John Leslie
University Professor Emeritus
johnlesl@uoguelph.ca

Full CV

Degrees

M.Litt. (Oxford), F.R.S.C.

Professor Leslie now lives in Victoria, British Columbia. His address is:
2066 Gourman Place, Victoria, British Columbia V9B 6E1, Canada
(250) 391-3908.

Research

Metaphysics, with emphasis on the nature of causation, of time, of the mind, and of the world's unity. Philosophy of Religion, emphasizing (1) the neoplatonist idea that God, instead of being an omnipotent creator, is a need for the world to exist, a need which is itself creatively effective; and (2) the spinozistic notion that the world is just the thoughts of a divine mind. Philosophy of Cosmology, particularly the suggestion that there exist many universes, ours being one of the rare ones in which intelligent living beings can evolve. Ethics, particularly the duty to prevent the extinction of the human race. Analysis of Risks. Probability Theory. Decision Theory.

Other Interests:

Rock climbing; board games, particularly "Hostage Chess" (see below); family life; the oriental board game "Go".

Hostage Chess: David Pritchard, the world authority on chess variants (he has written an Encyclopedia listing 1,450 of them) said the game was better than the one he'd previously picked as "variant of the decade". http://www.chessvariants.com/difftaking.dir/hostage.html

Theology and Cosmology in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy which is at: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall1998/entries/
cosmology-theology/

Books

Immortality Defended, Blackwell: Oxford 2007, paperback and hardback; also on-line.

Infinite Minds, Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 2001, paperback 2003.

The End of the World, Routledge, London and New York, 1996, paperback 1998. Available also as an online "electronic book"at http://www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk

Universes, Routledge, London, paperback 1996; online at http://www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk