About

I am currently Assistant Professor of Philosophy at New College of Florida.  My work centers on Leibniz’s natural philosophy and his reception of the mechanical conception of nature, as well as the global development and interaction of philosophical ideas. I believe that the philosophical past shapes the philosophical questions that we ask in the present, meaning that the history of philosophy is an indispensable component of philosophical activity. I have become increasingly interested in studying the historiography of philosophy as a domain of the history of philosophy, tracing the ways that philosophers have themselves understood the relationship between philosophy and its history.

I find inspiration in Leibniz’s model of philosophy as a universal intellectual practice. Leibniz’s philosophy aims to harmonize ideas from all sources, whether ancient or modern, from within or without Europe, and his interests extended across the entire range of seventeenth-century knowledge, encompassing the sciences of nature, mathematics, logic, history, and literature.

When I am not reading, thinking about, and discussing philosophy, I enjoy hiking, spending time with my partner Beth and our two cats, listening to experimental music, reading, and playing Go.