I have interests in metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of religion. I focus primarily on the medieval versions of these topics, especially in the thought of John Duns Scotus. My current research (my dissertation) is focused on Scotus's doctrine of the univocity of the concept of being, and its impact on other areas of his thought, including his views on universals, individuation, and cognition. Below, you can find a summary of my dissertation, as well as some selected publications and abstracts that reflect my broader interests.
Dissertation Title: 'The Salvation of Philosophy': Being as the Foundation of Metaphysics and Cognition in John Duns Scotus
Supervisor: Robert Pasnau
Summary: My dissertation, 'The Salvation of Philosophy': Being as the Foundation of Metaphysics and Cognition in John Duns Scotus, explores the intersection of metaphysics, cognition, and logic in the thought of one of the most brilliant later medieval philosophers. According to Scotus, everything is a being according to one univocal meaning of “being”: substances and their properties, as well as God and creatures, can all be called beings in the same way, a claim denied by all his contemporaries. My dissertation’s overarching goal is to demonstrate how profoundly important the doctrine of univocity is in Scotus’s philosophy and to show that many of his most important ideas flow from this doctrine in a way not previously appreciated. In chapter one, I argue that the content and extension of Scotus's common concept of being can be more precisely identified than it has been up to this point. In chapter two, I show how it shapes his view on the relationship between universals and what we would today call natural kinds. In chapter three, I show that the doctrine of univocity entails his theory of individuation by haecceity. Scotus scholars often claim that haecceities are ad hoc entities posited by Scotus; I show that they are not ad hoc, but are in fact tightly connected with the doctrine of univocity, and that understanding them as such increases the coherence of Scotus’s philosophy. In chapter four, I build on the work done in chapters two and three to show that the doctrine of univocity leads Scotus to adopt the controversial, but historically influential, view that humans are capable of intellectual cognition of particular (as opposed to abstract) things.
“Saint Augustine and the Meaning(s) of Voluntas.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 33 (2025): 1021–1044.
Abstract: Among historians of philosophy, a long-standing tradition holds that Augustine invented the modern concept of ‘the will’. Against this tradition, recent scholarship has tended to conclude that the Augustinian term voluntas refers not to a faculty of the soul, but only a volition. I argue that the correct understanding of Augustine’s use of voluntas is a middle ground: Augustine uses the term equivocally, sometimes referring to an individual volition, sometimes referring to something more, namely, a source of willing in the soul. Proponents of the volition-only reading make a strong case for their view by showing that texts from the Augustinian corpus only make sense when voluntas is read as a volition; however, the same method of textual analysis can be used to defend the tradition of reading voluntas as a faculty. Ultimately, Augustine’s discussion of the nature of voluntas in De trinitate, his historical context, and his theological commitments suggest that neither reading alone sufficiently captures Augustine’s use of the term. At play in Augustine’s thought is a novel sense of the term voluntas which is neither inherited from ancient philosophy nor a familiar contemporary concept, but something transitional between the two: a proto-faculty of will.
“Indeterminate Dimensions and Aquinas’s Change of Mind.” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 99 (2025): 389–410.
Abstract: Aquinas sometimes references “indeterminate dimensions” in his early discussions of material substances. His discussions of these dimensions are few and brief, and the notable absence of the term from his later work has left their status in his ontology a mystery and spawned a debate about whether he changed his mind. In this paper, I offer a new understanding of indeterminate dimensions, one which is coherent with Aquinas’s own words and has the advantage of explaining several puzzling features of these dimensions: I argue that they are an accidental disposition in matter toward a range of determinate dimensions. Then, I argue that some version of indeterminate dimensions remains a feature of his later understanding of material substances, but with a significant difference that indicates a more important change of mind about the priority of substantial form’s arrival in prime matter. I conclude with a suggestion of how understanding this development in Aquinas’s thought sheds light on his mature view on individuation and the relationship between prime matter and substantial form.
“Liturgy and the Sublime.” British Journal of Aesthetics 63 (2023): 351–368.
Abstract: Experience of the sublime is most often discussed as a facet of the aesthetic experience of nature. In this paper, I argue that religious liturgy can be a source of sublimity and that experiences of the liturgically sublime are analogous to aesthetic experiences of nature and natural sublimity. Experiences of the liturgically sublime are not religious experiences, since the aesthetic experience of liturgy is not dependent upon any particular belief, such as belief in a deity, does not communicate specific information, and is fundamentally physical in its experience, since it is based upon sensory experiences of the physical environment. I conclude that, as aesthetic experiences of liturgy are similar in important ways to experiences of natural sublimity and can be fully appreciated by any attendant of a liturgy, so can anyone, regardless of belief set or religious background, experience and appreciate liturgical sublimity to the fullest degree.