Current Graduate Students
Graduate students in philosophy once represented a comparatively homogenous cross-section of American society -- as the above photograph of John Dewey and his cohort, taken in 1885 (nine years before Dewey joined the faculty of the University of Chicago and became the Philosophy Department's first Chairman) helps to make evident. Now almost evenly divided between students from North America and elsewhere, our current cohort of graduate students constitutes an altogether different kind of crew. Look below and see for yourself!
Below you will find all of the graduate students currently enrolled in our PhD program. Those who are in their first three years in the program describe their interests and their previous education prior to joining our program. Those who are in their fourth year or beyond also list their dissertation topic and the names of the faculty members currently serving on their dissertation committee.
In addition, we provide below the email address of each of our graduate students. If you are a prospective graduate student interested in learning more about our doctoral program -- and, in particular, more about how well how our program might suit you -- you might want to contact one or two of the individuals below whose philosophical interests or educational background most closely resembles your own.
For information about those of our graduate students who have recently completed our PhD program, and for Placements, please click here.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Amichai Amit
Email: amichaia at uchicago dot edu
Fields of interest: Ethics, Epistemology
Thinkers: Kant, Wittgenstein
Previous education: MA Philosophy, Tel Aviv University
Nadav Arviv
Email: nadavarviv at uchicago dot edu
Questions: How to live? Why be moral?
Fields of interest: Metaethics, Philosophy of Action.
Thinkers: Cavell, Wittgenstein, Kant, Davidson
Previous education: BA, Philosophy and Economics,Tel Aviv University
MA Philosophy, Tel Aviv University
MBA, Technion
Email: stina at uchicago dot edu
Interests: Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Action, Self-knowledge, Wittgenstein.
Dissertation Title: The Mind's Movement: A New Account of Expressive Action
Dissertation Committee: David Finkelstein (chair), Jason Bridges, Agnes Callard, Martin Gustafsson (Åbo Akademi University, Finland)
Previous Education: BA, Uppsala University.
Jeremy Bell
Email: bellj at uchicago dot edu
Interests: Husserl, Heidegger, Leo Strauss, idealism, natural theology.
Previous education: B.A. (2003) and M.Phil. (2006) from the University of Sydney.
Nir Ben Moshe
Email: nir at uchicago dot edu
Interests: Metaethics; Practical Reasoning; Moral Psychology; Medical Ethics; Aesthetics; Psychoanalysis; 18th & 19th Century Moral Philosophy (esp. Hume, Smith and Nietzsche); Ancient Moral Philosophy; Wittgenstein.
Dissertation Title: "The Qualified Moral Judge and the Moral Point of View: A (quasi) Humean Solution to a Humean Problem"
Dissertation Committee: Daniel Brudney, Samuel Fleischacker (UIC), Brian Leiter (co-chair), Martha Nussbaum (co-chair)
Previous Education: B.A. in Philosophy and Psychology, Hebrew University; M.A. in Philosophy, Hebrew University; M.A. in Clinical Psychology, Hebrew University.
Sara Bosworth
Email: Bosworth at uchicago dot edu
Interests: philosophy of language, metaphysics, logic, early analytic philosophy
Previous Education: Hamilton College, B.A., New School for Social Research, M.A
Dissertation title: "Propositional attitude reports and object-dependent sense: a defense of Fregean reference-shifting"
Dissertation committee: Josef Stern (chair), Michael Kremer, Jason Bridges
Pascal Brixel
Email: brixel at uchicago dot edu
Interests: ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of language, philosophy of philosophy
Previous education: BA Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (Oxford); MA Philosophy (Tufts)
Silver Bronzo
Email: bronzo at uchicago dot edu
Interests: My main areas of interest are the History of Analytic Philosophy (especially Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, both early and late, and Austin) and the Philosophy of Language. Wittgenstein occupies a special position among my interests. I have worked on the debate between “resolute” and “traditional” readings of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, and on a number of Wittgensteinian authors such as Stanley Cavell, Elizabeth Anscombe, Cora Diamond, and John McDowell.
