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Julia Staffel (Ph.D., University of Southern California, 2013) joined the department in Fall 2018. Prior to coming to Boulder, she worked at Washington University in St. Louis and the Australian National University.

Professor Staffel specializes in epistemology, with a focus on formal epistemology. She also has research and teaching interests in philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, philosophy of language, logic, and metaethics.

Her work focuses, among other things, on the question of how to make idealized formal models in epistemology applicable and relevant to human, non-ideal thinkers. Her first book "Unsettled Thoughts: A Theory of Degrees of Rationality" was published with OUP in 2019. In it, she explains how Bayesian theories of ideal rationality can be used to account for the idea that rationality comes in degrees. Imperfect reasoners can approximate ideal rationality more or less. The guiding questions for her investigation are: Why should imperfect reasoners approximate ideal rationality if they can never fully reach the ideal? Why is it better to be closer to being ideally rational than farther away from it? How exactly should we characterize approximations to ideal rationality?

Her second book “Unfinished Business: Rational Attitudes in Reasoning” was published with OUP in 2025. In it, she argues that the attitudes we form while our reasoning is still unfinished are interestingly different from the conclusions of our reasoning, and that their rationality should be evaluated by distinct standards. The resulting view can be used to answer some tricky questions about higher-order evidence, logical learning, and believing our own philosophical theories.

Currently, she is working on her third book, provisionally titled “Unlikely Prospects: How to Be Reasonably Ambitious”, which is on the problem of how we can rationally and sincerely intend to do difficult things.

For more information on Professor Staffel's teaching and research, including a complete list of publications, see her CV.

Her publications are available via her personal website:

Or her profile on philpeople:

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