I recently completed my PhD at the Corcoran Department of Philosophy at the University of Virginia. In my dissertation, I develop and defend a novel reading of several aspects of Cartesian physics and corporeal metaphysics in terms of formal causal explanations from essence. A short distillation and defense of my interpretation of Descartes entitled "Descartes on Formal Causation" will appear in The Cartesian Mind (Routledge: forthcoming). I am also working on several standalone projects spelling out that interpretation in specific contexts, such as the laws of motion, the impenetrability of matter, condensation and rarefaction, and the refut…
I recently completed my PhD at the Corcoran Department of Philosophy at the University of Virginia. In my dissertation, I develop and defend a novel reading of several aspects of Cartesian physics and corporeal metaphysics in terms of formal causal explanations from essence. A short distillation and defense of my interpretation of Descartes entitled "Descartes on Formal Causation" will appear in The Cartesian Mind (Routledge: forthcoming). I am also working on several standalone projects spelling out that interpretation in specific contexts, such as the laws of motion, the impenetrability of matter, condensation and rarefaction, and the refutation of idealism.
My other main research project concerns the thought of Mary Shepherd. I am especially interested in the ways that the then-emerging science of chemistry informs Shepherd’s metaphysical and epistemological theories. My work on her inductive theory as a reply to Humean inductive skepticism has appeared in the British Journal for the History of Philosophy, and I am actively working on further projects related to her causal theory and her criticism of certain metaphysical interpretations of the Newtonian theory of gravitational attraction.
Finally, I have a smaller, standalone project on the response to skepticism offered by St. Augustine of Hippo in his earliest extant work, Contra Academicos.
