Department of Philosophy

Patrick A. Heelan is the William A. Gaston Professsor of Philosophy and a member of the Jesuit Order. He has a doctorate in theoretical physics specializing in geophysics and high energy physics, having studied with Schrodinger (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies) and Wigner (post-doc Princeton) and a doctorate in philosophy (at the University of Louvain in Belgium) specializing in the study of Heisenberg's physical physical from the perspective of Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, and Heidegger and in active dialogue with Heisenberg then in Munich. He also has an interest in questions relating to science and religion. Dr. Heelan taught for many years at SUNY at Stony Brook where at times he filled several major positions in the administration of the University. He came to Georgetown University in 1992 as Executive Vice President for the Main Campus and in 1995 became the William A. Gaston Professor of Philosophy.

Dr. Heelan's research interests are interdisciplinary with a concentration on the philosophy of modern physics with a novel approach from the phenomenological and hermeneutical perspective of Husserl and Heidegger. He has published many papers on the philosophy of the quantum theory, contextual logic, the hermeneutics of theory and experiment, and the task-dependent geometry structure of human spatial vision in everyday life and in pictorial art and architecture. His many interests are the subject matter of a Festschrift in his honor edited by Professor B. Babich of Fordham University, NY: Babich, Babette (Ed.) Hermeneutic Philosophy of Science, Van Gogh's Eyes, and God (Dordrecht: Kluwer/Springer, 2002).

Dr. Heelan has participated in many international and national conferences on the philosophy of modern physics and perceptual psychology.