Rate My Professor Cliff Hooker

Emeritus Professor Cliff Hooker, FAHA, PhD (Physics, York University, Canada), PhD (Philosophy, University of Sydney), BSc (Honours, University of Sydney), BA (Honours, University of Sydney), is Professor of Philosophy in the School of Humanities and Social Science at the University of Newcastle. As Director of the Complex Adaptive Systems Research Group, his research encompasses foundations of self-organisation, bio-cognitive organisation in organismic and scientific evolution-development, sustainable development, foundations of physics, general systems metaphysics, reduction and emergence in non-linear dynamical systems, philosophy of complex systems, organisation of bio-cognitive agents, bio-cognitive organisation and scientific learning, and complex adaptive system models grounded in non-linear dynamical system theory. He has directed Assessing sustainability dimensions and impacts for the Cooperative Research Centre for Coal in Sustainable Development, re-focusing sustainable development on resiliency, and supervised Sustainability Options for Australia's Future for the Joint Academies' Committee on Sustainability of the Australian National Academies Forum.

Professor Hooker is author or editor of more than 20 books and 100 papers, with contributions appearing in the Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, Proceedings of the British Academy, and leading journals. Key works include 'Re-reasoning Ethics: The Rationality of Deliberation and Judgment in Ethics' (2018, with Barry Hoffmaster), 'Philosophy of Complex Systems' (2011, Handbook of the Philosophy of Science series), 'A Realistic Theory of Science' (1987), 'Issues in Evolutionary Epistemology' (1989, edited with Karl Hahlweg), 'Images of Science: Essays on Realism and Empiricism' (1985, edited with Paul M. Churchland), 'Reason, Regulation and Realism: Toward a Naturalistic, Regulatory Systems Theory of Reason' (1995, with T.S. Brinsmead), and 'Dynamical Cognitive Science' (1999, proceedings editor). Recent papers cover 'On the Organizational Roots of Bio-cognition' (2024), 'Introduction to Philosophy of Complex Systems' (2011, two parts), and 'Complex Systems Dynamics and Sustainability: Conception, Method and Policy' (2011, with T.S. Brinsmead). He teaches these interdisciplinary ideas to engineering, psychology, business, and philosophy students.