I also have a background in moral philosophy, which I keep alive especially in relation to Cavell’s conception of Moral Perfectionism. Moreover, mainly through the study of Cavell’s and Fried’s works, I became interested in the notion of “modernism” in the arts. I am attracted to Cavell’s idea that we can identify a recurrent problematic that reemerges in quite different areas of philosophy, such as epistemology, the philosophy of language, moral philosophy, and aesthetics: a problematic that is connected to skepticism and to the impulse to evade the necessity of taking responsibility for our own words and deeds.
My dissertation deals with the relationship between the compositionality and the contextuality of language. By drawing on a certain construal of the “context principle” (which I attribute to Frege and Wittgenstein), I argue that these two features of language can be properly understood only when we recognize their mutual interdependence.
Dissertation title: “Words, Sentences and Speech-Acts:An Interpretation and Defense of the Context Principle”
Dissertation Committee: James Conant (chair), Michael Kremer, Josef Stern
Previous Education: La Sapienza Università di Roma (Italy)
Website: http://silverbronzo.wordpress.com/
Arnold Brooks
email: arnoldbrooks at uchicago dot edu
Interests: Ancient physics and epistemology, skepticism, philosophy of mind.
Previous Education: B.A. in Philosophy from Penn State University (2006), and an MA from the University of Chicago (2009).
Amos Browne
Email: browne at uchicago dot edu
Office hours Winter Quarter: Thursdays from 2.30 until 4 & by appointment - location forthcoming
Interests: Rationality, animal minds; psychoanalysis and the unconscious; history of analytic philosophy (particularly the philosophy of Wittgenstein). Dissertation Committee: Jason Bridges (chair), David Finkelstein, James Conant.
Previous education: BA, Litterae Humaniores (Classics and Philosophy), Oxford, 2006.
Office hours: Thursday 2-4pm, location forthcoming
Jacob Butcher
Email: jbutcher at uchicago dot edu
Interests: moral and political philosophy; Kant and Rawls
Previous education: BA in philosophy, Wheaton College (IL)
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Email: tobitac at uchicago dot edu
Interests: Ancient philosophy, Kierkegaard, psychoanalysis, logic. My dissertation is on Plato's psychology, with special attention paid to the therapeutic dimension of philosophical conversation.
Dissertation Committee: Agnes Callard, Michael Forster, Rachana Kamtekar (Arizona), Gabriel Richardson Lear, Jonathan Lear
Previous Education: BA (Philosophy, Cognitive Science), Simon Fraser University
Dawn Eschenauer Chow
Email: desch at uchicago dot edu
Previous Education: B.A. in Philosophy and English Writing, Saint Mary's College (2005)
Interests: Philosophy of religion, particularly as it intersects with issues of meaning and justification; Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard.
Dissertation Committee: Josef Stern (chair), Daniel Brudney, Michael Kremer, James Conant
Shana Crandell
Email: crandell at uchicago dot edu
Interests: Kant's theoretical philosophy, German Idealism, Nietzsche, Platonism, Indian Philosophy
Education: BA in Philosophy, Barnard College (2010)
Michael Crema
Email: mncrema at uchicago dot edu
Interests: ancient philosophy, ethics, and aesthetics.
Dissertation: Practical Deliberation and Moral Rules in Stoic Ethics
Dissertation Committee: Martha Nussbaum (chair), Gabriel Lear, Elizabeth Asmis (Classics)
Previous Education: BA. in Philosophy and Classics, University of British Columbia, Canada; M. Phil. in Philosophy, King's College London, University of London, UK
Spring Quarter Office Hours: Classics 410, Tuesdays 12:00 -2 pm
William Deuschle
Email: deuscwf at msn dot com
Interests: Logic, Metaphysics, Wittgenstein, Quine, Carnap
Previous Education: BA, Rice Univ., 1970
MA, Univ. of Chicago, 1974
Dissertation Committee: Michael Kremer (chair), Josef Stern, William Tait
Dissertation Title: The Relationship Between Logic, Metaphysics and Science
Emily Dupree
Email: edupree at uchicago dot edu
Fields of interest: Global Justice, Political Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy, Ethics
Education: B.A. in Philosophy (with highest distinction), UCLA, 2010
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edwardsj at uchicago dot edu
Interests: Values and valuing: ethics, metaethics, moral psychology, political philosophy, and aesthetics.
Previous Education: B.A. in Philosophy (with highest distinction), Berkeley, 2008.
