Research

My research examines how the natural world became an object of scientific inquiry, how philosophical and mathematical methods came to be the preferred tools to be applied to its study, and what that means for inquiry and understanding. I am interested in questions of philosophical methodology and how scientists and philosophers construe their relationships to their predecessors.

Published Work:

Article: ‘Aristotle’s Account of Quick-wittedness.’ Ancient Philosophy 46.2 (2026)

Sometimes things just click. This paper offers a new understanding of how Aristotle thinks it is possible for someone to discover the explanatory middle term of a deduction and to do so by means of a fast, seemingly effortless, non-discursive process.

Article: ‘Aristotle on What is Beyond Us.’ Ancient Philosophy 44.2 (2024)

When should one dismiss an alternative idea or proposal out of hand? This paper examines when Aristotle thinks he cannot constructively engage with and criticize a rival proposal and investigates his principled criteria for dismissing a view completely.

Review: ‘B.M. Sattler’s The Concept of Motion in Ancient Greek Thought (2020.)’ Rhizomata 12.2 (2024)

Sattler carves a compelling path through intellectual history to Aristotle’s pivotal conceptual innovations of time and space required to bring them together in a general account of speed. Yet Aristotle himself does not seem compelled: time, not the relation between time and distance, remains his measure of motion. Sattler diagnoses a deep tension; I argue that the tension may not run quite so deep.

Under Review: 

Article on Abilities, Truth, and Lies [details redacted for anonymous review]

Lying is great when you know what you’re doing. The paper offers a non-naïve reading of Socrates’s commitment to the truth and in doing so sheds new light on the infamous conclusion of the Lesser Hippias.

Article on Aristotle’s Account of Technē. [details redacted for anonymous review]

Those who can’t do, teach (they say) – but do those who teach “make” anything? This paper unpacks Aristotle’s idea that teaching (didaskalia) is an exercise of productive understanding (technē) and thus a genuine case of production.

Article on Aristotle’s Natural Science. [details redacted for anonymous review] Revise and Resubmit. Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy

“Why should these truths be basic explainers and not others?” The paper argues that Aristotle theorized a procedure for answering this question and uses this account to shed new light on a notoriously vexed stretch of text in Aristotle’s natural science.

Work in Progress: 

Monograph: Establishing Natural Science: Principle Justification in Aristotle’s Physics

Article on Motion and the Objects of Natural and Mathematical Sciences (email for draft)

Article on fictions and “what ifs” in writing the history of philosophy (email for draft)

Non-academic Work:

‘How Traditions Progress.’ AEON magazine (Nov. 13, 2023)

Drawing on ideas from Aristotle and my experience with one of Switzerland’s national sports, the article challenges the assumption that tradition is inherently conservative, showing instead how it can be a vehicle of innovation.

‘The Ybrig Stone.’ Liftingstones.org (Oct. 17, 2025)

This lexicon entry brings together what had existed only in oral stories, archival records, local memories, and private collections to tell the full story of the Ybrig Stone: its origins, its legend, and its living legacy from myth to modern sport.

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