Janet Broughton


Janet Broughton is Professor of Philosophy and Vice Provost for the Faculty at the University of California, Berkeley. Her academic research focuses on early modern philosophy, in particular that of David Hume and René Descartes.
Broughton attended Mount Holyoke College for a year, but interrupted her formal education to join the VISTA program, where she worked on community programs for preschoolers and teenagers in Houston's Third Ward. Following that she worked as a programmer and announcer for a classical music show on WRVR in New York City. She returned to school and earned her B.A. in philosophy at the University of California, Davis. Broughton earned her Ph.D. in philosophy at Princeton University with a dissertation on Descartes’ theory of causation.
Broughton’s first academic position in philosophy was at Harvard University. She moved to the University of California, Berkeley in 1979 and served as departmental chair for 5 years. In 2006, she was appointed Dean of the Arts and Humanities division of Berkeley’s College of Letters and Science in 2006. In 2010 she was appointed Vice Provost for the Faculty.

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