Roger Eichorn
Email: reichorn at uchicago dot edu
Previous education:
University of New Hampshire, B.A. (History and Philosophy), 2006; Stanford University, M.A. (Philosophy), 2010
Interests:
Skepticism (esp. Pyrrhonism and the role of skepticism in the history of philosophy); epistemology more generally (esp. issues about justification and the nature of belief); metaphilosophy (i.e., "the philosophy of philosophy"); questions at the intersection of neuroscience, cognitive science, and philosophy of mind. Historical figures whose work is of particular interest to me include: Plato, Sextus Empiricus, Montaigne, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Adorno, and Foucault.
Tom Evnen
Email: tomevnen at uchicago dot edu
Interests: German idealism, Wittgenstein, ethics, philosophy of action
Previous Education: B.A., Philosophy, Swarthmore College
Email: goodman at uchicago dot edu
Interests: My research interests intersect philosophy of mind, language, perception, metaphysics and epistemology. My dissertation is about singular or de re thought but I am also interested in externalism about content, content ascriptions, the nature of concepts, identity and reference as it occurs in mental states and in language. I also have an abiding love of Gareth Evans and a growing interest in both cognitive science and metaphysics.
For more about my research and my teaching please visit my website:
https://sites.google.com/a/fandm.edu/rachel-goodman/home
Dissertation: 'Singular Thought: Making the Most of the Notion'
Committee: Josef Stern (chair), Michael Kremer, Jason Bridges, Jim Conant.
Simon Gurofsky
Email: sgurofsky at uchicago dot edu
Interests: Kant's theoretical philosophy (and its relation to practical philosophy), German Idealism and phenomenology (as heirs and critics of Kantianism), political philosophy, feminist philosophy.
Previous education: B.Hum. in Humanities and Philosophy, Carleton University, 2010
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Judy Hensley
Email: jhensley at uchicago dot edu
Interests: Philosophy of Law, Philosophy of Language, Early Analytic Philosophy, Wittgenstein, Aristotle
Previous Education:Gustavus Adolphus College, BA; Harvard University, MTS; Stanford University , JD
Dissertation Committee: Michael Kremer, James Conant, Dan Brudney, Martin Stone
Dissertation title: Contemporary Applications of Aristotelian Equitable Justice in Statutory Interpretation
Lisa Hicks
Email: lhhicks at uchicago dot edu
Interests: Post-Kantian ethics, philosophy and literature, moral psychology
Previous Education: AB, Moral and Political Philosophy, Brown University, 1999; AB, English and American Literature, Brown University, 1999
Dissertation Committee: Martha Nussbaum (chair), Michael Forster, Charles Larmore
Dissertation Title: Pathologies of the Self: Nietzsche on Self-Creation
David Holiday
Email: dholiday at uchicago dot edu
Office hours Winter Quarter: Thursday 2-4pm
Interests: Moral philosophy / ethics; Frege; Wittgenstein; Human Rights
Dissertation title: Moral Incapacity: the shadow cast by moral character
Dissertation committee: Candace Vogler (chair), Dan Brudney, and Anton Ford
Previous Education: Oxford University; Edinburgh University
Mark Hopwood
Email: mhopwood at uchicago dot edu
Interests: Ethics, philosophy of religion.
Dissertation Title: "Beyond Reason? On the Ethical Significance of Love"
Dissertation Committee: Candace Vogler (chair), Jonathan Lear, Daniel Brudney, Agnes Callard
Previous education: BPhil (Philosophy) Christ Church College, University of Oxford; BA (Philosophy and Modern Languages), The Queen's College, University of Oxford
Katie Howe
Email: khowe at u chicago dot edu
Interests: self-knowledge, philosophy of action, embodiment, psychoanalysis, phenomenology
Previous Education: BA in philosophy, Queen's University, 2009; MA in philosophy, Queen's University, 2011
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Dhananjay Jagannathan
Email: djagannathan at uchicago dot edu
Interests: ancient philosophy, ethics, political philosophy, moral psychology
Previous Education: BA in Philosophy & Classics, UT Austin, 2009
MSt in Ancient Philosophy, Oxford, 2010
MPhil in Ancient Philosophy, Cambridge, 2011
Jennifer Johnson
Email: johnsonj at uchicago dot edu
Interests: Ethics, Political Theory, Philosophy and Literature, Philosophy and Law, Ancient Philosophy
Previous Education: BA, Biology and Philosophy, Grinnell College 1999
Dissertation Committee: Martha Nussbaum, Candace Vogler
Spring Quarter Office Hours - Mondays 3-5 in Stuart 231-C
Claire Kirwin
Email: ckirwin at uchicago dot edu
Interests: ethics, aesthetics, Nietzsche, Kant, ancient philosophy
Previous education: MMathPhil (Mathematics and Philosophy) Oxford, 2008;
BPhil (Philosophy) Oxford, 2011
Nicholas Koziolek
Email: nkoziolek at uchicago dot edu
Interests: Philosophy of Logic, Philosophy of Mind, and Epistemology, and contemporary appropriations of Frege, Kant, and Aristotle on those topics; Philosophy of Language.
