I am thrilled to welcome a high caliber class of new faculty to the College this fall. Arts & Sciences is fortunate to have 42 new faculty (professors and lecturers) joining us as the semester starts. Over the next few blogs, I hope to acquaint readers with some new additions to the A&S team.
Allow me to introduce these new faculty members in the Department of Philosophy.
Professor Timothy Sundell
Timothy Sundell works primarily in the philosophy of language and linguistics. One recent area of focus has been the nature of "verbal disagreement." Specifically, in what way should individuals distinguish between substantive disagreements and disagreements that are, in the ordinary sense, "Just semantics"? The question has wide-ranging implications, as debates in aesthetics, ethics, and even the physical sciences have all, at one time or another, faced accusations of being merely verbal. He draws on arguments from both philosophy and linguistics to argue that the distinction itself significantly oversimplifies the phenomena, and that many verbal disputes in fact admit of substantive adjudication. In other words, Sundell argues that not all verbal disagreements are merely verbal disagreements. Other ongoing projects include topics in metaphysics, epistemology, and aesthetics, unified by an interest in meaning and methodology.
Professor Megan Wallace
Megan Wallace's primary study is in metaphysics; in particular, issues in ontology involving composition, mereology, time and modality. She is also interested in instances when philosophy of language and logic have some bearing on these issues. She is currently working on the issue of whether objects have temporal parts.
Professor Natalie Nenadic
Natalie Nenadic's principal academic interests are in the history of late modern philosophy, especially the phenomenological tradition, Heidegger, Arendt, Levinas, and Hegel. She also works in philosophy of law, and related areas of ethics and social and political philosophy, where she uses a phenomenological and practical approach to address topics of sexual violence, sex equality, and international justice, the latter focusing on genocide and war crimes. Her current research centers on using Heidegger’s phenomenology and criticism of modernity to respond to the problem of today’s pervasive sexual objectification and violence against women and girls.
Professor Stefan Bird-Pollan
Stefan Bird-Pollan's primary research interest lies in the history of political philosophy and ethics. Part of his research centers on the debate between Kant and Hegel over how to achieve universal ethical standards. He tries to argue that any universal ethical system must be understood as developing historically and hence through social practices. He has also written on contemporary meta-ethics, criticizing the Kantian position of Christine Korsgaard. In other work, Bird-Pollan focus on Kant’s aesthetics, and on 19th and 20th Century political and social philosophy more widely.