About

Michael Jacovides received a Ph.D. in philosophy from UCLA in 1997. He came to Purdue University in 2001 after having held one-year positions at Yale, the University of Massachusetts, and the University of Virginia. He is the author of 'Locke's Image of the World' and various philosophical papers, mostly on the British Empiricists. He is currently working on a book on Hume on laws and causes, a project for which he received an encouraging grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Much of his research is focused on the connection between the history of science and the history of philosophy in the early modern period, but he has wide philosophical interests.

Research topics

• Philosophy
• Epistemology
• Political Science
• Psychology
• Sociology
• Aesthetics
• Law
• History
• Economics
• Theology
• Social psychology
• Psychoanalysis

Selected publications

• Hume on the Prospects for a Scientific Psychology

  Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences · 2026-02-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  In Section One of an Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Hume distinguishes between two sorts of writing on human nature: first, one that appeals to common sense to make virtue seem attractive and, second, one that attempts to describe the principles governing the mind. Hume's defence of the second approach is in part a defence of the possibility of scientific psychology. Within the second approach, he distinguishes two parts: first, a descriptive branch he calls 'mental geography' and, second, a branch he compares to Newton's project in astronomy. In his defence of mental geography, Hume sketches an account of his method of enquiry in psychology. Common sense describes some basic faculties, philosophers can make finer distinctions within these, and introspection allows us to reliably describe ground-level processes. Hume's vision of Newtonian psychology is one that appeals to laws and forces and finds the hidden springs of the mind. His attempt to explain causal inference by appealing to the transfer of vivacity across associated perceptions in Part 2 of Section 5 is an attempt at Newtonian psychology: it's speculative, explanatory, and enunciates a putative psychological law.

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• Hume and the rotting turnip

  Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A · 2025-09-24

  article1st authorCorresponding
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• Management of Ganglioneuroma and Ganglioneuroblastoma Intermixed A UNited Kingdom Childrens cancer and Leukaemia Group (UKCCLG) Nationwide Study REPORT

  2024-04-19

  preprintOpen access

  Background Ganglioneuroblastoma intermixed (GNBi) and ganglioneuroma (GN) are benign subtypes of neuroblastic tumors. Primary observation has become accepted management for some patients with surgical operative strategies evolving to be less aggressive. Objectives Our study examines evolving management in a UK cohort investigating natural history, biology and clinical features of GN and ganglioneuroblastoma-intermixed (GNBi) in those having observation or surgery. Methods Retrospective review of histologically confirmed GN and GNBi managed over a 30 year period. Clinical, pathological features, tumor dimensions, management and outcomes are all recorded. Results A total of 259 patients were identified (GN= 163, GNBi = 93, median age = 62 months). 201(78%) had upfront surgery and 58 (22%) were actively observed. Of the 58 observed - 21 (36%) later required surgery due to progressive tumour growth (52%). Gross total resection was achieved in 79% of patients with a 19% complication rate. Presence of image defined risk factors and large tumour size correlated with incomplete resection (p < 0.05 in both). Forty-five index cases (39%) had change in pathology between biopsy and surgery with 14 patients (12%) altered from ‘favourable‘ to ‘unfavourable’. Conclusion Our findings show surveillance alone may be considered a safe approach. However, a significant number of index patients may eventually require operative surgery with development of symptoms. Extent of surgical resection did not impact overall survival (OS); however it improved symptom(s) resolution.

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• Creating an Intuitive Model for Translation of Preoperative Imaging to Intraoperative Visualisation in Paediatric Surgery: Leveraging Augmented Reality for Accurate Depth Perception and Inner Anatomy on Tablet AR Platform

  Biomedical visualization · 2024-01-01

  book-chapter
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• The Effectiveness of a 3D Virtual Reality Model of a Paediatric Abdominal Neuroblastoma for Surgical Planning and Junior Doctor Education

  Biomedical visualization · 2024-01-01

  book-chapter
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• Management of Ganglioneuroma and Ganglioneuroblastoma Intermixed: A United Kingdom Children's Cancer and Leukaemia Group (UK CCLG) Nationwide Study Report

  Pediatric Blood & Cancer · 2024-11-24 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access

  BACKGROUND: Ganglioneuroblastoma intermixed (GNBi) and ganglioneuroma (GN) represent benign variants of peripheral neuroblastic tumours. While historically surgical resection was recommended, watchful active observation has become the accepted management for a subset of patients. OBJECTIVES: To review clinical features, biology, natural history and management of a retrospective UK CCLG study cohort of GN and GNBi, and compare outcomes of patients treated with surgical resection or watchful active observation. METHODS: Retrospective review of histologically confirmed non-metastatic GN and GNBi diagnosed between 1990 and 2020. RESULTS: A total of 259 patients were identified (163 GN, 93 GNBi, median age 62 months). In all 201 (78%) had initial surgery and 58 (22%) were observed. Overall survival was 98%. Twenty-one of 58 observed (36%) required subsequent surgery due to progressive tumour growth (52%). Gross total resection (GTR) was achieved in 79% of patients with a 19% complication rate. GTR was obtained in a similar proportion of patients having initial surgery (65%) and delayed surgery (76%). Patients obtaining GTR were more likely to have complete symptom(s) control (43% vs. 24%). In 45 cases (39%), surgical pathology was different from pathology at biopsy, and in 14 (12%) the pathology changed from GN/GNBi to neuroblastoma/GNB nodular. CONCLUSION: Watchful active observation can be a safe approach, with surgical resection reserved for symptomatic patients. However, a small proportion of patients in the observation group had their diagnosis revised to malignant at surgery. Careful assessment of surgical risk and expected benefits, after considering an initial period of observation, will allow clinicians to make optimal decisions for patients and their families.

