philosophy Series, John McCumber, ed., 2007).

    “Zeno’s boetheia toi logoi: Thought Problems about Problems for Thought,” Epoche 11:1 (2006).