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Religious Studies Program

The Cal Poly Philosophy Department houses a Religious Studies program with a wide variety of courses in GE and a Religious Studies minor.

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Between the Species

Between the Species online journal logoAn online philosophy journal about the relationship between humans and animals.
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Ethics Group


Cal Poly's Ethics + Emerging Sciences Group focuses on the implications and impact of emerging sciences and technologies.
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Eleanor Helms

Professor

Contact Information 

Fields

  • Existentialism
  • Aesthetics
  • Philosophy of Literature
  • Thought Experiments
  • Imagination

Courses Taught

  • PHIL 230: Philosophical Classics: Knowledge and Reality
  • PHIL 319: Existentialism
  • PHIL 350: Aesthetics
  • PHIL 351: Philosophy of Literature
  • PHIL 429/449: Special Topics (including Thought Experiments, Kierkegaard, Kant's 3rd Critique)

Education

  • Ph.D., Philosophy, Fordham University
  • M.A., Philosophy, Fordham University
  • B.A. Philosophy, Wheaton College

Select Recent Publications

  • (2026) Kierkegaard’s Account of Thought Experiment: A Method of Variation. Inquiry, 69(2), 1064–1089. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2023.2248617

  • (2023) “Thoughtlessness as an Intellectual Vice in Kierkegaard and Aristotle.” Religions 14:1401 (2023): 1-14.  https://doi.org/ 10.3390/rel14111401

  • (2023) “A Phenomenological Account of Kierkegaard’s Stages.” In Kierkegaardian Phenomenologies, eds. J. Aaron Simmons, Wojciech Kaftanski, and Jeffrey Hanson (Lexington).

  • (2022) “Ørsted, Mach, and the History of ‘Thought Experiment.’” British Journal of the History of Philosophy  30:5: 837-858. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2022.2033693

  •  (2022) “Kierkegaard’s Metaphysics of the Self.” In Cambridge Companion to The Sickness unto Death, eds.Jeffrey Hanson and Sharon Krishek (Cambridge), 79-94.

  • (2021) “Hope and the Chaos of Imagination in Kant and Kierkegaard.” Journal of the History of European Ideas 47:3: 456-469. DOI: 10.1080/01916599.2020.1799556.

  • (2019) “Imagination and Belief.” In The Kierkegaardian Mind, eds. Adam Buben, Eleanor Helms, and Patrick Stokes (Routledge).

Select Recent Presentations

  • “Type, Group, Concept . . . What is a Category in Kierkegaard?” 10th International Kierkegaard Conference, St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN, June 15-19, 2026.

  • “Doubt and the Texture of Reality in De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.” The Ethics of Doubt Workshop Series (UKRI/ERC funded), May 16, 2025.

  • “Thought Projects and Imaginary Constructions: Kierkegaard’s Experimenting Mind.” Julia Watkin Memorial Lecture, St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN, May 6, 2023.

  • “Thought Experiments as Rich Perception,” American Society for Aesthetics-Pacific, Berkeley, CA, March 9-10, 2023.

  • “The Bounded Imagination.” Project on Philosophy and Religion (3PR), Center for Human Values, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, April 1-2, 2022.

  • “Is Imagination Boundless?” Kierkegaard Lecture Series, Philosophy Department, Wheaton College, March 22, 2022.

  • “‘A Nonentity, A Puzzling Figure’: Kierkegaard’s Geometric Construction of Faith,” Kierkegaard Research Center Project Seminar, Copenhagen, Denmark, June 21, 2019.

 

 

 

 

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