Office Hours Spring 2014M/W; 2:45-4:00pm or by appt.
I received my Ph.D. from Yale University in 1978 with a disseration entitled "Why to Poetry? An Analysis of Martin Heidegger's Philosophy of Language." My undegraduate degree is from Fordham University (German & Philosophy).
My areas of philosophical interest are in 19th & 20th Century continental philosophy, philosophy & literature, and ancient philosophy. Plato and Aristotle, Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, Gadamer and Heidegger have been lontime companions.
I believe the power of philosophy lies in its uselessness, in its capacity for questioning the ends and purposes which ordinarily organize our lives. If anything, philosophy serves the experience of wonder, and it is wonder that keeps human beings alive as creatures of possibility, question, and gratitude.
Courses usually taught:
PHI 106E Introduction to Philosophy: Why Philosophize?, PHI 215 Philosophy of Literature, PHI 390 Hermeneutics, PHI 290 Problems in Philosophy: PHI 275 The Nature of Compassion, PHI 360 Existentialism.