History, Philosophy, and Religious Studies
History, Philosophy, and Religious Studies is an interdisciplinary department, we offer three majors, tailored major options, and several exciting minors, including a minor in Latin American Studies and a minor in Museum Studies. Internships at historical societies, museums, and Yellowstone are also an important part of the educational experience. Undergraduate students also have opportunities to conduct research and work directly with faculty members on topics ranging from urban coyotes to the Butte mine. The Department hosts both history and philosophy honor societies, as well as a philosophy ethics debate team. Graduate students can pursue innovative MA and PhD degrees in the history of science and technology, environmental history, and the American west.
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“Whenever we exist on any land, we know it is our country”: Cocopa Mobility and the Colorado River in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, 1887–1936
(Oxford University Press, 2023-01)This article argues that between the 1890s and the 1920s, Cocopa Indians successfully parried the threats of expanding settler nation-states and modern capitalism by adapting ancestral mobility patterns to modern constraints ... -
Elegant conservation: reimagining protected area stewardship in the 21st century
(Resilience Alliance, Inc., 2023-01)We present an approach to the conservation of protected areas that aligns cultural truths with scientific truths to increase community capacity for conservation. This alignment, which we call elegant conservation, asks ... -
Understanding the Problem of “Hype”: Exaggeration, Values, and Trust in Science
(Cambridge University Press, 2020-12)Several science studies scholars report instances of scientific “hype,” or sensationalized exaggeration, in journal articles, institutional press releases, and science journalism in a variety of fields (e.g., Caulfield and ... -
The Early Bronze IV — Middle Bronze I transition in the southern Levant: analysis and assessment
(Informa UK Limited, 2022-06)The transition between the Early Bronze Age IV and the Middle Bronze Age in the southern Levant remains poorly understood, stemming in part from traditional approaches to the problem that frame it in terms of exogenous ... -
Reparative agency and commitment in William James’ pragmatism
(Informa UK Limited, 2022-02)This paper highlights a central feature of William James’ pragmatism to challenge the conflicting charges that his political and ethical thought amounts to either a Hamlet-like impotence or a Promethean-like sovereignty. ... -
Metaphorical and Literal Groundings: Unsettling Groundless Normativity in Environmental Ethics
(Philosophy Documentation Center, 2020-01)Accounts of grounded normativity in Indigenous philosophy can be used to challenge the groundlessness of Western environmental ethical approaches such as Aldo Leopold’s land ethic. Attempts to ground normativity in mainstream ... -
Absent autonomy: Relational competence and gendered paths to faculty self-determination in the promotion and tenure process
(2018-09)This research examines ways in which men and women university faculty sought self-determination in the promotion and tenure (P&T) process. Self-Determination Theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 2012) research tends to view autonomy ... -
Disentangling canid howls across multiple species and subspecies: Structure in a complex communication channel
(2016-03)Wolves, coyotes, and other canids are members of a diverse genus of top predators of considerable conservation and management interest. Canid howls are long-range communication signals, used both for territorial defence ... -
The Game People Played: Mahjong in Modern Chinese Society and Culture
(Research Institute of Korean Studies (RIKS) at Korea University and the Institute of East Asian Studies (IEAS) at the University of California, Berkeley, 2015-12)This article considers the discourse surrounding the popular Chinese table game of mahjong in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, using it as a barometer to trace social and cultural changes during the late Qing and ... -
Against the Anthropocene. A Neo-Materialist Perspective
(2015-04)The dawning realization that the planet may have entered a new geological epoch called the Anthropocene could prove transformative. However, over the course of its brief history, the Anthropocene concept has often been ... -
Coyote recordings [dataset]
(2014-06)Audio recordings of coyote vocalizations in various locations in the American West, recorded between 9 March 2011 and 26 December 2013. -
The Slave Mentality: Morality of Spirit in Hegel's Lordship and Bondage
(2013-11)The master-slave dialectic which occurs in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit represents a crucial role in his ambitious project to cure European culture. At the turn of the 19th century, Hegel perceived Western culture as ... -
Conference Schedule-International Undergraduate Philosophy Conference at Montana State University
(2013-09)The Undergraduate Scholars Program, Phi Sigma Tau, the Philosophy Society, and the Department of History and Philosophy are pleased to announce the first International Undergraduate Philosophy Conference at Montana State ... -
Robert Grosseteste, and the History of the Actual Infinite
(2013-09)The problems with the notion of infinity that plagued pre-modern philosophers and mathematicians ever since the introduction of Zeno’s paradoxes are thought to see their first solution in the original and singular ... -
Common Sense in Favor of Mereological Nihilism?
(2013-09)Mereological nihilism, a theory in compositional metaphysics, has long suffered the objection that in virtue of its sheer anti-intuitive nature, it ought not to be believed. This essay seeks to address this objection. To ... -
A Defense of Epistemic Intuitions
(2013-09)Since the very beginning, intuitions have played a crucial role in philosophical inquiry. When Socrates asks, “What is justice?” he appeals to an innate source of knowledge that inexplicably recognizes examples of justice, ... -
Analogy and the Ordering of the Polis in the Republic
(2013-09)In Plato’s the Republic the polis and intelligible world exist to reciprocally compliment each other. More simply, politics and knowledge have a necessary and reciprocal relationship for Plato. I will argue that this ... -
Are the Laws of Logic Contingent?
(2013-09)One question often asked by philosophers is “Might the laws of logic have been different?” That is, are such laws contingent? An affirmative answer to this question in the language of possible world’s semantics would be ... -
The Schadenfreude Objection to Geoffrey Sayre-McCord's Defense of Mill's Principle of Utility
(2013-09)In Mill’s “Proof” of the Principle of Utility: A More than Half-Hearted Defense, Geoffrey Sayre-McCord provides a brilliant analysis of Mill’s “Proof”, which turns it from what many saw as a fallacy ridden embarrassment ... -
Thesis, Antithesis, and Finally, Synthesis: A New Era of Collective Understanding
(2013-09)This paper will explain how the Hegelian Dialectic can be found throughout nature in infinitely various aspects, as well as provide in-depth examples of this phenomenon, including psychologically and historically. It will ...
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