Michael O’Rourke
- (He/Him)
- orourk51@msu.edu
- (517) 432-0752
- South Kedzie Room 524A
- Professor
- Philosophy
Biography
Michael O’Rourke is Professor of Philosophy and faculty in AgBioResearch and Environmental Science & Policy at Michigan State University. His research interests include the philosophy of environmental science, the nature of communication and epistemic integration in collaborative, crossdisciplinary research, and the nature of linguistic communication between intelligent agents. He is Director of the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative, an NSF-sponsored research consortium that investigates philosophical approaches to facilitating crossdisciplinary research (http://tdi.msu.edu/), Executive Director of the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative Center, a service center at MSU that is the principal locus of Toolbox work, and former Director of the MSU Center for Interdisciplinarity. He has published extensively on the topics of communication, interdisciplinary theory and practice, and robotic agent design. He has been a collaborator on funded projects involving environmental science education, cross-disciplinary facilitation, biodiversity conservation, sustainable agriculture, resilience in environmental systems, and autonomous underwater vehicles.
Works
Eschen, R., Eigenbrode, S., Hall, T., Rinkus, M., Schaffner, U., O’Rourke, M. (2025). How to promote the integrative ability of transdisciplinary graduate students. Environmental Science & Policy 170: 104114. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104114.
Settles, I. H., Jones, M. K., Buchanan, N. T., Dotson, K, Grower, P., O’Rourke, M., Rinkus, M. A., Latimer, K. (2024). Epistemic exclusion: A theory for understanding racism in faculty research evaluations. American Psychologist 79(4): 539–552.
Hoffmann, S., Deutsch, L., Klein, J. T., O’Rourke, M. (2022). Integrate the integrators! A call for establishing academic careers for integration experts. Humanities & Social Sciences Communications 9: 147, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01138-z
Fam, D., O’Rourke, M. (Eds.) (2021). Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Failures: Lessons Learned from Cautionary Tales. London: Routledge.
Hubbs, G., O’Rourke, M., Orzack, S. H. (Eds.). (2020). The Toolbox Dialogue Initiative: The Power of Cross-Disciplinary Practice. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Valles, S., Piso, Z., O’Rourke, M. (2019). Coupled ethical-epistemic analysis as a tool for environmental science. Ethics, Policy & Environment 22(3): 267–286.
Robinson, B., Gonnerman, C., O’Rourke, M. (2019). Experimental philosophy of science and philosophical differences across the sciences. Philosophy of Science 86(3): 551–576.
O’Rourke, M. (2019). Referential intentions. In B. Abbott and J. Gundel (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Reference (pp. 19–44). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
O’Rourke, M. (2017). Comparing methods for cross-disciplinary research. In R. Frodeman, J. T. Klein, and R. Pacheco (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity, 2nd edition (pp. 276–290). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Piso, Z., Sertler, E., Malavisi, A., Marable, K., Jensen, E., Gonnerman, C., O’Rourke, M. (2016). The production and reinforcement of ignorance in collaborative interdisciplinary research. Social Epistemology 30(5-6): 643–664.
Crowley, S., Gonnerman, C., O’Rourke, M. (2016). Cross-disciplinary research as a platform for philosophical research. Journal of the American Philosophical Association 2(2): 344–363.
Piso, Z., O’Rourke, M., Weathers, K. C. (2016). Out of the fog: Catalyzing integrative capacity in interdisciplinary research. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 56: 84–94.
O’Rourke, M., Crowley, S., Gonnerman, C. (2016). On the nature of cross-disciplinary integration: A philosophical framework. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 56: 62–70.
O’Rourke, M., Crowley, S., Eigenbrode, S. D., Wulfhorst, J. D. (Eds.) (2013). Enhancing Communication and Collaboration in Interdisciplinary Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
O’Rourke, M., Crowley, S. (2013). Philosophical intervention and cross-disciplinary science: The story of the Toolbox Project. Synthese 190: 1937-1954.
Eigenbrode, S., M. O’Rourke, J. D. Wulfhorst, D. M. Althoff, C. S. Goldberg, K. Merrill, W. Morse, M. Nielsen-Pincus, J. Stephens, L. Winowiecki, N. A. Bosque-Pérez. (2007). Employing Philosophical Dialogue in Collaborative Science. BioScience 57: 55-64.
O’Rourke, M. (2003). The Scope Argument. The Journal of Philosophy 100: 134-155.
College of Arts & Letters News
- Ph.D. Student Honored for Work to Inform Legal Practitioners About Tribal LawsCollege of Arts & Letters
April 16, 2024While most Michigan-based legal practitioners lack adequate training in Tribal laws, Taylor Elyse Mills, a sixth-year doctoral candidate in Philosophy at Michigan State University and graduate of MSU’s College of Law, sought to do something about this significant gap in our […] Read Now →
- Toolbox Dialogue Initiative Center to Create New Curriculum for NSF ProgramCollege of Arts & Letters
September 6, 2022The Toolbox Dialogue Initiative (TDI) Center, a research and outreach program based within the Department of Philosophy in Michigan State University’s College of Arts & Letters, received a $750,000 contract from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop a repeatable […] Read Now →
- Toolbox Dialogue Initiative Creates New Service CenterCollege of Arts & Letters
January 18, 2022The Toolbox Dialogue Initiative (TDI) Center, a new service center within MSU’s College of Arts & Letters, is a one-of-a-kind organization that provides philosophically based capacity-building services to research and practice groups locally, nationally, and […] Read Now →
- Fusing Ideas Through Philosophy: Center Elevates Collaborative Research Between the Arts and SciencesCollege of Arts & Letters
October 15, 2020The challenge of interdisciplinary research can be easily explained through the parable of five blind-folded people and one very patient elephant.
- Toolbox Dialogue Initiative Awarded Prize for Excellence and NSF GrantCollege of Arts & Letters
October 16, 2018Michigan State University’s Toolbox Dialogue Initiative (TDI), led by Michael O’Rourke, Interim Director of the MSU Center for Interdisciplinarity (C4I), and Stephanie Vasko, Managing Director of C4I, has been named the winner of the 2018 APA/PDC Prize for Excellence and […] Read Now →
SPARTANS WILL | © Michigan State University