Biography
Assistant Instructional Professor, Master of Arts Program in the Humanities, Department of Philosophy, The College
I received my PhD in Philosophy from the University of Chicago in August 2021, and before that earned a B.A. from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. My research interests are broadly in the history of theoretical philosophy from the late medieval period to the history of analytic philosophy, including especially early modern philosophy and German idealism. My dissertation was on the Kantian doctrine that we do not know things as they are in themselves, which I think of as part of a longer tradition of skepticism about the knowability of substance in medieval and early modern thought.
I am currently working on projects on the knowability of substance in Locke and Kant; on the relation between Kant’s conception of transcendental philosophy and the longer medieval tradition of transcendental thought; and on the Kantian claim that there are certain “pure concepts” we all possess simply by having the capacity for conceptual thought. I have taught philosophy here at UChicago, at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and in Chicago Public Schools, and am excited to work with MAPH students interested in most any area of philosophy as well as on a wide array of interdisciplinary projects. I am a member of Faculty Forward/SEIU Local 73, the contingent faculty union at the University of Chicago.
Current/Upcoming Courses:
Substance in Medieval, Modern, and Contemporary Metaphysics (Winter 2025)
The notion of substance has long been at the center of metaphysical theorizing. Substances are said to be fundamental and independent things, capable of existing on their own, which are the bearers of properties. An account of substance has also been thought central to metaphysics in that the primary sense of ‘being’ is the sense in which substances are beings. But there has been a great deal of controversy over how to give an account of the nature or being of substance, what sorts of things we should count as substances, what we can know of substance, and even whether the notion of substance is intelligible. In this course we will examine a number of influential accounts of substance in medieval, early modern, and contemporary metaphysics. Historical figures we will likely read include Aquinas, Scotus, Ockham, Suárez, Descartes, Spinoza, and Locke. Contemporary readings may include texts by Justin Broackes, Kit Fine, Robert Pasnau, Kathrin Koslicki, Michael Della Rocca, and Shamik Dasgupta.
Locke and Leibniz (Spring 2025)
This course will consist of a close study of Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding alongside Leibniz’s chapter-by-chapter response to Locke in his New Essays on Human Understanding. Locke’s Essay is the great manifesto and development of empiricism, and Leibniz’s New Essays is a detailed, sustained rebuttal of Locke’s book. As such, it is both a fascinating work by one of the giants of rationalism and a text that provides an opportunity to take seriously the idea that philosophy develops through dialogue. Topics to be discussed include innate ideas, necessary truths, reason, experience, substance, essence, personal identity, the nature of mind and body, and freedom, among others. We will also ask larger questions about the nature of the rationalist and empiricist traditions to which these philosophers belong – e.g., the extent to which empiricism is indebted to the experimental sciences, and whether rationalism is best understood as a doctrine concerning the sources of human knowledge or as a metaphysical claim about the intelligibility of being.