I grew up in Tennessee, went to college in Oregon, studied abroad in Nanjing, went to graduate school in Nebraska, and I currently live in North Carolina where I work as a High School teacher.
My current research interests lie in the areas of metaphysics, philosophy of language, and logic. In particular, I am working on a number of papers with Zachariah Wrublewski on impossible worlds and their uses. I am also continuing development on parts of my dissertation on vagueness in the hopes of publishing a number of the ideas that appear therein. Finally, I have been working on papers related to artificial intelligence.
I taught at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln for seven years as I was working towards my Ph.D. During that time I taught as both a teaching assistant and as the primary instructor. I am currently teaching logic and philosophy classes at Excelsior Classical Academy in Durham, North Carolina.
This class was a survey of the history of philosophy through paradoxes. We discussed everything from Zeno's paradoxes to problems in decision theory like Newcomb's paradox
Philosophy 106: Philosophy and Current EventsI had students explore the interactions of governments with their citizens by reading important texts from Hobbes, Rousseau, Locke, Rawls, and Nozick, among other important figures in the field of social and political philosophy.
Philosophy 110: Logic and Critical ThinkingThis class covered Aristotelian Categorical Logic and Sentential Logic. Students were expected to master techniques like Venn diagrams, truth-tables, and natural deduction.
Philosophy 211: Introduction to Modern LogicAs the name would indicate, this logic course focused on Sentential and Predicate logics. Students were expected to master truth-tables, the tree method, and natural deduction.
This is a year long course during which students learn Aristotelian Categorical Logic, Sentential Logic, the basics of probability, and various forms of non-deductive reasoning.
Honors LogicIn the honors logic course students learn Sentential Logic, Predicate Logic, a more advanced introduction to probability, as well as various forms of non-deductive reasoning.
PhilosophyIn this High School philosophy class, I cover a standard survey of the areas of Western philosophy, both analytic and continental. During the first semester we focus on questions from metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of mind. In the second semester, I teach normative ethics and existentialism.
I recently had a two part article about philosophy and the ancient Chinese board game Go published in the European Go Journal. In the article, I explore the analogy between the differences between Chess and Go on the one hand and the differences between Western and East Asian philosophy on the other.
See the July and August Editions for the article.I recently wrote out an idea I've been toying with about absurdist tropes in The Lord of the Rings. It can be found on my Medium page, titled "The Absurdity of Tom Bombadil: Absurdist Tropes in the Lord of the Rings".
I am competent with a number of programming languages, including Javascript, PHP, C#, and Python. My completed projects include both websites and games.
Logikapp is a website I created to help teach logic classes. It includes tools for completing problems in both Aristotelian Categorical Logic and Sentential Logic. I am currently remaking the website from the ground up. The original was programmed almost entirely in Javascript with almost no libraries. I only really use this during instruction with my students. As such, it is not really in a state for public use now, but feel free to check it out.
I have completed a number of video games during game jams like Ludum Dare and the Philosophy Game Jam (of which I am the host). Most of my games were made in the Unity game engine, but I am currently transitioning into using Godot.