Permanent Faculty
Scott Austin, Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies (Ph.D., Texas) Ancient Philosophy, Metaphysics; Parmenides and the History of Dialectic (Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing, forthcoming); Parmenides: Being, Bounds, and Logic (Yale, 1986).
Robert W. Burch, Professor (Ph.D., Rice) History of Logic, American Philosophy; A Piercean Reduction Thesis and the Foundation of Topological Logic (Texas Tech University Press, 1990); "Royce and Wittgenstein on the Context of Privacy," History of Philosophy Quarterly (1988).
Daniel Conway, Professor and Department Head (Ph.D., University of California, San Diego) 19th Century Philosophy, Social and Political Philosophy; Recent Publications include: "The Drama of Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragments," in Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 2004, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter and Co., 2004, pp. 139-160; "Life and Self-Overcoming," in The Blackwell Companion to Nietzsche, ed. Keith Ansell Pearson. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005, pp. 532-48; "Nietzsche on Race and Racial Embodiment," in Nietzsche and African-American Philosophy, eds. Jacqueline Scott and Todd Franklin, SUNY Press, 2006. Current Projects include: Editor, The History of Continental Philosophy, Volume II: The Revolutionary Age, forthcoming, Acumen Press.
Stephen H. Daniel, Professor (Ph.D., St. Louis) Modern Philosophy, Recent Continental Philosophy; Current Continental Theory and Modern Philosophy (ed) (Northwestern, 2005); Current Continental Philosophy (Prentice-Hall, 2004); "Berkeley's Christian Neoplatonism, Archetypes, and Divine Ideas," Journal of the History of Philosophy (2001); The Philosophy of Jonathan Edwards: A Study in Divine Semiotics (Indiana, 1994); Myth and Modern Philosophy (Temple, 1990); John Toland: His Methods, Manners, and Mind (McGill-Queen's, 1984).
Derrick Darby, Associate Professor (Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh) social and political philosophy, ethics, African American philosophy with a special focus on questions having to do with the nature, value, and source of rights. His most recent articles are"Rights Externalism" Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 68 (2004); "Unnatural Rights" Canadian Journal of Philosophy 33 (2003); and "Grounding Rights in Social Practices: A Defence" Res Publica 9 (2003). He is currently working on a monograph that defends a social recognition-based approach to rights, tentatively entitled At the Hands of Community:Rights, Race, and Recognition. His most recent publication is Hip Hop & Philosophy: Rhyme 2 Reason (Open Court Publishing, 2005), a volume of philosophical essays co-edited with Tommie Shelby with a foreword by Cornel West. This bold and novel introduction to philosophy textbook challenges the assumption that there is an unbridgeable gap between street knowledge and book knowledge. It also challenges the academy to encourage new and creative ways to demonstrate the vitures of a liberal arts education for an increasingly diverse student body that views itself as part of the hip-hop generation, which Darby takes to be vital for student academic success.
Theodore George, Assistant Professor and Director of Graduate Studies (Ph.D. Villanova University). Post-Kantian Continental Philosophy. Tragedies of Spirit: Tracing Finitude in Hegel's Phenomenology (State University of New York Press, September 2006).
Michael Hand, Professor (Ph.D., Florida State) Philosophy of Language/Logic/Mathematics, Linguistics; "Antirealism and Falsity," in Gabbay and Wansing, eds., What is Negation? (Kluwer, 1999); "What the Null Set Could Not Be," Australasian Journal of Philosophy (1995); "Informational Variability," Synthese (1994); "Meaning, Truth-Conditions, and Substitutional Quantification," Philosophical Studies (1992); "On Saying That Again," Linguistics & Philosophy (1991).
C.E. Harris, Professor (Ph.D., Vanderbilt) Ethical Theory; Applying Moral Theories, 4th ed (Wadsworth, 2002); Engineering Ethics: Concepts and Cases, 2nd ed., with M. Pritchard and M. Rabins (Wadsworth, 2000); "Engineering Responsibilities in Lesser-Developed Nations: The Welfare Requirement," Science and Engineering Ethics (1998); Practicing Engineering Ethics, with M. Rabins and M. Pritchard (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 1997); "Aborting Fetuses: The Parental Perspective," The Journal of Applied Philosophy (1991).
Claire Katz, Associate Professor (Ph.D., University of Memphis) Contemporary French Philosophy, Feminist Theory, Modern Jewish Thought, Philosophy of Education, Philosophy of Religion; "Levinas-Between Philosophy and Rhetoric: The 'Teaching' of Levinas's Scriptural References," Philosophy and Rhetoric, volume 38:2, pp. 159-172; "Before the face of God one must not go with empty hands: Transcendence and Levinas's Prophetic Consciousness," Philosophy Today, volume 50, number 1/5, pp. 57-68, Spring 2006; "Raising Cain: The Problem of Evil and the Question of Responsibility," Cross Currents, volume 55/2, pp. 215-233, Summer 2005. Emmanuel Levinas: Critical Assessments, volumes 1-4 (Routledge 2005) (ed.); Levinas, Judaism, and the Feminine: The Silent Footsteps of Rebecca (Indiana University Press, 2003).
