Areas of Research

The metaphysics of mind (reduction, explanation, emergentism, naturalism), philosophy of psychiatry, epistemology (doubt, certainty, the Later Wittgenstein), metaphilosophy.

 

Past Positions Held 

Philosophy Instructor, Hellenic Naval Staff and Command College (Σχολή Διοίκησης και Επιτελών Πολεμικού Ναυτικού)

Adjunct Lecturer in Philosophy, City College of New York

 

Education

City University of New York Graduate Center (PhD)  Advisors: Paul Horwich, Michael Levin

City University of New York Graduate Center (MPhil)

City University of New York Graduate Center (MA)

The American College of Greece (BA)

 

Courses Taught

Mind and World: upper senior course (sometimes directed study) focusing on mental/psychological functions and the nature of the mind and the self in view of recent scientific advances in psychology, neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence.

Academic Writing and Ethics: I teach the ethics component in this freshman-level interdisciplinary course introducing students to ethical theories through an applied ethics theme. Themes taught: Abortion, Animal ethics, Environmental ethics, Political correctness, Breaking the rules.

Philosophy of Mind: upper senior introduction to the philosophy of mind focusing on the relation of our mental/psychological states to the physical world. Course topics: theories of the mind, personal identity, consciousness, mental causation, psychophysical reduction.

Issues in Epistemology: sometimes historical, sometimes thematic, advanced survey course focusing on the main questions in the history of epistemology.

The Rational Animal: advanced level Honors course focusing on rationality and spanning issues in epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of science, mind, logic, and the rational justification of social and political structures.

Philosophy – core theme (IB): I once taught this section of the IB class which was a thematic survey of the main questions and views on the mind–body problem and the metaphysics of personal identity.

Theory of Knowledge (IB): I teach this as a class focusing on epistemological and metaphysical issues relating to different disciplines.

 

Professional Service

Journal Referee:

   Ratio

   Synthese

   Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy

   Phenomenology and Mind

   Studies in History and Philosophy of Biomedical and Biological Sciences 

   Annals of Philosophy

   Human Affairs

   Foundations of Science

Independent reviewer for research grant proposals:

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO, the Dutch Research Council)

 

Professional Memberships

American Philosophical Association (APA)

Imperfect Cognition Research Network (the AHRC Epistemic Innocence Project)

British Wittgenstein Society (BWS)

 

In between the lines 

In 1996 I lived in Amherst, Massachusetts and it was fantastic. After I got my PhD I took a long break from academia to pursue other interests – a break I thought would be permanent but then turned out not to be. In 2005 I worked for Marchesato degli Aleramici Brunello producers in Montalcino (Italy) and during 2006-2007 I was joint Coordinator of the 7th International Environmental Symposium of the Patriarch of Constantinople in Greenland. After that I took (quite) some time off and traveled on the trans-Siberian and trans-Mongolian railways to Russia, Mongolia and China.

Then, in 2012, our son was born and that has kept me pretty busy since.