On leave 2008–2009.
My primary areas of interest are early modern philosopy and the history of the philosophy of science. More specifically, I have worked on mechanist conceptions of body and their justification, debates surrounding gravity/attraction, and changing views of scientific explanation in the early modern period. My publications include “The Status of Mechanism in Locke’s Essay” (Philosophical Review, 1998) and “Berkeley’s Natural Philosophy and Philosophy of Science” in the Cambridge Companion to Berkeley (2006). I have taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, and have been a fellow of the Dibner Institute for the History of Science.
I am on leave for 2008-2009 with an NEH grant for my book project, Empiricism and Newtonianism: Locke, Berkeley, and the Decline of Strict Mechanism.