James Davis

Jim received his BA in political science from Beloit College, graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa and earned an MA in philosophy at State University of New York at Albany. In 2000, Jim received his Ph.D. in philosophy at Boston University; his dissertation explored Aristotle’s theory of cognition and its understanding of the relationship between the universal and the particular. He was awarded the Boston University Rallis Memorial Award for excellence in humanities research for doctoral work. Since 2000, Jim has been teaching history, English, and philosophy at BUA, after having been a part-time philosophy teacher at the school beginning in 1996. From 2004 to 20212, Jim taught formal and informal logic and served as an academic dean in John Hopkins’ Center for Talented Youth summer program and worked with members of the CTY program to develop philosophy curricula for high schools. Over the years Jim has also been an instructor or an adjunct professor at Boston University, Merrimack College, Endicott College, and Babson College. From 2014-2016 he served on the Board of Directors of PLATO (Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization) from 2014 to 2016, and he was an editor for Questions: Philosophy for Young People. Jim has presented and published papers, mostly on pedagogy, at the annual conferences of the American Philosophical Association (APA) and the American Association of Philosophy Teachers (AAPT) and in the journal Teaching Philosophy. In 2018, Jim completed a thirteen-month training program at Middlesex Academy with Inward Bound Meditation (iBme) to become a certified mindfulness instructor. At BUA Jim has worn many hats through the years, advising the school newspaper, Model United Nations, Ethics Bowl, and the philosophy club, as well as teaching secular mindfulness and serving as Boston University liaison and writing curricula for BUA.