Previous education: Colgate University, BA in Philosophy, 2007. University of Cambridge (Trinity College), M.Phil. in Philosophy, 2008
Dissertation Committee: Michael Kremer (chair), Josef Stern, Malte Willer, and Marko Malink
Dissertation Title: Thinking about Thought: the Logic of Ascription
Sheela Kumar
Email: slkumar at uchicago dot edu
Interests: Kant, German idealism, social and political philosophy, existentialism and phenomenology
Previous Education: B.A. Philosophy, University of Alberta (Canada), 1999
Dissertation Committee: Robert Pippin (chair), Michael Forster, James Conant, Allen Wood (Indiana)
Dissertation Title: What the Doctrine of Right is Doing in The Metaphysics of Morals: the Independence of Right and Ethics in Kant's Practical Philosophy
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Aaron Lambert
Email: alambert at uchicago dot edu
Interests: What is philosophy, how should we do it, and how is it connected to living the good life? Theoretical interests at the moment are philosophy of mind and science, also (or essentially) Kant. When I finally grow up I'll do ethics and psychoanalysis.
Previous Education: B.Eng (Mechanical Engineering, Heriot-Watt University, 1994)
M.Sc. (Artificial Intelligence & Cognitive Science, University of Edinburgh, 1995)
M.A. (Philosophy, Queen's University, 1997)
M.Phil (Philosophy by research, University of Glasgow, 2000)
Dissertation Committee: David Finkelstein (chair), Michael Kremer, Jason Bridges, Kevin Davey
Dissertation Title: "Revisiting Dualism: What the Overdetermination Argument Can't Do”
Alex Langlinais
E-mail: langlinais at uchicago dot edu
Interests:philosophy of law, political philosophy, and related issues in ethics; Kant and German Idealism (especially Hegel)
Previous Education: B.A., Philosophy and Classics, Loyola University New Orleans (2009) A.M., Philosophy, University of Chicago (2011)
Nethanel Lipshitz
Email: nethanel at uchicago dot edu
Interests: Ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of action, and problems of rational choice.
I am interested in three questions:
1) What is the relationship between our norms of equality and the descriptive-looking claim that all human beings really are equal?
2) What is the value of equality, and especially how (if at all) can egalitarianism be defended in the face of sufficientarian and prioritarian challenges?
3) Are we rational only when we do what (we think) we have most reason to do? (And here equality creeps in too, because I am interested in Burdian cases and "equal" cases, and their relation to rationality and normativity).
Previous education: Hebrew University, B.A. in Amirim Honors Program and Psychology (2006), M.A. in Philosophy (2011).
Zachary Loveless
Email: zdlove at uchicago dot edu
Interests: I have worked mostly on the history of philosophy (Kant,
Frege and Wittgenstein) and the philosophy of action. But I am also interested in the early moderns (esp. Descartes and Berkeley), god, the world, the soul of man, and all other things in general (especially bread baking).
Previous Education: Auburn University; Southern Union Junior College
Ddissertation committee: Candace Vogler (chair), Anton Ford, and Dan Brudney
Josef Lubenow
Email: lubenow at msn dot com
Interests: Ethics and Political Philosophy
Previous Education: M.A. in Philosophy, University of Chicago
Dissertation Committee: Martha Nussbaum (chair), Ben Laurence, Robert Gooding-Williams (Political Science)
Dissertation Title: On the Foundations of Human Rights
Alyssa Luboff
Email: all at uchicago dot edu
Interests: My current work is on relativism, at the intersection of ethics and epistemology. There is a reciprocal relation of inspiration, investigation and response between my work in philosophy and my experience in conservation and development in Ecuador, especially northwestern Esmeraldas. I also have strong interests in narrative philosophy, philosophy of science, philosophy of medicine, and the history of philosophy (especially early modern and the trajectory of Kant's critical philosophy.)
