Rate My Professor Michael Watkins

G. Michael Watkins holds the position of Professor and Department Chair in the Department of Philosophy at Auburn University, within the College of Liberal Arts. He earned his PhD from The Ohio State University in 1993. Watkins has been a faculty member at Auburn for the past 20 years, during which he has held adjunct and visiting appointments at Dalhousie University in Canada, the University of Rijeka in Croatia, and Cornell University. He served as the past Lanier Professor at Auburn University.

Watkins' research specializations and academic interests include metaphysics, philosophy of mind, aesthetics, and ethics, with special interests in philosophical problems related to color, perception, and objectivity. Key publications include "Rediscovering Colors: A Study in Pollyanna Realism" (2002), "Pollyanna Realism: Moral Perception and Moral Properties" (2002), "Seeing Red, the Metaphysics of Colours without the Physics" (2005), "Response-Dependence about Aesthetic Value" (2012), "Supervenience and Realization: Aesthetic Objects and their Properties" (2021), and "The Knowledge Argument against 'The Knowledge Argument'" (1989). In 2025, he co-authored the book "The Metaphysics of Color" with Elay Shech, offering an opinionated and selective introduction to key philosophical issues surrounding color.