Michael LeBuffe, Assistant Professor (Ph.D., University of California, San Diego) Early Modern Philosophy, Moral Philosophy. "Hobbes on the Origin of Obligation," British Journal for the History of Philosophy (2003). "Spinoza's Psychology," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. "Why Spinoza Tells People to Try to Preserve Their Being," Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie (2004). "Spinoza's Summum Bonum," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly (forthcoming, 2005). "The Anatomy of the Emotions," in The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza's Ethics (forthcoming).
Shaun Longstreet, Assistant Professor (Ph.D., Notre Dame) Christianity & Judaism in Antiquity; Comparative Religion. "Etham, Gur, Hara, Hazamaveth, Jattir, Kanah, Rezeph, Shimron, and Tema," Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (Eerdmans, 2000).
Hugh J. McCann, Professor (Ph.D., Chicago) Philosophy of Mind, Action Theory, Philosophy of Religion; The Works of Agency, (Cornell, 1998); "Divine Sovereignty and the Freedom of the Will," Faith and Philosophy (1995); "Settled Objectives and Rational Constraints," American Philosophical Quarterly (1991).
John J. McDermott, University Distinguished Professor (Ph.D., Fordham) Classical American Philosophy, Philosophy of Culture, Philosophy of Medicine; General Editor, The Correspondence of William James, 12 vols. (University Press of Virginia, 1992-2004); Streams of Experience: Reflections on the History and Philosophy of American Culture (Massachusetts, 1986); The Philosophy of John Dewey (ed.) (Chicago, 1981); The Writings of William James (ed.) (Chicago, 1977); The Culture of Experience: Philosophical Essays in the American Grain (NYU, 1976); The Basic Writings of Josiah Royce, 2 vols. (ed.) (Chicago 1969, Fordham 2005). Forthcoming in 2006-2007: The Drama of Possibility: The Philosophical Essays of John J. McDermott (ed. Douglas Anderson) (Fordham); Experience as Philosophy: On the Work of John J. McDermott (eds. James Campbell and Richard E. Hart) (Fordham, 2006).
Christopher Menzel, Associate Professor and Associate Department Head (Ph.D., Notre Dame) Metaphysics, Logic, Philosophy of Logic and Mathematics, Knowledge Engineering; "Process Specification Language: Principles and Applications" (with Michael Gruninger), AI Magazine (2003); "Actualism", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2000); "The Objective Conception of Context and Its Logic," Minds and Machines (1999); "The IDEF Family of Languages,"Handbook on Architectures for Information Systems, Springer-Verlag (1998); "Singular Propositions and Modal Logic," Philosophical Topics (1993); "The True Modal Logic," Journal of Philosophical Logic (1991); "Actualism, Ontological Commitment, and Possible World Semantics," Synthese (1990).
Colleen Murphy, Assistant Professor (Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) Social & Political Philosophy, Philosophy of Law, and Engineering Ethics; Colleen Murphy with Paolo Gardoni, "The Role of Society in Engineering Risk Analysis: A Capabilities-based Approach," Risk Analysis, vol. 26 no. 4 (2006), pp. 1073-1083. Colleen Murphy, "Lon Fuller and the Moral Value of the Rule of Law" Law and Philosophy, vol. 24 (2005), pp. 239-262. Colleen Murphy, "Reconciliation, the Rule of Law, and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder," in Nancy Nyquist Potter (ed.), Trauma, Truth, and Reconciliation: Healing Damaged Relationships. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) pp. 83-110.
James R. L. Noland , Lecturer (Ph.D., Texas A&M); Social and Political Philosophy, Ethical Theory, and Philosophy of History; "Personal Survival, Community and Abortion", Society of Christian Philosophers Pacific Regional Meeting, University of San Diego, February 2006.
Gregory Pappas, Associate Professor (Ph.D., Texas) Pragmatism (Dewey, James), Ethics, Latin American Philosophy, John Dewey's Ethics: Democracy as Experience (Book) Indiana University Press (forthcoming), Latin American Thought Prize by the APA, for "The American Challenge: The Tention Between the Values of The Anglo and the Hispanics", (2005). "The Latino Character of American Pragmatism," Transactions of the Charles Peirce Society (1998); "To Be or to Do: Dewey and the Great Divide in Ethics," History of Philosophy Quarterly (1997); The William James Prize by the APA, for "William James and The Logic of Faith" Transactions of the Charles Pierce Society (1992).
