François Duchesneau (Ph.D. 1971, Philosophy Université de Paris-I) has taught philosophy at the Université de Montréal since 1979, after having worked at University of Ottawa. He has held several offices and was Department Chair (1981 - 1990). His research areas include both history of modern philosophy and history of the philosophy of science. In the history of modern philosophy, he's mainly examined Locke's empiricism as well as the role of the philosophy of Leibniz in the making of modern science. In the history of the philosophy of science, he mainly looked at the genesis of the life sciences throughout the Scientific Revolution, and biology's beginnings,and also looked at changes within contemporary biological theories He is a member of the Royal Society of Canada and has received a Killam research grant (1995-1997). He was visiting professor at the Université Catholique de Louvain (Chaire Mercier) in 1995, at the University of Alberta in 1997 and at the École des Hautes-Études en sciences sociales de Paris in 1999. He received a Killam Award in social sciences (2003).

Some of his recent books include:

Philosophie de la biologie, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1997.

Les modèles du vivant de Descartes à Leibniz, Paris, Vrin, 1998,

Some of his recent articles include:

« Histoire et philosophie des ciences : une stratégie de convergence » (2001).

« Épigenèse et évolution : prémisses historiques » (2002)

« The nature of Leibnizian organic bodies », Studia Leibnitiana, (in progress).

The full list of his publications is available on his personnal web site.