David Hilbert

Email Address: hilbert@uic.edu
College: Liberal Arts and Sciences Department: Philosophy
Title: Professor and Director of Graduate Studies
Office: 1422 UH M/C 267 Phone: 9965490
Webpage: http://www.uic.edu/~hilbert/
Participating in the Chancellor’s Undergraduate Research Awards program: Yes

Research Interest:
My research interests center on philosophical and theoretical issues concerning perception and draws on a wide range of sources from both philosophy and the scientific study of perception.

The main focus of my current work is on issues concerning perceptual constancies (stability in perception in spite of changing stimulus). I'm interested in questions concerning the nature of the processes by which constancy is achieved and also questions about the nature of our experience of constancy.

I'm also working on a survey of philosophical issues concerning vision which will involve reviewing the literature on vision in philosophy and relevant scientific work on vision.

Minimum time commitment in hours per week: 3

Qualifications of a Student:
No philosophy is necessary. Some background in philosophy or sensory physiology would be helpful but is not necessary. Some small amount of mathematics (elementary algebra) and basic statistics would also be useful but is also not necessary.

Brief Summary of what is expected from the student:
I'm a philosopher, not a lab scientist, so the work would primarily involve locating, reading, summarizing and discussing articles from the philosophical and scientific literature. There would be some work with research databases and some library work involved. For a student with the right skills there may be some very basic data analysis.

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