Linda Radzik, Associate Professor and Associate Director of Graduate Studies (Ph.D., Arizona) Metaethics, Ethics; "A Coherentist Theory of Normative Authority," Journal of Ethics (2002); "Collective Responsibility and Duties to Respond," Social Theory and Practice (2001); "Incorrigible Norms: Foundationalist Theories of Normative Authority," Southern Journal of Philosophy (2000); "A Normative Regress Problem," American Philosophical Quarterly, (1999).
Roger Sansom, Assistant Professor (Ph.D., North Carolina) Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Language. "Constraining the Adaptationism Debate," (forthcoming) Philosophy and Biology. "Why Evolution is Really Indeterministic," (forthcoming) Synthese.
Robin Smith, Professor (Ph.D., Claremont) Aristotle, Ancient Philosophy, History of Logic, Philosophy of Logic; "Ancient Philosophical Logic," in A Companion to Philosophical Logic, ed. D. Jacquette (Blackwell, 2002); "Aristotle: Logic," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2000); "Dialectic and Logic in Aristotle," in From Puzzles to Principles: Essays on Aristotle's Dialectic, ed. M. Sim (Lexington Books, 1999); Aristotle, Topics I, VIII and Selections (Oxford: Clarendon Aristotle Series, 1997); "Logic", in The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle, ed. J. Barnes (Cambridge, 1995); "Aristotle on the Uses of Dialectic," Synthese (1993); Aristotle, Prior Analytics, (Hackett, 1989).
Richard W. Stadelmann, Associate Professor (M.Div., Yale) Process Philosophy, Non-Western Philosophies.
Gary Varner (On Leave 2006-2007) Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies (Ph.D., Wisconsin) Ethical Theory, Applied Ethics; "Personhood, Memory, and Elephant Management," in Never Forgetting: Ethics and Elephants (forthcoming); "Pets, Companion Animals, and Domesticated Partners," in Ethics for Everyday, (McGraw-Hill, 2001); "Should You Clone Your Dog?" Animal Welfare (1999); In Nature's Interests? Interests, Animal Rights and Environmental Ethics (Oxford University Press, 1998); "Environmental Law and the Eclipse of Land as Private Property," in Ethics and Environmental Policy (University of Georgia Press, 1994). "No Holism Without Pluralism," Environmental Ethics (1991); "Biological Functions and Biological Interests," Southern Journal of Philosophy (1990).
Emeritus Faculty
Richard P. Becka, Associate Professor Emeritus (Ph.D., Ottawa) Aristotelian and Thomistic Philosophy; "The Evolution of Friendship and the Moral Life," Franciscan Studies (1965).
Visiting Faculty
Max Cresswell, Visiting Professor (Ph.D., University of Manchester) Logic, Philosophy of Language, and History of Philosophy; Book Publications: An Introduction to Modal Logic (with G. E. Hughes), London, Methuen(1968) ; Logics and Languages, London, Methuen (1973); A Companion to Modal Logic (with G. E. Hughes), London, Methuen (1984), Structured Meanings: The Semantics of Propositional Attitudes, Bradford Books/MIT Press, (1985), Adverbial Modification, Dordrecht, Reidel, (1985), Semantical Essays: Possible Worlds and Their Rivals, Dordrecht, Kluwer, (1990), Language in the World, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, (1994), Semantic Indexicaligy, Dordrecht, Kluwer, (1996), A New Introduction to Modal Logic, (with G. E. Hughes) London, Routledge, (in preparation, with A. A. Rini) The World-time Parallel.
Stefano Franchi, Visiting Professor (Ph.D., Stanford) 20th Century European Philosophy, Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Science.
Bill Gibson, Visiting Assistant Professor (Ph.D., Texas) Applied Ethics, American Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, Military History; "Ministry in Crisis and Combat," The Navy Chaplain 7 (1993)
Adriane Rini, Visiting Associate Professor (Ph.D., Massachusetts) Areas of interest: History of Philosophy (especially Aristotle); Modal Logic and its Philosophical Applications. Sample Publications: 'Is There a Modal Syllogistic?' Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 39:4 (1998); 'When Time is of the Essence: Prior Analytics I.15 and De Caelo L.12' Logique et Analyse 46, No. 183-184 (2003); 'Realizing Possibilities' forthcoming in The Proceedings of Logica 2006. Manuscripts in Preparation: Aristotle's Modal Syllogistic; and (with Max Cresswell) The World-Time Parallel.
Kristi Sweet, Visiting Assistant Professor (PhD Loyola University Chicago); Areas of interest: Kant, History of Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy, Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy, Aesthetics.