Iva Apostolova

Biography

I consider myself a true citizen of the world. I grew up in Eastern Europe where I received both my undergraduate and Master’s degrees in Philosophy. Witnessing the social and political changes Eastern European societies underwent in the late 20th century has made me forever attentive and sensitive to issues of social justice. This, coupled with a keen interest in what women-philosophers have to say about various philosophical and social issues has, naturally, steered me in the direction of feminism as one of my areas of teaching and research interests. I received my Doctoral degree from the University of Ottawa. I worked on Bertrand Russell’s theory of knowledge during one of the most interesting periods of his career as well as intellectually dynamic times in the history of European philosophy, starting at the beginning of 20th century and ending around the 1930s. I worked with Dr Paul Forster, a Charles Pierce scholar, as well as Dr Nicholas Griffin (as my external adviser), a Russell scholar and logician based at McMaster University. Because of my philosophical training and due to my classical education (I went to a lycée specializing in ancient languages including classical Latin, Greek and Old Slavonic), as well as the multi-lingual environment growing up, I swim comfortably in Ancient philosophy, as well as the contemporary Continental and Analytic traditions. Stemming from my doctoral research, memory still holds a central place in my philosophical interests. My work on memory from an epistemological point of view allows me to venture into philosophy of mind and deal with the problem of personal identity and the role of memory in it. My groundwork in neutral monism has allowed me to connect to contemporary scholars in both philosophy of science and philosophy of mind who consider neutral monism to be a promising alternative to physicalism or panpsychism (or, at least, a valuable addition to either). I am currently working on my second book focusing on Russell’s theory of memory and involving Russell’s and James’s versions of neutral monism. I intend to make this a part of a bigger project, involving Artificial Intelligence, its a priori possibility or impossibility. My interests in applied ethics, and specifically, bioethics, have produced texts on issues related to euthanasia, as well as the involvement of women in the military. With regard to feminism, I have always approached it in a two-fold way: from a historical point of view, and as a social commentary on contemporary gender issues. My historical interests in the roots of feminism has allowed me to publish on such proto-feminist thinkers as the 17th-century British epistemologist Margaret Cavendish. And most recently, I have co-authored manuscripts on the relationship between self and other, in relation to disability, ageing, and dying, as well as in relation to the notion of masculinity. My work in contemporary feminist thought has allowed me to appreciate and largely adopt relational ontology and ethics of care. I am currently working on two manuscripts on different topics but united by the involvement of relational ontology and ethics of care in both: the compassionate attitude toward non-human animals, and care interpreted as structure as opposed to an attitude. The latter one allows me to cross-reference the notion of care across different philosophical traditions, most notably, the Analytic and the Continental one, as well as the Western and the Eastern.

Research Interest

Research Interests are Russell’s theory of memory and involving Russell’s and James’s versions of neutral monism.