David Johnston (Ph.D., Princeton University, 1981) taught at Yale University before coming to Columbia.  He has served as Chair of the International Conference for the Study of Political Thought and as President of the New York State Political Science Association and is currently Chair and Director of the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at Columbia.  His publications include The Idea of a Liberal Theory (Princeton University Press, 1994), The Rhetoric of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes and the Politics of Cultural Transformation (Princeton University Press, 1986), and, as editor, Equality (Hackett, 2000) and (with Richard Flathman) Leviathan: A Norton Critical Edition (Norton, 1997).  He has recently completed A Brief History of Justice (forthcoming in 2011).  His research interests include theories of justice, the liberal tradition of political theory, and the history of political thought.  He is currently studying the relationship between justice and reciprocity.

Research interests:  Theories of justice; political theory in the liberal tradition; history of political thought.

Professor Johnston is on leave for the Spring 2012 semester.