John Martin Fischer

Fischer received his undergraduate degree from Stanford University and his Ph.D. from Cornell in 1982. He began his teaching career at Yale University, where he taught for almost a decade before joining the faculty at the University of California, Riverside. In 2017 he was appointed by the Regents of the University of California as one of 22 University Professors, the first and only philosopher since the inception of this program.

In June 2011, Fischer was elected vice-president of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association and became president of the Pacific Division in 2013. In 2024, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.{{cite web | url=https://www.amacad.org/new-members-2024 | title=2024 New Member List | American Academy of Arts and Sciences }}

While Fischer's work centers primarily on free will and moral responsibility, where he is particularly noted as a proponent of semi-compatibilism{{cite web|url=http://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/semicompatibilism.html|title=Semicompatibilism|website=www.informationphilosopher.com}} (the idea that regardless of whether free will and determinism are compatible, moral responsibility and determinism are),Kane, R. (2005) A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will, New York: Oxford UP. {{ISBN|978-0-19-514970-8}} he also has worked on the metaphysics of death and philosophy of religion and led a multi-year, multi-pronged research project on "immortality," funded in 2012 by the John Templeton Foundation.{{cite web|url=https://www.scpr.org/news/2014/06/20/44853/researchers-ponder-life-after-death-at-uc-riversid/|title=Researchers ponder life after death in 'Immortality Project'|first=Southern California Public|last=Radio|date=20 June 2014|website=Southern California Public Radio}}

• Moral Responsibility (editor) (Cornell University Press, 1986)
• God, Foreknowledge and Freedom (editor) (Stanford University Press, 1989)
• Perspectives on Moral Responsibility (co-editor with Ravizza) (Cornell University Press, 1993)
• The Metaphysics of Death (editor) (Stanford University Press, 1993)
• The Metaphysics of Free Will: An Essay on Control (Blackwell, 1994)
• Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsibility (co-authored with Ravizza) (Cambridge University Press, 1998)
• My Way: Essays on Moral Responsibility (Oxford University Press, 2006)
• Our Stories: Essays on Life, Death, and Free Will (Oxford University Press, 2009)
• Near-Death Experiences: Understanding Visions of the Afterlife (co-authored with Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin) (Oxford University Press, 2016)
• "Death, Immortality, and Meaning in Life' (Oxford University Press, 2019)
• 'Should You Choose to Live Forever?' (co-authored with Stephen Cave). (Routledge, 2023)

{{Incomplete list|date=December 2019}}

• {{Cite podcast|url=https://www.skeptic.com/science-salon/john-martin-fischer-death-immortality-and-meaning-in-life/|title=John Martin Fischer — Death, Immortality and Meaning in Life|website=Science Salon|publisher=Skeptic Magazine|host=Shermer, Michael|date=17 December 2019}}
• {{Cite interview|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msBM_cA2RmQ&t=5565s/ |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211221/msBM_cA2RmQ |archive-date=2021-12-21 |url-status=live|title=John Martin Fischer - Free will, God, Meaning, and More|host=Friction (Philosophy)|date=15 July 2021}}{{cbignore}}

• American philosophy
• List of American philosophers

{{reflist}}

• [http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/philosophers/fischer/ Information Philosopher on John Martin Fischer]
• [http://andrewmbailey.com/jmf/ List of papers by John Martin Fischer]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20160304023000/http://hardproblem.ru/events/interview-with-john-m-fischer/ The Moscow Center for Consciousness Studies video interview with John Fischer]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fischer, John Martin}}

Category:Living people

Category:University of California, Riverside faculty

Category:Stanford University alumni

Category:Cornell University alumni

Category:20th-century American philosophers

Category:21st-century American philosophers

Category:Presidents of the American Philosophical Association

Category:1952 births

{{US-philosopher-stub}}