Previous Education: B.A. Yale, M.A. University of Chicago
Michael Forster (chair), Candace Vogler, Anubav Vasudevan, Richard Shweder (Human Development)
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Hannah McKeown
Email: hmckeown at uchicago dot edu
Interests: Aesthetics, philosophy of music, philosophy of science (especially physics)
Working dissertation title: "Music and Metaphor"
Dissertation committee:Ted Cohen (chair): other members forthcoming
Previous Education: B.Mus., Ithaca College; M.A. (Philosophy), Columbia University; K.U. Leuven
Tucker McKinney
Email: tmckinne at uchicago dot edu
Office hours Winter Quarter: Tuesday, 1:30-3:00, Wednesday, 11:00-12:30 (or by appointment) - location forthcoming
Interests: My main interests lie in 19th and 20th Century German(ic) Philosophy, especially in the contributions made by Heidegger, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche to our understanding of human agency . I am also interested in the notion of ontological heterogeneity and the relationship between ways of being and forms of understanding or explanation in Heidegger's early writings. My dissertation explores how Heidegger's conception of existence as a distinctive mode of being informs a systematic, rigorous attempt on his part to "de-psychologize" psychology (à la Wittgenstein) by identifying and describing a novel form of explanation involved in making sense of human agency as such. Apart from such historical reflection, I am broadly interested in questions of the philosophy of action and rational agency, the scope and limits of practical reflection, and the metaphysics of causality and explanation.
Previous Education: Bates College
Dissertation Committee: Robert Pippin (chair),Jonathan Lear, Bill Blattner (Georgetown University)
Dissertation Title: ""Heidegger on Human Finitude and Normative Governance"
Office hours in Classics 410: Tuesday, 1:30-3:00, Wednesday, 11:00-12:30 (or by appointment)
Santiago Mejia
Email: mejia at uchicago dot edu
Interests: I am interested in exploring what it means to know oneself, and how this knowledge affects one's life. In my dissertation, I plan to inquire specifically about the role that self-knowledge plays in a virtuous life.
Committee: Martha Nussbaum (chair), David Finkelstein, Nancy Sherman (Georgetown University).
Josh Mendelsohn
Email: mendelsohn at uchicago dot edu
Fields of Interest: Post-Kantian Idealism and Early Romanticism, the philosophical significance of the linguistic turn, the philosophy of probability, and the history and philosophy of logic (ancient, medieval and modern).
Previous Education: University of Melbourne, BA/BSc (Philosophy, German & Mathematics, 2006-2010)
University of Sydney, BA (Honours in Philosophy, 2011)
Peter Murray
Email: peter at uchicago dot edu
Interests: philosophy of mind, metaphysics, philosophical naturalism,
Wittgenstein, Aristotle, Kant
Previous Education: B.A. in Russian and Soviet Studies (UC San Diego); B.A. in Philosophy (UC Santa Cruz); M.A. in Philosophy (UC Santa Cruz)
Dissertation Committee: James Conant (chair), David Finkelstein, Jason Bridges
Dissertation Title: The Causal Efficacy of Contentful Mental States: Towards a Rational Naturalism
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Daniel Ricardo Rodriguez Navas
Email: danielrn at uchicago dot edu
Interests: Phenomenology, History of 20th Century Philosophy, Epistemology, Logic, Kant
Previous Education: Paris I, Paris IV, and ENS
Gilad Nir
Email: giladnir at uchicago dot edu
Interess: Normativity in theoretical philosophy (Kant, Frege, and Wittgenstein, and on some days, Heidegger too); Aristotle's logic and metaphysics.
Previous Education: B.A. and M.A., Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Rory O'Connell
Email:
roryoconnell at uchicago dot edu
Interests: The Philosophy of Mind, Language and Action; Ethics. History of Analytic Philosophy (Wittgenstein, Frege, Austin), Kant, Nietzsche.
