Stephen E. Braude is professor of philosophy and chairman of the philosophy department at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. He studied philosophy and English at Oberlin College and the University of London, and in 1971 he received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
After publishing a number of articles in the philosophy of language, temporal logic, and the philosophy of time, he turned his attention to several related problems in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of mind—in particular, questions concerning causality, scientific explanation generally, and psychological explanation specifically. One of his overriding concerns was to demonstrate the inadequacy of mechanistic theories in psychology and cognitive science. He also examined the evidence of parapsychology to see whether it would provide new insights into these and other traditional philosophical issues. After that, he shifted his focus to problems in philosophical psychopathology, writing extensively on the connections between dissociation and classic philosophical problems as well as central issues in parapsychology—for example, the unity of consciousness, multiple personality and moral responsibility, and the nature of mental mediumship.
Prof. Braude is past president of the Parapsychological Association and the recipient of several grants and fellowships, including research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the BIAL Foundation in Portugal. He has published more than fifty philosophical essays in such journals as Noûs; The Philosophical Review; Philosophical Studies; Analysis; Inquiry; Philosophia; Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology; The Journal of Scientific Exploration; and The Journal of Trauma and Dissociation. His three previous books are ESP and Psychokinesis: A Philosophical Examination; The Limits of Influence: Psychokinesis and the Philosophy of Science; and First Person Plural: Multiple Personality and the Philosophy of Mind. He is also a professional pianist and composer and a prize-winning stereo photographer.