Jason Stanley

Jason Stanley (born 1969) is an American philosopher who is the Bissell-Heyd Chair in American studies in the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto, and also has an appointment in the department of philosophy. In addition to his position at the Munk School, he is a distinguished professor at the Kyiv School of Economics. Before coming to the University of Toronto in 2025, he held positions as a professor of philosophy at Yale University (2013–2025), Rutgers University (2004–2013), the University of Michigan (2000–04), and Cornell University (1995–2000). He accepted the appointment at the University of Toronto in 2025, fleeing the U.S. because of what he describes as the deteriorating political situation. In his academic work in philosophy, Stanley is best known for his contributions to philosophy of language and epistemology, which often draw upon and influence other fields, including linguistics and cognitive science. His work in epistemology has focused on the relationship between knowledge and action—arguing, for example that practical factors are relevant for knowledge (in his 2005 book Knowledge and Practical Interests), and that practical knowledge and theoretical knowledge cannot be separated (in influential work with Timothy Williamson as well as his 2011 book Know How; he has also co-authored in neuroscience on these topics with John Krakauer). Stanley has brought tools from philosophy of language and epistemology to bear on questions of political philosophy—for example, in his 2015 book How Propaganda Works. His 2023 book, The Politics of Language, co-authored with the linguist David Beaver, is a reconceptualization of the foundations of the theory of linguistic meaning to center non-informational aspects of speech. A review from the journal Language puts the central question of the book, "What if we placed the analysis of slurs at the center of the study of...