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About Me

Philosopher, Musician, Nature-fanatic, Well-rounded freak- all titles that I answer to with pride...

I am a guy from Colorado who is currently working on my Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Colorado (Boulder). I love teaching philosophy, and discussing it whenever possible (coffee, anyone?). I got into teaching philosophy after abandoning what I thought was going to be my career in politics aimed at "fixing the world", having come to the conclusion that at this point in world history, any substantial improvements will have to originate as broad societal movements. I am hopeful about the future of our species, but also very deeply worried. I am greatly concerned about the role that religion and "gut reactions" play in our world, since I think that rigorous analysis, often of a scientific nature, clearly ought to guide our beliefs, actions and policies. To this end, I decided to dedicate my life to sharpening my own critical thinking and trying to help others do the same. Philosophy is the only discipline that serves to unite everything- all subjects, all possibilities, and all areas of experience into one realm of careful, precise discourse, and is therefore, in my humble opinion, the greatest sphere of study.

I strongly favor the "analytic" approach to philosophy over the "continental", and am specializing in naturalistic epistemology, philosophy of mind/cognitive science, metaphysics, philosophy of science, and logic. I have a paper on the nature of the mind and artificial intelligence published in the book, Transformers and Philosophy, and have presented philosophical papers on such topics as: time, addiction, martial arts, ancient skepticism, and business ethics. Currently, I am in the process of developing an alternate approach to epistemic justification in my dissertation, one heavily grounded in the recent results and theories of neuroscience and cognitive psychology, which I hope will solve some of the problems that I find with current epistemic theories...

I am also a musician (with a new album forthcoming at some point fairly soon!), a "computer enthusiast", and a big fan of fantasy/sci-fi novels. Whenever possible, I spend a lot of time hiking, camping, and doing other things outdoors.

 

A few random photos of me...