I am a Ph.D candidate at the UC Santa Cruz Philosophy department. My current research is on the integration and development of Aristotelian and Platonic elements in St. Thomas Aquinas’s metaphysics. I am particularly interested in the metaphysical status of essences in the ‘absolute sense’ which concerns only what belongs to the essence as such and is contrasted with essences in the ‘concrete sense’ which exists in individuals or in the intellect. In my dissertation I am working on defending a conclusion that has been previously been argued by Thomas de Vio (Cardinal) Cajetan [around 1523-1534] that essences in the absolute sense have a proper unity. Furthermore, I working on explaining how this account of essence connects with St. Thomas’s doctrine of divine ideas.

My previous research has focused on contemporary analytic metaphysics, particularly in the field of modality in which I have inquired into Neo-Aristotelian alternative frameworks to possible worlds. I have also embarked on a related but distinct project that I am still working on, on the side, in which I inquire into the plausibility of the revival of Aristotelian metaphysics by accessing its compatibility with our modern accounts of evolution. I am especially interested in this issue as it relates to the problem of universals.