Associate Professor of Philosophy
231 Sparks Building
(814) 863-0657
Education
B.A. St. John’s College (Annapolis MD), 1990
M.A. Freie Universität Berlin, (Germany), 1998
Ph.D. Freie Universität Berlin, (Germany), 2001
Professional Bio
Areas of Specialization
- Hegel
- Kant and post-Kantian German Philosophy
- History of Modern and 19th Century Philosophy
- Philosophy of Literature
Courses
- Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit
- The Philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel
- Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind
- Philosophy of Literature
- 19th Century Philosophy
- Modern Philosophy
- Introduction to Epistemology
- The Philosophy of Spinoza
- Philosophy of Religion
Recent Publications
- “Acosmism, Radical Finitude, and Divine Love in Mendelssohn, Schelling, and Hegel”, in The Owl of Minerva (2014).
- “Über Aufbau und Methode von Spinozas Ethik” in Dialektik und Hermeneutik – Vernunft und Sprache im Zeichen der Moderne (Berlin: De Gruyter 2014).
- Hegel and the Metaphysics of Absolute Negativity (Cambridge University Press 2013).
http://www.cambridge.org/aus/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9781107033597 - "Spinozist Pantheism and the Truth of 'Sense Certainty'. What the Eleusinian Mysteries have to tell us about Hegel's Phenomenology", in Journal for the History of Philosophy 52 (2012).
Winner, Best Article of 2012, Journal of the History of Philosophy
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_the_history_of_philosophy/v050/
50.1.bowman.html - "On the Defense of Literary Value: From Early German Romanticism to Analytic Philosophy of Literature," in Dalia Nassar (ed.), The Relevance of Romanticism: Essays on German Romantic Philosophy (Oxford University Press 2014).
- "Publicity, and Bureaucracy: The Modernity of Hegel’s Civic Humanism" in Hegel-Studien 47 (2013).
- A Conceptualist Reply to Hanna's Kantian Non-Conceptualism", International Journal of Philosophical Studies19:3 (2012).
A Conceptualist Reply to Hanna’s Kantian Nonconceptualism (pdf) - "Goethean Morphology, Hegelian Science. Affinities and Transformations" in ed. Elizabeth Millán/John Smith, Goethe Yearbook 18 (2011).
- "Kraft und Verstand. Hegels Übergang zum Selbstbewußtsein in der Phänomenologie des Geistes", in Klaus Vieweg/Wolfgang Welsch (eds.) Hegels Phänomenologie des Geistes. Ein kooperativer Kommentar zum einem Schlüsselwerk der Moderne (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp-Verlag 2008).
Link to the English translation of this article - (ed.) Literary Modes of Presentation in German Romanticism and German Idealism (Paderborn: Mentis-Verlag 2007 [in German]).
- (with Allen Speight). G. W. F. Hegel’s Heidelberg Writings. Translation and Commentary (Cambridge University Press 2007).
- Sense Certainty. On the Systematic Prehistory of a Problem in German Idealism [German: Sinnliche Gewißheit. Zur systematischen Vorgeschichte eines Problems des deutschen Idealismus] (Berlin: Akademie Verlag 2003).
Sinnliche Gewißheit. Zur systematischen Vorgeschichte eines Problems des deutschen Idealismus
Current Projects
With the support of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation I am currently pursuing a project entitled “Life and Cognition: The Axiological Foundations of Metaphysics in Classical German Philosophy” at the Ruhr Universität Bochum (Germany). The project focuses on post-Kantian reactions to Spinozism-cum-naturalism, the metaphysics of value, and the philosophical prospects for a non-biologistic concept of life.
