Faculty

Harry Binswanger, Ph.D.
Foundations of (and Some Misconceptions of) Rights

Dr. Binswanger received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Columbia University (1973). He taught philosophy at the City University of New York, Hunter College, from 1972 to 1979 and is currently teaching a graduate seminar on epistemology at the University of Texas at Austin. During the 1980s, he was editor of The Objectivist Forum and since 1994, has been professor of philosophy at the Objectivist Graduate Center of the Ayn Rand Institute. He is editor of The Ayn Rand Lexicon (New American Library) and of the second edition of Ayn Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (New American Library). A regular speaker at universities, he has given more than 70 talks at some 40 universities on a wide variety of topics in philosophy and politics. Dr. Binswanger is currently writing a book on the causal nature of consciousness.

John Ridpath, Ph.D.
Man's Rights:the History of the Development of this Concept

Dr. Ridpath received his Ph.D. in economics at the University of Virginia (1974). He is an associate professor of economics and intellectual history at York University in Toronto, Canada, and writes and speaks on the history of ideas and their impact on social change. He has spoken at conferences about the central thinkers in Western history, the impact of their ideas on history, including the ideas influencing the Founding Fathers and early American history. Dr. Ridpath's articles have appeared in The Objectivist Forum and The Intellectual Activist. Widely recognized for his lecturing skills, as well as for his public speaking and debating in defense of capitalism, he is a recipient of the prestigious award given by the Ontario Council of University Faculty Associations for outstanding contribution to university teaching.

Richard Salsman, CFA
The Economics of Capitalism

Mr. Salsman is founder and president of InterMarket Forecasting, Inc., an economic and investment consulting firm based in Cambridge, MA. An author of numerous articles, monographs and books, including Gold and Liberty, and Breaking the Banks: Central Banking Problems and Free Banking Solutions, he holds an M.B.A in economics from New York University (1988) and a B.A. in economics and law from Bowdoin College (1981).

Gary Hull, Ph.D.
Philosophical Foundations of Liberty

Dr. Hull is Director of the Program on Values and Ethics in the Marketplace at Duke University. He is popular with students for his knowledge, passion for the subject, and engaging style. He taught philosophy and business ethics for many years at The Claremont Graduate School, Whittier College, and The Fuqua School of Business. Dr. Hull has published articles in newspapers around the country, has spoken at professional and general-public conferences around the world, and is a frequent lecturer at universities such as Harvard, Stanford, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Michigan, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Texas at Austin.

Conference Fellows (back to top)

Conference Fellows are graduate students or postdocs who will attend the conference as assistants to the faculty and as resources to the students. They will be discussing how to navigate undergraduate courses, applying to graduate school, and succeeding in graduate school and the academic job market. They may also lead informal discussions in the evenings.

Marc Baer
Mr. Baer is a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy at the University of California at Irvine.

Eric Daniels, Ph.D.
Dr. Daniels is the VEM Program Postdoctoral Fellow. He received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Wisconsin at Madison (2001).