KBRADING.ORG
Teaching
Current Students
Michael Veldman. PhD. ABD.
Dissertation title: "Geometer at the Gates of Metaphysics: Euler's Incursions into the Philosophy of Nature"
Former Students
Qiu Lin. PhD. 2022.
Dissertation title: Epistemology of Space: Locke and Du Châtelet.
Current position: Philosophical Review Postdoctoral Associate at Cornell’s Sage School of Philosophy.
John Hanson. PhD. 2021.
Dissertation title: The Darkened Eye of the Intellect: Descartes on Mental Representation.
Co-advisor Sam Newlands.
Monica Solomon. PhD. 2017.
Dissertation title: On the Interactions between Mathematics and Metaphysics in Isaac Newton’s Writings: the Case of Mathematical Forces.
Current position: Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University.
Pablo Ruiz de Olano. PhD. 2016.
Dissertation title: Epistemic Values in Theoretical Physics: Symmetries, Conservation Laws, and the Strong Nuclear Interaction.
Current position: Research Scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin.
Ryan Dominguez. Senior thesis. 2013/14.
Shannon Hughes. Senior thesis. 2012/13.
Winner of the Philosophy Department’s Dockweiler medal for best senior thesis in philosophy.
Julie Brauer. Senior thesis. 2012/13.
Kristina Sault. Senior thesis. 2009/10.
Joint winner of the Philosophy Department’s Dockweilter medal for best senior thesis in philosophy.
Beata Aldridge. Senior thesis. 2008/09.
Classes
Spring 2023
Historical and Philosophical Perspectives on Science (PHIL541S)
Core seminar of the HPSTM graduate certificate program.
Spring 2022
Du Châtelet seminar
Fall 2021
Sabbatical leave
Spring 2021
Natural philosophy from Descartes to Kant (PHIL590S)
Fall 2020
History of modern philosophy (PHIL201)
Co-taught with Qiu Lin.
Dissertation seminar (PHIL797)
Spring 2020
Historical and Philosophical Perspectives on Science (PHIL541S)
Core seminar of the HPSTM graduate certificate program.
Co-taught with Jennifer Jhun.
Problems in Philosophy of Science (PHIL242S)
An introduction to some topics in philosophy of science and philosophy of physics.
Fall 2019
Problems in Philosophy of Science (PHIL242)
An introduction to some topics in philosophy of science and philosophy of physics.
Co-taught with Felipe De Brigard.
Dissertation seminar (PHIL797)
Spring 2019
Historical and Philosophical Perspectives on Science (PHIL541S)
Core seminar of the HPSTM graduate certificate program. Co-taught with Andrew Janiak.
Methodology of the Empirical Sciences: Newton's Principia (PHIL633S)
With George Smith's
Newton Lectures livecast from Tufts.
Fall 2018
Problems in natural philosophy from Descartes to Kant (PHIL590S)
Focus: space, time and matter.
Issues include: questions of metaphysics, epistemology, and methodology, and we will cover such topics as absolute versus relative space and time, laws of nature, causality, determinism, and the nature and properties of bodies.
Main characters: Descartes, Newton, Leibniz, Du Châtelet, Euler, d'Alembert.
Supporting cast includes: Spinoza, Locke, Malebranche, Wolff, Berkeley, Maupertuis, Hume, Kant.