Education
PhD., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2010
M.A., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2005
B.A., Reed College, 2003
Research & Teaching Interests
Ancient Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
My philosophical education began at Reed College, where, like every other student, I took Humanities 110: a year-long course whose Greek- and Roman-centered syllabus still exemplifies the studia humanitatis of the Renaissance.
My Reed BA thesis, "Universals' Natures and Natural Laws," argued that the Dretske-Tooley-Armstrong theory, which identifies laws of nature with relations between universals, entails necessitarianism, or the thesis that the actual laws of nature are metaphysically necessary. My argument proceeded in two stages: first I argued that natural laws can be relations between universals only if these relations are internal--only if, in other words, they obtain in virtue of the universals ' intrinsic characteristics. Second, I argued that universals have all their intrinsic characteristics essentially: they just are those characteristics. From these conclusions, it follows that the DTA analysis entails necessitarianism.
(David Armstrong has since accepted necessitarianism. In conversation at UNC in 2004, he confirmed that his acceptance of necessitarianism was motivated by the above considerations.)
In 2003 I was awarded a fellowship from Scholars for Tomorrow, a society devoted to cross-disciplinary communication between UNC graduate students. Among the Scholars for Tomorrow fellows, I attended "Aesthetics and Society," a Scholars group focused on how the humanities influence and are influenced by social forces. There I lectured on the Aristotelian paradox of tragedy in contemporary horror cinema, which remains both a personal and professional interest.
My UNC MA thesis, "Presentism, Truthmaking, and Tense De Re," responds to critiques of John Bigelow's proposal to use tensed properties as a way of reconciling presentism with the demand for truthmakers for historical claims. Such objections include Sider's methodological ban on irreducibly hypothetical entities; Caplan and Sanson's criticism that past truths explain the instantiation of tensed properties rather than being explained by them; and Lewis' problem of Past Aliens--the temporal analogue of the modal problem for actualists. I conclude that none of these objections are decisive, and outline some responses for the presentist.
In 2009 I was one of five graduate student recipients for the Tanner Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at UNC.
My PhD thesis, Ontology, Priority, and Teleology: A Defense of Classical Platonism, argues that the world's most fundamental elements are its purposes; and that metaphysical dependence is itself a teleological phenomenon.
Curriculum vitae in PDF form
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Samples of my work, some of which are still in progress. Comments are always appreciated! (Please do not cite or distribute without permission.)
Classical Platonism and Metaontology
ABSTRACT: Contemporary discussions of ontology have produced two ontological research programs: the existence program and the brute priority program. Both claim that ontology is ambitious i.e. that it investigates substantive questions not asked by science and yet each fails to account for this ambition. The existence program fails because certain existence claims are trivial; the brute priority program fails because its notion of priority, when intelligible, is borrowed from science in a way that renders it unambitious. In light of these considerations I propose a third option ”Classical Platonism”which identifies metaphysical priority with functional teleology.
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Platonism: The Priority of Purposes
ABSTRACT: Priority Aristotelians claim that material objects are prior to their purposes. Priority Platonists claim that purposes are prior to material objects. After presenting an argument for Priority Platonism, I briefly address some standard objections that are brought against it. My argument is that, whenever a material object has a purpose, that purpose determines not only what kind of a thing the material object is, but also the material object's persistence conditions and conditions of well-being. If some entity determines a material object's persistence conditions, conditions of well-being, and natural kind, however, this shows that the object is metaphysically dependent on the entity. From these two observations, Priority Platonism follows.
Neither Mereology nor Magic, but Teleology
ABSTRACT: Contemporary theories of universals have two things in common: first, they are unable to account for necessary connections between universals that form a structure. Second, they leave teleology out of their accounts of instantiation. These facts are not unrelated; the reason why contemporary theories have such trouble is they neglect the ancient idea that universals are ends at which nature aims. If we want a working theory of universals, however, we must return to this idea. Despite its unpopularity among realists, teleology is not a disposable eccentricity, and its dismissal is not an improvement on ancient views. After presenting my argument, I discuss its implications for recent debates about metaphysical priority.
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Teleology and Priority
ABSTRACT: Priority Monists claim that whole cosmos is metaphysically prior to its parts. Priority Pluralists claim that the smallest parts of the cosmos are metaphysically prior to the whole. As for the various wholes that are in the cosmos, both Monism and Pluralism are silent. Their silence is telling; for only in some cases does it seem that wholes are prior to than their parts. When we ask about wholes and parts in general, we find that the correct thesis is neither universal Monism nor universal Pluralism. Instead, we find that a whole is prior to its parts exactly when the parts proper function is to be integrated into the whole.
The Haecceitic Euthyphro Problem (with Meg Wallace)
ABSTRACT: Haecceitism is the thesis that, necessarily, in addition to its qualities, each thing has a haecceity or individual essence an irreducible property the having of which is both necessary and sufficient for being identical to a specific individual. Many philosophers defend the existence of haecceities on the grounds that they are indispensable to ontology, particularly in individuating substances. Our purpose is to expose a flaw in haecceitism: it entails that familiar cases of fission and fusion either admit of no explanation or else only admit of explanations too bizarre to warrant serious consideration. Because the explanatory problem we raise for haecceitism closely resembles the Euthyphro problem for divine command theory, we refer to our objection as the haecceitic Euthyphro problem, or the Haecceitic Euthyphro for short.
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A Simple Dialogue
ABSTRACT: Two characters discuss whether spatially extended simples are possible, and, if so, how. In doing so, they make a number of argumentative moves which have well-known analogues in the metaphysics of persistence and time. (Written for my students.)
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Summer 2010 - Philosophy 210: Ancient Philosophy (Plato)
Fall 2009 - Philosophy 230: Experience and Reality (Metaphysics)
Summer 2009, Session 2 - Philosophy 230: Experience and Reality (Metaphysics)
Spring 2009 - Philosophy 110: Great Works
Fall 2008 - Philosophy 101: Main Problems
Summer 2008 - Philosophy 210: Ancient Philosophy
Spring 2008 - Philosophy 110: Great Works (Plato & Aristotle)
Summer 2007 - Philosophy 101: Main Problems
Spring 2007 - Philosophy 210: Ancient Philosopy
Summer 2006 - Philosophy 230: Experience and Reality
Spring 2006 - Philosophy 134: Philosophy of Religion
Fall 2005 - Philosophy 210: Ancient Philosophy
Summer 2005 - Philosophy 210: Ancient Philosophy
