California
St. Thomas Hall, Rm. 232

Curriculum Vitae

B.A., Thomas Aquinas College, 2004; M.A., History and Philosophy of Science, University of Notre Dame, 2008; Ph.D., History and Philosophy of Science, University of Notre Dame, 2009; Assistant Professor, Saint Mary’s College of California, 2009–2015; Associate Professor, Saint Mary’s College of California, 2015–2021; Tutor, Thomas Aquinas College, 2021-.

 

Articles and Reviews

  • “Galileo on the Status of Theology as a Science”
  • Forthcoming in The Heythrop Journal. Published online in Early View, July 15 2019. 
  • “Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina: Genre, Coherence, and the Structure of Dispute.” 
  • Galilaeana: Studies in Renaissance and Early Modern Science XVI (2019): 41-75. 
  • “Exclusion in Descartes’s Rules for the Direction of the Mind: The Emergence of the Real Distinction”
  • Intellectual History Review 26.2 (2016): 203-219.
  • “Rereading Descartes on the Identity of Space and Body”
  • History of Philosophy Quarterly 31.4 (January 2014): 21-40. 
  • “Descartes on Physical Vacua: Rationalism in Natural Philosophical Debate”
  • Society and Politics 7.2 (November 2013): 126-141.
  • “‘To Whom My Own Glad Debts are Incalculable’: St. Augustine and Human Loves in The Four Loves and Till We Have Faces
  • Journal of Inklings Studies 2 (2012): 5-26. 
  • Review of Kurt Smith, Matter Matters: Metaphysics and Methodology in the Early Modern Period. ISIS 103 (2012): 596-597.
  • Review of David Cunning, Argument and Persuasion in Descartes’ Meditations
  • British Journal for the History of Philosophy 19:6(2011), 1216-1220.

 

Presentations

  • “The Role of History in the Defense of Common Sense” (invited)
  • Science and Common Sense Conference
  • The Peoria Project, Hermosa Beach, CA: December 6-8, 2018
  • “Exclusion in Descartes’s Rules for the Direction of the Mind: the Emergence of the Real Distinction”
  • Atlantic Canada Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy
  • Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada; July 9-12, 2014
  • “Descartes on Abstraction, Exclusion, and Real Distinction”
  • South Central Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy
  • Texas A&M University, College Station, TX: September 27-28, 2013
  • “Descartes the arch-Aristotelian: The Theory of Place and Space”
  • Conference on Aristotelian Natural Philosophy in the Early Modern Period
  • Belgian Royal Society, Brussels, Belgium: May 23-24, 2013
  • “Descartes on Transubstantiation and Local Motion: Theology and Common Sense as (Putative) Authorities”
  • SCIENTIAE 2013: Disciplines of Knowing in the Early Modern World
  • University of Warwick, Coventry, UK: April 18-20, 2013
  • “A Reinterpretion of Descartes on the Concept of Space”
  • Midwest Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy
  • Macalaster College: April 30-May 2, 2010
  • “Descartes on Space, Body, and the Reality of Motion”
  • Southeastern Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy
  • Emory University: November 1-2, 2008
  • “Spinoza’s Vacuum Argument Revisited”
  • Graduate Philosophy Conference
  • Syracuse University: April 4-5, 2008
  • “Descartes Annihilated: Spinoza’s Challenge to the Cartesian Theory of Extended Substance”
  • History of Philosophy Graduate Conference     
  • University of Western Ontario
  • London, Ontario, Canada: March 28-29, 2008
  • “Empiricism and Aristotelian Induction in William Harvey’s De Motu Cordis
  • History of Science Society Annual Meeting
  • Minneapolis, MN: November 3-6, 2005