Research

Hey. I specialize in 17th Century philosophy, especially 17th Century metaphysics. So far, my work has been on Descartes, Locke, Leibniz, and Boyle. I am also interested in contemporary metaphysics (especially stuff on material constitution, individuation, and modality), late medieval philosophy and 16th Century Scholasticism, analytic philosophical theology, and metaphysical issues in aesthetics (especially the ontological status of fictional things).

Here are some papers I've written. Enjoy!!!

• "Descartes on the Objective Reality of Materially False Ideas," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 81 (2000), 385-408.
• "Descartes's Creation Doctrine and Modality," Australasian Journal of Philosophy 80 (2002), 24-41.
• "Infimus Gradus Libertatis? Descartes on Indifference and Divine Freedom," Religious Studies 39 (2003), 391-406.
• "Divine Simplicity and the Eternal Truths in Descartes," British Journal for the History of Philosophy 11 (2003), 553-579.
• "God's Immutability and the Necessity of Descartes's Eternal Truths," Journal of the History of Philosophy 43 (2005) 1-19.
• "The Resurrection of the Same Body and the Ontological Status of Organisms: What Locke Should Have (and Could Have) Told Stillingfleet," in Early Modern Metaphysics, David Owen, Paul Hoffman, and Gideon Yaffe (eds.), Broadview Press (forthcoming)
• "Locke on Individuation and the Corpuscular Basis of Kinds," forthcoming in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
• "Locks, Schlocks, and Poisoned Peas: Boyle on Actual and Dispositive Qualities," forthcoming in Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy
• "Descartes on Composites, Incomplete Substances, and Kinds of Unity," forthcoming in Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie.

Works in progress:

• "Incorruptibility and Corporeal Substances in Descartes"
• "Real Distinctions and Cartesian Substance"
• "Leibniz and the 'Author of Sin Problem'"