Philosophy Department Faculty
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Edward AverillDr. Averill, Professor Emeritus (Ph.D., M.S., University of California at Santa Barbara; B.A. Harvard), has been at Texas Tech since 1980. His areas of specialization are philosophical psychology, philosophy of language, and metaphysics. Professor Averill's publications include: "The Primary-Secondary Quality Distinction," Philosophical Review (1982), "Color and the Anthropocentric Problem," Journal of Philosophy (1985), "The Relational Nature of Color," Philosophical Review (1992), and "Towards a Projectivist Account of Color," Journal of Philosophy (2005).
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Jacob BeckDr. Beck, Assistant Professor (Ph.D. Harvard; B.A. University of Pennsylvania), joined the faculty in August, 2008. His research seeks to bring empirical work in the cognitive sciences into contact with traditional philosophical questions in ways that are mutually illuminating. Most recently, he has been focusing on issues of representational format, conceptual content, and the differences between human and animal cognition. His paper, "The Generality Constraint and the Structure of Thought," is forthcoming from Mind. He spent 2009-2011 as a James S. McDonnell Postdoctoral Fellow in the Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Program at Washington University in Saint Louis .
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Howard CurzerDr. Curzer, Professor (Ph.D. University of Texas at Austin; M.A., B.A. in Mathematics, Wesleyan University), taught at the University of Houston before coming to Texas Tech in 1985. His current areas of interest are ancient philosophy, virtue ethics, existentialism, and Confucian philosophy. His publications include a commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics entitled, Aristotle and the Virtues (forthcoming from Oxford University Press), a textbook/anthology entitled, Ethical Theory and Moral Problems (Wadsworth Press, 1999), and various articles including: "An Aristotelian Account of Civility,” in Civility in Politics and Education, ed. by D. Mower and W. Robison (Routledge, 2012), “An Aristotelian Critique of the Traditional Family,” American Philosophical Quarterly, (2010), and “Spies and Lies: Faithful, Courageous Israelites and Truthful Spies,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, (2010). He is a co-recipient of a NSF grant to study and teach wildlife research ethics, and a recipient of a NEH grant to study and teach virtue ethics and Confucian philosophy.
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Francesca di PoppaDr. di Poppa, Assistant Professor (Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh; B.A., University of Pisa), is mainly interested in history of modern philosophy, in particular the causation debate and the development of modern notions of man and the world. She is also interested in ancient philosophy (especially Aristotle), Scholasticism and history of science. She is currently working on the notion of causation in Descartes and Spinoza.
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Christopher HomDr. Hom, Assistant Professor (Ph.D., University of California, Irvine LPS), joined the department in Fall 2007. His research is focused in philosophy of language and metaethics, in particular, issues surrounding expressive meaning and racial epithets. His work has appeared in Journal of Philosophy, Philosophy Compass and Philosophical Studies. He is currently working on a book about racial epithets, and will be on leave for 2011-12 as a faculty fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center.
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Daniel NathanDr. Nathan, Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies (Ph.D., University of Illinois at Chicago; A.B., University of Michigan), writes and teaches in the areas in the areas of aesthetics, ethics, and philosophy of law. His work has appeared in the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Erkenntnis, and Public Affairs Quarterly; his most recent papers include: "A Paradox in Intentionalism," British Journal of Aesthetics (2005) and "Art, Meaning, and Artist's Meaning," in Kieran (ed.), Contemporary Debates in the Philosophy of Art (2006). Currently, he is working on problems of interpretation in legal philosophy and aesthetics.
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Anna Christina RibeiroDr. Ribeiro, Assistant Professor (Ph.D., Maryland; M.A., B.Phil., Katholieke Universiteit Leuven; B.A. Hunter College) joined Texas Tech in 2006. Her area of specialization is aesthetics, particularly the philosophies of literature and film. She has secondary interests in philosophy of psychology and linguistics. Ribeiro is the editor of The Continuum Companion to Aesthetics (Continuum Books, forthcoming) and the author of "Toward a Philosophy of Poetry" (Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 2009) and "Intending to Repeat: A Definition of Poetry" (Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 2007), among other publications. She was awarded the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation Career Enhancement Fellowship for Junior Faculty during 2009-10 to work on a manuscript entitled Poetry among the Arts, and was hosted by the Logos Research Group at the University of Barcelona Department of Philosophy during her research leave. |
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Walter SchallerDr. Schaller, Associate Professor (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison; M.A. in Political Science, University of California-Berkeley) taught previously at Wheaton (Mass.) College and the University of Kentucky. His primary interests are in political philosophy and ethics. Professor Schaller has published articles on Kant's ethics, utilitarianism, and the relationship between virtues and duties in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Ratio, Dialogue, and History of Philosophy Quarterly. His recent articles include: "Is Liberal Neutrality Insufficiently Egalitarian?," Journal of Philosophy (2004) and "Liberal Neutrality and Liberty of Conscience," Law and Philosophy (2005).
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Jeremy SchwartzDr. Schwartz, Visiting Assistant Professor (Ph.D., Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago, B.A., University of Chicago), started teaching at Texas Tech in the Spring of 2009. He works on Kant, moral philosophy, and practical reason. His article “Do Hypothetical Imperatives Require Categorical Imperatives?” is forthcoming in the European Journal of Philosophy. He is also interested in ancient philosophy, especially Plato. His current work focuses on questions about the nature of rational agency. |
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Mark WebbDr. Webb, Associate Professor and Chairman (Ph.D., Syracuse; M.A., B.A., and M.A. in Classical Humanities, Texas Tech) specializes in epistemology and philosophy of religion. He is currently working in the epistemology of religious experience, especially as it applies to non-Western religious experiences. Professor Webb's articles have appeared in The Journal of Philosophy, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, Religious Studies, The International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, and Hypatia, and most recently "An Eliminativist Theory of Religion," in Sophia.
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