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• Locke on Persons and Personal Identity by Ruth Boeker

  Journal of the history of philosophy · 2022

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Psychoanalysis
  • Philosophy

  Reviewed by: Locke on Persons and Personal Identity by Ruth Boeker Michael Jacovides Ruth Boeker. Locke on Persons and Personal Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. xxi + 336. Hardback, $85.00. According to Ruth Boeker, her account is unusual in "distinguishing Locke's account of personhood from his account of personal identity," which allows her to make sense of "both his claim that 'person' is a forensic term and his claim that personal identity consists in the same consciousness" (xiii–xiv). In her emphasis on the connection between personhood and responsibility, Boeker's position is like the one advanced in Galen Strawson's recent book (Locke on Personal Identity: Consciousness and Concernment [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011]), but where Strawson emphasizes the connection between personality and responsibility in this life, Boeker emphasizes it in the life to come. According to her, Locke wants to advance a picture of the afterlife that can explain how someone can continue to exist and be held responsible there. The longest and most involved chapter in Boeker's book concerns Locke's view on consciousness. Many of the details in the chapter are not essential to her main project. Instead, it is a scholarly and philosophically sophisticated survey of various topics that have come up in the literature: the relation between consciousness and reflection, how to make sense of Locke's claim that we cannot perceive without perceiving that we perceive, whether all consciousness is self-consciousness, the relation between memory and consciousness, and whether and how consciousness might extend to the future. Among Anglophone historians in the last half century or so, one of the main disputes in the interpretation of Locke has been shaped by a dispute in analytic metaphysics about whether, as Boeker puts it, "one or multiple identity predicates are needed in our language" (34). As I would put it, on one side of the dispute are those who would analyze "a is the same F as b" as "a=b and F(a) and F(b)" where the equal-sign signifies the relation of numerical identity, the relation that holds between an object and itself and nothing else in virtue of that object's existence. On the other side of the dispute are those who think that we do not have a concept of plain numerical identity and that the concept of sameness always needs to be supplemented, either tacitly or explicitly, by a kind term. The usual interpretive dispute was, in the first instance, which side Locke was on, and then after that a matter of filling in the details. [End Page 697] Boeker reconceptualizes this interpretative debate. Instead of worrying about numerical identity, she considers what she calls "absolute identity," where absolute identity is a sort of identity that "for all kinds is ontologically grounded in the same way" (33). According to her, it is clear that Locke rejects absolute identity, since "he emphasizes that the persistence conditions or the relations that ground identity over time differ depending on the kind under consideration" (31). This is an interesting and original way of looking at the metaphysics of identity. Her transformation of the problem leads to some distortion in her recapitulation of the secondary literature, however. In particular, Vere Chappell's achievement was not only to give good evidence that Locke has a concept of plain numerical identity, but also to show how his theory gives us a framework for seeing how one and the same thing can persist over time while changing in constituents and in its qualities. Boeker, however, takes the plain equal-sign when put between things existing at different times to signify a commitment to "absolute identity." Thus, out of a kind of charity, she omits Chappell's attribution to Locke of the view that numerically the same thing persists over time. Only his rump attribution that the horse and its matter are distinct at a time remains, where this distinctness is not a clearly understood notion of numerical distinctness, but rather some concept that has not yet been properly explained. Those who believe that we do not have a clear concept of numerical identity or who think that it is anachronistic to...

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• Hume, Contrary Miracles, and Religion as We Find It

  History of Philosophy Quarterly · 2022 · 1 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Philosophy
  • Epistemology
  • History

  Abstract In the “Contrary Miracles Argument,” Hume argues that the occurrence of miracle stories in rival religions should undermine our belief in the trustworthiness of these reports. In order for this argument to have any merit, it has to be understood in its historical, religious context. Miracle stories are used in support of religions, and it's part of religion as we find it to reject miracle stories from rival traditions. A defender of miracle stories could avoid the argument by breaking the connection between miracles and religious doctrine, but then miracles won't justify revealed religion.

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• Hume and the Laws of Nature

  Hume studies · 2020 · 2 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Philosophy
  • Epistemology

  The common view that Hume is a regularity theorist about laws of nature isn’t textually well grounded. The texts show that he thinks of them as objective governing principles that could conceivably be violated while still counting as a law of nature. This is a standard view at the time, and Hume borrows it from others. He implies that the best evidence for rational religion is the exceptionless workings of the laws of nature, he argues that suicide isn’t incompatible with the will of God by identifying his will with the laws of nature, and he has Philo argue for the existence of God from the simplicity of the laws governing the world. He sheds some of the theological baggage that laws of nature carry at the time, but not all of it.

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• Replies to My Critics

  Locke Studies · 2019-12-20

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This is a revised version of a paper presented at the APA Eastern Division's 115th annual meeting in New York on Monday January 07, 2019. It was presented at session 2O Author Meets Critics: Michael Jacovides, Locke’s Image of the World. The session chair was Antonia LoLordo (University of Virginia), the critics were Robert Pasnau (University of Colorado Boulder) and Kathryn Tabb (Columbia University), and the author was Michael Jacovides (Purdue University).

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Frequent coauthors

• Paul D. Losty

  Ramathibodi Hospital

  7 shared

• Vickyanne Carruthers

  University of Newcastle Australia

  6 shared

• Deborah A. Tweddle

  Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

  6 shared

• Sarah Braungart

  Royal Hospital for Children

  6 shared

• Chun Shing Kwok

  Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham

  6 shared

• Barry Pizer

  University of Liverpool

  6 shared

• Hany Gabra

  Great North Children's Hospital

  6 shared

• Lisa Howell

  Alder Hey Children's Hospital

  6 shared