James E. Faulconer is a Latter-day Saint philosopher and senior research fellow at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. Faulconer received his B.A. in English from BYU. He then received master’s and Ph.D. degrees in philosophy from Pennsylvania State University. His area of interest in philosophy is contemporary European philosophy, particularly the work of Martin Heidegger and late 20th- and early 21st-century French thinkers, particularly as that work bears on religious experience. Dr. Faulconer is author of the Maxwell Institute’s “Scriptures Made Harder” series (2013–2015) and other books such as Scripture Study: Tools and Suggestions (1999), Faith, Philosophy, and Scripture (2010), and The Life of Holiness: Notes and Reflections on Romans 1, 5–8 (2012).

Before joining the Institute, Faulconer served as Richard L. Evans Professor of Philosophy at Brigham Young University, director of BYU’s London Centre, and Resident Senior Research Fellow and Associate Director of the Wheatley Institution. He also previously served as the dean of Undergraduate Education and the chair of the Philosophy Department at BYU.