Previous Education:
BA and MPhil, Kings College London
Ben Pierce
Email: benpierce at uchicago dot edu
Interests: My primary interests are in metaphysics and the philosophy of logic in Kant and post-Kantian idealism, especially Hegel. I also work on the philosophy of action, leading to active interests in issues of agency as they arise in Kant and post-Kantian idealism, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, psychoanalysis, and contemporary neo-Aristotelianism.
Previous education: Auburn University, B.A. (Philosophy), 2010
Andrew Pitel
Email: apitel at uchicago dot edu
Interests: Leibniz; Kant and German Idealism; Philosophy of Mind; Logic; Metaphysics
Previous education: BA, The Evergreen State College, 2010
Dasha Polzik
Email: polzik at uchicago dot edu
Interests: Rousseau and Aristotle; civic and moral education, 'meaningful' autonomy (and what that means), the conditions under which citizens should enter the realm of public deliberation; the history of social and political thought.
Previous Education: B.A. Philosophy, Boston University, 2003. A.M., Philosophy, University of Chicago, 2006
Dissertation committee: Daniel Brudney (chair), Martha Nussbaum, Robert Pippin. Dissertation (working) title: The Good Life, According to Rousseau: Education, Autonomy, and Citizenship.
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Nathan Rothschild
Email: nateroth at uchicago dot edu
Interests: Ancient Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Heidegger, Wittgenstein
Previous Education: Yale University B.A., St Andrews M. Litt.
Dissertation Committee: Martha Nussbaum (chair), Jonathan Lear, Gabriel Richardson Lear, Jonathan Beere
Dissertation Title: The Pursuit of One's Own in Plato's Psychology
Francey Russell
Email: russellf at uchicago dot edu
In terms of figures and themes, I am interested in Kant, Freud, Wittgenstein, aesthetics (especially philosophy of film), ethics, moral psychology, Continental philosophy, sense and nonsense, suffering. I'm also very committed to addressing the concerns of women and minorities in philosophy, and am interested in pedagogy generally speaking.
Previous Education: BA (Philosophy, Cinema Studies) University of Toronto, 2005. MA (Philosophy, Psychoanalytic Theory) New School for Social Research, 2008.
Alptekin Sanli
Email: alptekinsanli at uchicago dot edu
Interests: Kant, the precritical Kant, Leibniz, Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx, the History of Late Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy and Theology, the History of Nominalism, Sellarsian Nominalism, Sellars as Synoptic Philosopher, Enlightenments and their Enemies
Previous education: Bogazici University - B.A. (Philosophy), 2005; M.A. (Philosophy), 2007
Thomas Schulte
Email: tschulte at uchicago dot edu
Fields of Interest: Philosophy of Mind and Language including the works of Kant, Hegel, Wittgenstein, Sellars and Brandom. In particular I am concerned with intentionality, normativity and rule-following. I also have secondary interests in phenomenology, existentialism (predominantly the works of Sartre and Heidegger), psychoanalysis and Foucault.
Previous Education: Metropolitan State College of Denver BA (2009), San Francisco State University MA (2012).
Joshua Schwartz
Email: jfs at uchicago dot edu
Interests: Quine, history of analytic philosophy, theories of truth, philosophy of maths, logic, and language
Previous Education: B.A., Philosophy, Ithaca College, 2000
Dissertation committee: Michael Kremer (chair), Josef Stern, Kevin Davey, and Peter Hylton.
Dissertation title: Strange Way Home: Quine, Disquotation, Truth.
Stephen Shortt
Email: scshortt at uchicago dot edu
Interests: Metaphysical issues surrounding neo-Aristotelian philosophy of action and ethics.
Previous education: Auburn University B.A. 2007, Wally High (more properly, Wallace Community College)
Daniel Smyth
Email: dsmyth at uchicago dot edu
Interests: My dissertation focuses on Kant's accounts of particularity and generality in his theoretical works. However, I also have an active interest in making sense of the major post-Kantian German Idealists - particularly Hegel, Fichte, and early Schelling. But my interests extend to the German philosophical tradition more generally - from Leibniz through the Idealists to Frege and Wittgenstein. I also have thematic interests in aesthetics, the philosophy of logic, the foundations of mathematics, the philosophy of physics, and peculiar fixations on the nature of depiction, paradoxes of the infinite, and what it is to atone for (i.e. right) a wrong.
