PRESTON STOVALL PH.D. CANDIDATE ACLS FELLOW DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH

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1 PH.D. CANDIDATE ACLS FELLOW DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH EDUCATION Ph.D. in Philosophy,, expected graduation: Spring 2015 M.A. in Philosophy, Texas A&M University, 2008 Thesis: Toward a Normative Theory of Rationality Committee: Robert Burch (Chair), Ted George, Michael Hand, Gil Rosenthal (Biology) Certificate in Advanced International Affairs, Texas A&M University, 2008 Visiting student, Oxford University, St. Peter s College, Honors B.A. in Philosophy, Religious Studies option, Montana State University, 2004 AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION Metaphysics, Philosophy of Language AREAS OF COMPETENCE Philosophical Logic, American Pragmatism, German Idealism, Ethics DISSERTATION TITLE: Existence, Essence, and Excellence: Kind Terms, Modal Operators, and the Subjunctive Conditional ABSTRACT: I argue that some of our most primitive metaphysical commitments about different kinds of individual are implicit in our practices of reasoning about them. By interpreting the subjunctive conditional as a means for expressing commitment to a rule of inference, I show that our reasoning about chemicals, organisms, and persons is such that 1) each kind is associated with a unique array of inferential patterns (expressed with sets of subjunctive conditionals), and 2) the alethic, normative, and teleological modalities can be understood as devices for marking off structural features among these patterns of inference. In the course of developing this view I argue that talk of organic purposiveness commits us to nothing more than a certain subjunctive complexity among ordinary causal relations, and that a person can be understood as a creature that makes its will into a law of nature. The upshot is that certain problems about the place of purpose and value in nature are dissolved. COMMITTEE: Robert Brandom (director), John McDowell, Edouard Machery, James O Shea FELLOWSHIPS AND HONORS Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship, Manuel Davenport Graduate Essay Award, Texas A&M University Member Phi Alpha Theta National History Honors Society

2 Ph.D. Candidate, 2 PUBLICATIONS Inference by Analogy and the Progress of Knowledge: From Reflection to Determination in Judgments of Natural Purpose forthcoming in British Journal of the History of Philosophy. The Lamp of Reason and the Mirror of Nature in an anthology edited by Randall Auxier, as yet untitled, forthcoming from Lexington Books. Abductive Inference, Autonomy, and the Faith of Abraham in Interpreting Abraham, edited by Bradley Beach (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014): Professional Virtue and Professional Self-Awareness: A Case Study in Engineering Ethics in Science and Engineering Ethics, Vol. 17, No. 1 (March 2011): Hegel s Realism: The Implicit Metaphysics of Self-Knowledge in The Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 61 No. 1, (September 2007): ARTICLES UNDER REVIEW Expressing a Negation revise and resubmit at Mind. INVITED PRESENTATIONS The Lamp of Reason and the Mirror of Nature at American and European Values IX: Richard Rorty and Beyond, Institute of Philosophy, Opole University, Poland, July 30-August 2, The Lamp of Reason and the Mirror of Nature at Daniel N. Boone Speaker Series, Philosophy Department, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, May 3, REFEREED PRESENTATIONS Purpose, Command, and What Might Have Been at The Charles S. Peirce International Centennial Congress, session on Peirce and the Pittsburgh school, University of Massachusetts Lowell, July 16-19, Kind Terms, Modal Operators, and the Subjunctive Conditional at Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association, Wilfrid Sellars Society session on naturalism and normativity, December 27-30, Toward a First-Order Comprehensional Semantics at conference on Inferentialism in the Philosophy of Language, Mind, and Action at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid, October 3-5, Peirce and Sellars on the Cognitive Significance of Sensation at Sellars Centenary Conference and Workshop, University College, Dublin, June 4-8, Syllogistic Inference at the Birth of Analytic Philosophy at Society for the Study of the History of Analytic Philosophy, McMaster University, May Being as we Ought: Rule Following, Language Use, and Persons at Prague International Colloquium on the Normativity of Meaning: Sellarsian Perspectives, Department of Logic, Institute of Philosophy, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, May On the Prospect of a New Enlightenment at 2010 Pittsburgh Area Philosophy Colloquium, Washington and Jefferson College, September 11, An Inferential Articulation of Individuality, Particularity, and Universality: Reflections on the Syllogism in Hegel s Science of Logic at 2010 Conference of the Graduate Philosophy Society at Emory University, March 26-7, 2010.

3 Ph.D. Candidate, 3 The Power of Spirit in Nature: Taking Authority and Accepting Responsibility for Self- Determination at Graduate Student Conference on Hegel and German Idealism at Notre Dame, March 6-8, The Normative Dimensions of Kant s Account of Representation: Empirical, Transcendental, and Semantic Conceptions of Rational Constraint at the 10th Annual Pitt/CMU Graduate Student Conference at the, March 1, Pragmatism and the Normative Theory of Rationality at the Western Canadian Philosophical Association s 44th Annual Meeting, University of Saskatchewan, October On Knowledge and Skepticism in Experience at the First Intermountain West Student Philosophy Conference, University of Utah, Spring The Orion Correlation Theory: Between Orthodoxy and the Fringe at the regional Phi Alpha Theta National History Honors Society Conference in Helena, Montana, Spring COURSES: INDEPENDENTLY TAUGHT Concepts of Human Nature (Summer 2014) Introduction to Logic (Fall 2013) COURSES: TEACHING ASSISTANT Introduction to Ethics (Spring 2014) Introduction to Ethics (Spring 2012) Introduction to Logic (Fall 2011) Social Philosophy (Spring 2010) Introduction to Philosophical Problems (Fall 2009) Engineering Ethics (Texas A&M, Fall 2006-Spring 2008) Beginning in the Fall of 2007 my teaching incorporated a new component on virtue ethics and the notion of professional virtues, working with Professor Ed Harris of the Engineering Ethics program Modern Moral Problems (Montana State University, Fall 2002) GRADUATE EDUCATION (A * INDICATES AN AUDIT) ETHICS Ethics Core (Kieran Setiya, Pittsburgh, Fall 2008) Kantian Ethics (Steven Engstrom, Pittsburgh, Fall 2008) HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Hegel (Michael Inwood, Oxford, Spring 2006) Ancient Philosophy (Scott Austin, Texas A&M, Fall 2006) John Dewey (John McDermott, Texas A&M, Fall 2006) Modern Philosophy (Steve Daniel, Texas A&M, Spring 2007) Hegel (Robert Brandom, Pittsburgh, Fall 2008) Leibniz (Nicholas Rescher, Pittsburgh, Fall 2008) Plato (Paul Scade, Pittsburgh, Spring 2009) Pragmatism (Nicholas Rescher, Pittsburgh, Spring 2010)

