Teaching Experience

When teaching philosophy, my goal is to have a conversation rather than convey information. Philosophy is not a collection of wise sayings. It is an activity. And it is my intention that my students do philosophy by thinking through the big questions in philosophy. Yes, students learn what so-and-so said about the issue; but they also have an opportunity to think through the issues for themselves.

Research

My research focuses primarily on early modern epistemology and religion. With respect to epistemology, I am interested in how we can know objects in the world exist and how, if at all, religious beliefs can be justified. With respect to religion, in addition to questions about the rationality of religious belief, I am interested in the relationship between God and the natural world. These two, sometimes overlapping, topics have been a theme in my publications and will continue to guide my future research.

Selected Publications

• “Hume on Laws and Miracles,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly v. 92, n. 4 (2018). [2nd Place in the 2017 ACPQ Rising Scholar Contest]
• “Locke on Empirical Knowledge,” History of Philosophy Quarterly, v. 35, n. 4 (2018)
• “Locke on Reason, Revelation, and Miracles,” forthcoming in The Lockean Mind, eds. Jessica Gordon-Roth and Shelly Weinberg (Routledge)

Service

As chair of the Teaching Committee in the philosophy department, each year I have organized faculty peer evaluations for all junior and adjunct faculty. I have also organized workshops for faculty teaching the same course to talk about the expectations and best-practices for the course.

Citizenship assignments

• Philosophy Search Committee, chair (2019-2020)
• Philosophy Teaching Committee, chair (2019-2020 & 2020-2021)
• Humanities Recruiting Committee, member (2019-2020 & 2020-2021)
• Philosophy Assessment Committee, member (2017-2018 & 2018-2019)

Professional Website

https://nathanrockwood.wordpress.com