Greetings! Welcome to my webpage. Academic profile pages usually emphasize titles, degrees, research profiles etc.

So: I am a Professor of philosophy; I have a P.h.D. from the University of Pennsylvania; I am a scholar of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy. Cambridge University Press published my book Plotinus on Consciousness in Spring 2018.  Reviews can be found in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review, the Notre Dame Philosophical Review, and the International Journal of the Platonic Tradition.  I served as Department Chair during AY 2019–2023.

My scholarly research concerns a cluster of problems concerning consciousness in the Neoplatonic tradition. I regularly teach Phil 235 Ancient Greek Philosophy and Phil 374 Seminar in History of Philosophy (devoted to a thinker or theme in ancient Greek philosophy, most recently Late Plato). However, I am committed to the value of cross-cultural philosophy, not limiting myself to the intuitions and methodologies of one culture but learning from a plurality of cultures for insight into philosophical problems.  I also regularly teach Phil 117 Confucius, Buddha, and Socrates and Phil 249 Asian Philosophy. At the same time, I am equally committed to the idea that a liberal arts education is one that produces free thinkers (artes = arts or skills, liberales =  related to freedom or befitting a free person) and that this involves the cultivation of intellectual virtues, such as wisdom (phronēsis in the Platonic-Aristotelian tradition) and empathy (shu in the Confucian tradition), in the context of a free exchange of ideas.

I am also a life-long practitioner of martial arts. I hold black belts in judo and Brazilian jiu jitsu. I have combined my love of cross-cultural philosophy and martial arts in a course I teach nearly every Interim, Zen and the Art of Judo (see video below). When I am not philosophizing at my desk or in the classroom, I am philosophizing on the mat during training.