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Russell Marcus
Overview
Russell Marcus is a philosopher at Hamilton College specializing in philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of language, logic, and the history of analytic philosophy. He joined Hamilton in 2007 as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy and was subsequently appointed to a permanent position; by 2020–21 he held the title of Associate Professor and Chair, and by 2024–25 he had been named the Christian A. Johnson Excellence in Teaching Professor of Philosophy and was serving as department chair. He holds a B.A. from Swarthmore College and a Ph.D. from The Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Relevance to Research
Marcus appears in all 18 Hamilton course catalogs in the corpus (2007–08 through 2024–25), making him one of the most continuously documented Philosophy Department faculty members in the collection. The catalogs trace his career from an initial visiting appointment through a named professorship and departmental leadership, and provide detailed records of his course offerings across nearly two decades.
Notes
Role: Christian A. Johnson Excellence in Teaching Professor of Philosophy; Chair, Philosophy Department Faculty dates: 2007–present (year of hire noted as 2007 in all catalogs) Degrees: B.A., Swarthmore College; Ph.D., The Graduate Center, City University of New York
Rank progression (from catalog faculty listings): - 2007–08: “Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy” with notation “fs” (full-year visiting) - 2012–13: Listed as regular faculty with notation “(FS)”; Philosophy Department chaired by A. Todd Franklin - 2018–19: Listed in the named faculty section as “Russell Marcus (Philosophy)” under Special Appointments–adjacent listing - 2020–21: “Chair, Associate Professor Philosophy” — serving as department chair - 2024–25: “Chair, Christian A. Johnson Excellence in Teaching Professor of Philosophy” — named professorship
Courses regularly taught: - PHIL 122 / Infinity — introduction to philosophy through examination of the infinite; covers Zeno’s paradoxes, Aristotle, Galileo’s paradox, Cantor’s transfinites, and foundations of mathematics; includes fiction alongside traditional philosophy texts - PHIL 124 / Philosophy of Education (crosslisted as EDUC 124) — examines the nature of knowledge, learning, teaching, and schools from a philosophical perspective; readings historical and contemporary - PHIL 203 / History of Modern Western Philosophy — survey of 17th- and 18th-century European philosophy; taught using team-based learning; covers Descartes, Hume, Kant, and related figures - PHIL 240 / Symbolic Logic — formal systems of reasoning and argument evaluation - PHIL 308 / Language Revolution — survey of 20th-century and contemporary philosophy of language; covers Frege, Russell, Tarski, Quine, Putnam, Kripke, and Chomsky; focuses on reference, meaning, and linguistic ontology - PHIL 416 / Wittgenstein — broad study of Wittgenstein’s work including the picture-theory, naming, rule-following, meaning, and skepticism; attention to Frege, Russell, Anscombe, Quine, Kripke, and Diamond - PHIL 427 / Intuitions and Philosophy — explores the role of intuition in epistemology, philosophy of mind, mathematics, and moral philosophy; engages with experimental philosophy
Departmental context: Marcus joined a Philosophy Department that included Marianne Janack (epistemology, philosophy of science, feminist philosophy), Katheryn Doran (logic, reasoning), A. Todd Franklin, and Robert Simon, among others. The 2007–08 catalog shows the department co-chaired at that time; later catalogs show Marcus ascending to the chair. See also Marianne Janack for a faculty colleague whose period of documented appearance in the corpus (2002–2006) predates but overlaps Marcus’s.
Key events: - 2007: Joined Hamilton Philosophy Department as Visiting Assistant Professor - 2012–13: Confirmed as regular (non-visiting) faculty - 2020–21: Serving as department chair with title Associate Professor - 2024–25: Named Christian A. Johnson Excellence in Teaching Professor; continuing as department chair