My research brings medieval philosophy into conversation with contemporary questions about human nature, ethics, and disability. I work especially on Thomas Aquinas and Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā), whose accounts of nature, causality, and the human person have shaped much of my scholarship. My scholarship has appeared in The Thomist, New Blackfriars, The Journal of Islamic Philosophy, National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, the European Journal for the Study of Thomas Aquinas, Lex Naturalis, and Jesuit Higher Education, as well as several edited volumes.
My earlier work examines Avicenna’s natural philosophy and metaphysics, including his understanding of nature, scientific explanation, and the relationship between necessity and possibility. I have also written on Aquinas’s account of natural law, goodness, faith, and the existence of God. These projects share an interest in how metaphysical claims inform our understanding of human life and action.
My current research develops a systematic Thomistic philosophy of disability. In articles and chapters, I examine how we understand impairment, personhood, dignity, and the distinction between disability and ordinary human limitation. I also study what justice requires in the provision of accommodations and how institutions can support the full participation of persons with disabilities.
Published Works
Since 2024 I have been an invited regular contributor to the “Philosophy and Theology” column of The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly. My articles for this series include:
Forthcoming: “The Ethics of Ascending: a Catholic Critique of Looksmaxxing.” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 26.3 (2026).
“Ableism Reconsidered.” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 26.1 (2026): 177-186.
“The Usefulness of ‘Dignity.” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 25.2 (2025): 327-334.
“The Significance of ‘Normal’ in Catholic Bioethics.” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 24.4 (2024): 731-740.
“Essential and Functional Definitions of Personhood.” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 24.2 (2024): 371-384.
Articles (Peer Reviewed)
Forthcoming: “Disability in the Ignatian Tradition.” Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal.
“Contemporary Nominalism? a Thomistic consideration of ‘Sex’ and ‘Gender’.” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 98 (2024): 139–151.
“Thomas Aquinas on Non-Theological Faith.” New Blackfriars 105 (2024): 478–491.
“‘Necessary’ and ‘Possible’ as Metaphysical Preambles: a defense of Avicenna against Averroes.” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 96 (2022): 199-217.
“Ibn Sīnā on ‘Nature’ as Matter and Form: an Exposition of Physics of the Healing I, 6 & 9.” The Journal of Islamic Philosophy 13 (2022): 50-82.
“Cura Personalis: the Incarnational Heart of Jesuit Education.” Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal 11 (2022): 26-34.
“Common by Causality and Common by Predication: Avicenna and Aquinas on a Twofold Division of Principles.” The Thomist 85 (2021): 295-328.
“A Thomistic Defense of ‘Nature’ in Avicenna’s Physics.” European Journal for the Study of Thomas Aquinas 39 (2021): 43-60.
“Participation and the Thomistic Definition of Natural Law.” Lex Naturalis 4 (2019): 73-90.
“Hylomorphic Teleology in Physics II.” Studia Gilsoniana 8 (2019): 147-168.
“The Objective Relativity of Goodness: a rapprochement between Peter Geach and Thomas Aquinas.” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 92 (2018): 285-300. Winner: ACPA “Young Scholar” Award.
“Personal Participation in the Thomistic Account of Natural Law.” Originally published in E-Journal of the Society for Thomistic Personalism 4 (2015): 31-43; Re-published in Studia Gilsoniana 7 (2018): 443-458.
“St. Thomas’ Proof for the Lord of Lords from the Cause of Causes.” Biblica et Patristica Thoruniensia 8 (2015): 75-88.
Contributed Chapters (Peer-Reviewed)
Forthcoming: “A Metaphysics of Sex and Gender.” Catholic Thought and Gender Theory (Paul Allen & Angela Franks, editors). Catholic University of America Press [Solicited].
Forthcoming: “Avicennian Physics as Aristotelian Science: The Reception of Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics in Avicenna’s Physics of the Healing.” From Philosophy to Falsafa: A Graeco-Arabic Dialogue (Josh Hayes, editor). To be published in English (Bloomsbury Press) and Arabic translation (King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies Publishing House). [Solicited]
“Aquinas and Disability.” Thomism Revisited (Gaven Kerr, editor). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2026. [Solicited]
“Existential Gratitude in Avicenna’s Metaphysics of the Healing.” Philosophical Perspectives on Existential Gratitude: Analytic, Continental, and Religious (Joshua Lee Harris, Neal DeRoo, Kirk Lougheed, editors). New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023. [Solicited]
“Dianoesis and Perinoesis in the Natural Sciences.” Facts are Stubborn Things: Thomistic Perspectives in the Philosophies of Nature and Science (Matthew Minerd, editor). Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2020.
Popular Essays
Forthcoming: “Worth Beyond Work: the Person as Imago Dei.” The Better Part Journal: an Intellectual Catholic Women’s Journal.
“Justice, Mercy, and the Hope of Repentance.” Teaching the Faith (Publication of The Fellowship of Catholic Scholars). July, 2023.
“Aristotle’s Chinese Counterpart,” review essay of J. D. Rooney’s Material Objects in Confucian and Aristotelian Metaphysics: The Inevitability of Hylomorphism. Bloomsbury Academic: New York, 2022. Law & Liberty (online), October 27, 2022.
Works in Progress
- Article-length study of ADA accommodations as requirements of justice, examining their proper scope, potential misuse, and the corresponding obligations of institutions, persons with disabilities, and the broader public.
- Article-length study of Thomas Aquinas’s account of language and its extension to sign language.
- Contributed Chapter on MacIntyre and Disability to The MacIntyrean Mind (Richard Kim & Micah Lott, editors). Routledge Philosophical Minds Series.
- Contributed Chapter on Bioethics to Acting to Love: Kevin L. Flannery’s Retrieval and Reinvigoration of Catholic Ethics, Invited Festschrift Chapter (Matthew Levering & Christopher Kaczor, editors).
- “Jewish and Muslim Sources.” The Oxford Handbook of the Summa Theologiae (Matthew Levering, Therese Cory, Thomas Joseph White, OP, editors). Volume under contract with Oxford University Press.
