Research Interests
- Early Modern Political Thought: the departure from classical thought, the turn toward a science productive of works, and the consequences of that turn.
- Greek Political Philosophy: questions concerning the good life for the individual, the community, and the tension between the two.
- Medieval Jewish and Islamic Political Philosophy: wrestling with the tension between the divine legalistic understanding of human life and the rational or philosophic pursuit of this knowledge.
- Contemporary Considerations of Scientific Proposals: determining on what basis we should judge our pursuits worthy of our time and effort.
- Political Judgment and Practical Reason: Investigation of the applicability of modern methodological procedures for making political decisions that successfully take into account real benefit for the political community. Additionally: the compatibility of American deliberative institutions with successful judgment.
- Comedy, Politics, and Philosophy: A lot of work has been done discussing the nature of tragedy and its relationship to political and philosophic life. Tragedy's counterpart, comedy, however, is both neglected and also promising. I am interested in the the effects of comedy on political life and comedy's relationship to the philosophic life.
Publications
In Print
In Progress
- 2022. "Upper-Middle Class Norms and Networking." In Strategies for Navigating Graduate School and Beyond, with Benjamin Isaak Gross and Kevin Kearns). APSA publishing. (book chapter)
- 2022. "Disaster, Nature, and Baconian Science." In Diseases, Disasters, and Political Theory, edited by Lee Trepanier. Routledge. (book chapter)
- 2020. "The American Presidency" in US Government, edited by Thomas Brunell et al. Toronto: TopHat Monocle. ISBN 978-1-77412-206-8
In Progress
- "Divinity of Modern Science" (journal article)