Previous Education: AB with Honors, University of Chicago, 2005
Dissertation: "Infinity and Givenness: Kant's Critical Theory of Receptivity"
Dissertation Committee: Robert Pippin (chair), Michael Forster, James Conant, Daniel Sutherland
Michael Stephens
Email: mjstephe at uchicago dot edu
Previous Education: B.A. Political Science and Philosophy, McGill University
Dissertation Title: "The Limits of Work"
Interests: Political and Economic Philosophy; Ethics and Public Policy; Metaethics; Perfectionism
Dissertation Committee: Martha Nussbaum (chair), Charles Larmore, Michael Green
Jacob Swenson
Email: jswenson at uchicago dot edu
Interests: Aristotle, Kant, Heidegger, Epistemology, History of Philosophy in the wake of Kant, the relationship between the normative and the natural.
Previous education: Willamette University (BA, 2007)
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Email: teichman at uchicago dot edu
Office hours Winter Quarter: Mondays and Wednesdays 4:30-5:30
Creator, editor, and producer of Elucidations, the department podcast:
http://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/elucidations/
Interests (philosophy): philosophy of language, semantics, pragmatics, logic, metaphysics, aesthetics, process philosophy, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of action, philosophy of biology, film theory, philosophy of gender
Interests (philosophy of language): genericity, normality, compositionality, inquisitive semantics, default logic, preference logic, dynamic epistemic logic, dynamic semantics, presupposition, accommodation, conventional implicature, conversational implicature, syntax-semantics interface, intensional adjectives, situation semantics.
Interests (figures): Wittgenstein, Bergson, Whitehead, Russell, Frege, Peirce, Anscombe, Kripke, Lewis, Barwise, Heim, Kratzer, Montague, Veltman, Groenendijk, Van Benthem, Carlson, McDowell, Prinz, Rescher, Varzi, Delanda, Leibniz, Aristotle
My dissertation takes a look at what philosophers and linguists call generic statements. These are loose generalizations which, unlike strict generalizations, can have the occasional exception and still be true. I examine some new evidence in favor of an old theory about what these statements are saying, to the effect that they are only directly about kinds of things, rather than the individual things themselves. But what's different about this new evidence is that it suggests that kinds are established in the course of a conversation: that the matter of whether some particular category constitutes a kind is not, as it were, discourse-independent. Isn't that surprising?
Dissertation title: The Exception That Proves the Rule
Dissertation committee: Jason Bridges, Chris Kennedy (co-chairs), Malte Willer
Previous education: A.B. in Film and Linguistics, Cornell University, 2002.
M.A. in Film Studies, University of Pittsburgh, 2007
M.A. in Philosophy, University of Chicago, 2009.
Office Hours in Classics 410: M & W 4:30-5:30
Daniel Telech
Email: telech at uchicago dot edu
Fields of Interest: German Idealism, Early Modern Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Phenomenology, Philosophy of the History of Philosophy, Nietzsche
Previous Education: B.A. (Philosophy), University of Toronto
Tuomo Tiisala
Email: tiisala at uchicago dot edu
Interests: Questions of normativity at the intersection of epistemology and ethics, in particular relativized a priori and material inference; history and philosophy of human sciences; Foucault
Education: M.A., Theoretical philosophy, University of Helsinki, 2005
Dissertation Committee: Arnold Davidson (chair), Robert Pippin, Bernard Harcourt (Political Science)
Jessica Tizzard
Email: jtizzard at uchicago dot edu
Interests: I plan to write my dissertation on Kant's practical philosophy. I hope to develop an account of the relation between reason and sensibility as Kant finds it in the human experience of morality, and explore the repercussions this has for a properly Kantian conception of practical reasoning.
I am also interested in the philosophy of perception as it relates to Kant and Kantian themes in analytic philosophy, including the work of John McDowell; as well as theories of practical reasoning and the will more broadly construed. On the latter topic I have recently been excited by ideas found in the work of Augustine and Leibniz.
Previous Education: University of Toronto, B.A., Philosophy, 2009.
Email: awerner at uchicago dot edu
Interests: German Idealism, Wittgenstein, ethics, psychoanalysis, and 20th century European philosophy.
Previous Education: BA, Philosophy, Amherst College (2010).
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