Penelope Maddy is a Distinguished Professor Emerita of Logic and Philosophy of Science, Philosophy, and Mathematics at the University of California, Irvine. She received her B.A. in Mathematics with Great Distinction from the University of California, Berkeley in 1972 and her Ph.D. in Philosophy from Princeton University in 1979. Beginning her career as a lecturer at the University of Notre Dame in 1978-1979 and assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago from 1979 to 1983, she advanced to associate professor there until 1987. At UCI since 1987, she served as associate professor of Philosophy and Mathematics until 1989, professor of Philosophy from 1989 to 1998 and 2014 to 2020, professor of Mathematics from 1989 to 2020, professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science from 1998 to 2020, UCI Distinguished Professor from 2007 to 2020, and Distinguished Professor Emeritus since 2020. Maddy was the founding chair of UCI's Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science from 1998 to 2001. She held leadership roles including president of the Association for Symbolic Logic from 2007 to 2009 and president of the American Philosophical Association's Pacific Division from 2019 to 2020. Her editorial contributions include managing editor of the Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic from 1979 to 1984 and service on boards for Review of Symbolic Logic, Philosophia Mathematica, and others.

Maddy's research specializes in the philosophy of mathematics, particularly methodological questions in set theory foundations, axiom defense, and connections to logic, philosophy of science, epistemology, meta-philosophy, and skepticism. She advocates naturalistic approaches like 'second philosophy,' examining set-theoretic practice and historical figures such as Wittgenstein, Hume, and Quine. Major publications include the books Realism in Mathematics (Oxford University Press, 1990), Naturalism in Mathematics (1997), Second Philosophy (2007), Defending the Axioms (2011), The Logical Must: Wittgenstein on Logic (2014), What Do Philosophers Do? Skepticism and the Practice of Philosophy (2017), A Plea for Natural Philosophy and Other Essays (2022), and Philosophical Uses of Categoricity Arguments with Jouko Väänänen (Cambridge University Press, 2023). Key articles encompass 'Believing the Axioms, Parts I and II' (Journal of Symbolic Logic, 1988), 'Mathematical Depth' (Philosophia Mathematica, 2015), 'Wittgenstein on Mathematics' (Philosophical Investigations, 2024), and 'A Philosophical Reconstruction of Steel’s Multiverse Project' (Bulletin of Symbolic Logic, 2020). Honors include election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1998), Lakatos Prize (2002), Gauss Lectureship (2006), and Phi Beta Kappa-Romanell Professorship (2014-2015).

Professional Email: pjmaddy@uci.edu