Dr. Jonathan Tsou

Dr. Marvin Stone, chief emeritus of hematology and oncology at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas and a clinical professor in the Harry W. Bass Jr. School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology, along with his wife, Kathy, created the Marvin and Kathleen Stone Distinguished Professorship of Humanities in Medicine and Science in 2019. The position is intended to grow the impact of the Center for Values in Medicine, Science, and Technology as it relates to how values, culture and humanities interact with medicine and science. Tsou was appointed in August 2022.

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“I address questions such as whether some kinds of classification for mental disorders are artificial or real, implications for the socially constructed nature of some mental disorders, and practices surrounding psychiatry, such as drug prescriptions.”

Dr. Jonathan Tsou is a philosopher of science with broad and interdisciplinary research interests. He has a special interest in philosophy of science issues that arise in psychiatry and psychology, as well as the history of 20th-century philosophy of science.

“My research is quite interdisciplinary,” he said. “I try to engage not just with scientific theories of psychiatry, but also in areas such as anthropology, sociology, history and social science.”

Tsou is director of the Center for Values in Medicine, Science, and Technology, which has a mission to understand, evaluate and improve the ethical and cultural influences on and implications of medicine, science and technology. His vision for the center is for it to maintain its strong international reputation as a leading research venue for philosophy of science, philosophy of medicine, and science and technology studies.

Tsou is a member of the Philosophy of Science Association (PSA) Governing Board. Previously he served as a member of PSA’s program committee and poster forum committee. Tsou also serves on the executive council of The Association for the Advancement of Philosophy and Psychiatry.

A member of the editorial advisory board for the journal Philosophy of Medicine, Tsou has published several books and a number of articles on the philosophy of medicine and psychiatry and on applied ethics, including Technology Ethics (2023), Philosophy of Psychiatry (2021) and Objectivity in Science (2015).

Tsou joined The University of Texas at Dallas in 2022. He previously was a professor of philosophy for 13 years at Iowa State University, where he received several teaching awards. He also was a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia.

Tsou earned his PhD from The University of Chicago in 2008, his Master of Arts in philosophy from The University of Western Ontario in 2001, and his Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia in 2000.