4 Ph.D. Candidate, 4 *Wittgenstein (Thomas Ricketts, Pittsburgh, Spring 2009) *Frege (Thomas Ricketts, Pittsburgh, Spring 2010) *Kant s First Critique (Steven Engstrom, Pittsburgh, Fall 2010) *Hegel (John McDowell, Pittsburgh, Spring 2012) *Kant s Third Critique (Andrew Chignell, Pittsburgh, Fall 2012) INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS American Foreign Policy (Christopher Layne, Texas A&M, Spring 2007) Intelligence and Security Affairs (James Olson, Texas A&M, Summer 2007) Politics of the Contemporary Middle East (Rola el-husseini, Texas A&M, Fall 2007) National Security Policy (Christopher Layne, Texas A&M, Spring 2008) METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY Metaphysics and Epistemology (Max Cresswell, Texas A&M, Spring 2007) Metaphysics and Epistemology (John McDowell, Pittsburgh, Spring 2009) Rationality (Karl Schafer, Pittsburgh, Spring 2009) Metaphysics and Metaethics (Karl Schafer and James Shaw, Pittsburgh, Spring 2011) *Philosophy of Action (John McDowell, Pittsburgh, Spring 2010) *Epistemology (John McDowell, Pittsburgh, Spring 2013) PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE AND PHILOSOPHICAL LOGIC Philosophy of Language (Sophie Allen, Oxford, Spring 2006) Mathematical Logic (Christopher Menzel, Texas A&M, Fall 2006) Directed Study on Philosophy of Language (Robert Burch, Texas A&M, Fall 2007-Spring 2008) Advanced Logic (Nuel Belnap, Pittsburgh, Spring 2009) Directed Study on Philosophy of Language (Robert Brandom, Pittsburgh, Fall 2009-Spring 2011) Directed Study on Branching Times (Nuel Belnap, Pittsburgh, Fall 2009) Analytic Philosophy Wilfrid Sellars (Robert Brandom, Pittsburgh, Fall 2009) Topics in Philosophical Logic Branching Space Times (Nuel Belnap, Pittsburgh, Spring 2010) *Philosophy of Mathematics (Kenneth Manders, Pittsburgh, Fall 2009) *Epistemic Modality (Anders J. Schoubye, Carnegie Mellon University, Fall 2011) *Philosophy of Language (Robert Brandom, Pittsburgh, Fall 2012) *Analytic Philosophy Carnap and Quine (Thomas Ricketts, Pittsburgh, Fall 2013) *Relevance Logic (Mike Dunn, Pittsburgh, Spring 2014) PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Emergence (Sandra Mitchell, Pittsburgh, Fall 2008) *Explanations, Causes, and Mechanisms (Peter Machamer, Pittsburgh, Fall 2009) *Philosophy of Biology (James Lennox, Pittsburgh, Fall 2012) *Scientific Explanation (Mark Wilson and Jim Woodward, Pittsburgh, Spring 2014) LANGUAGES German (reading)

5 Ph.D. Candidate, 5 CONFERENCE AND WORKSHOP COORDINATION Coordinator for a philosophy workshop, External Determinations of Meaning, at the, April 15-6, 2013 Coordinator for a conference, Philosophy in the 21st Century,, May 18-20, 2012 Coordinator for the Pitt-CMU Graduate Student Conference, and Coordinator for the Department of Philosophy student-faculty lunch and colloquium, Coordinator and coach for a team of Texas A&M engineering students competing in the Business Ethics Fortnight at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, Spring 2007 PROFESSIONAL AND SERVICE WORK Reviewer for Science and Engineering Ethics Organizer for Whither the United States? undergraduate reading group on American culture and identity, Spring 2014-present President of the Pitt philosophy graduate student body, Representative for graduate student organization, Member of the Pitt philosophy junior search committee, Intern with the Executive Office of the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh, composing data analysis on rental policy changes, Summer 2009 Volunteer and coordinator for Dr. Susan Cohen s 2004 excavation in Gesher, Israel President of the Montana State University student philosophy club, Volunteer at the Bike Farm, Cushing, Wisconsin (facility for children diagnosed with ADHD), August 2003 REFERENCES NB: FOR LETTERS PLEASE CONTACT CONNIE HRABOVSKY AT CONNIEH@PITT.EDU ROBERT BRANDOM Distinguished Professor of Philosophy rbrandom@pitt.edu EDOUARD MACHERY Distinguished Professor of History and Philosophy of Science machery@pitt.edu JAMES O SHEA Senior Lecturer University College Dublin jim.oshea@ucd.ie ANIL GUPTA (Teaching Mentor) Alan Ross Anderson Distinguished Professor of Philosophy agupta@pitt.edu JOHN MCDOWELL Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy jmcdowel@pitt.edu