James Franklin (philosopher)

James Franklin (born in Sydney in 1953) is an Australian philosopher, mathematician and historian of ideas. He was educated at St. Joseph's College, Hunters Hill, New South Wales. His undergraduate work was at the University of Sydney (1971–74), where he attended St John's College and he was influenced by philosophers David Stove and David Armstrong. He completed his PhD in 1981 at University of Warwick, on algebraic groups. Since 1981 he has taught in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of New South Wales.

His research areas include the structuralist philosophy of mathematics and the 'formal sciences' (he is the founder of the Sydney School in the philosophy of mathematics), Australian Catholic history, the parallel between ethics and mathematics (work for which he received the 2005 Eureka Prize for Research in Ethics), restraint, the quantification of rights in applied ethics, and the analysis of extreme risk. Franklin is the literary executor of David Stove.

In 2008 he set up the Australian Database of Indigenous Violence.