Assistant Professor

I am an Assistant Professor at U. C. San Diego. I recently received my Ph.D. from the philosophy department at Yale, studying under Michael Della Rocca, and was an exchange scholar for two years at U.C. Berkeley, studying under Shamik Dasgupta.

My teaching primarily addresses ethical issues in society and critical reasoning. My research lies at the intersection of logic and foundational metaphysics. Many of my projects rely upon the theoretical resources of truth-maker semantics. In particular, I argue that it provides the tools to account for philosophical analysis, epistemic closure, question-begging arguments, physicalism and the levels of scientific disciplines. I also have projects on the essence of knowledge, counterfactual logic and real definition that are unrelated to truth-maker semantics.

Other than studying philosophy, I enjoy hiking, cooking, traveling and listening to classical music. My email address is elgin.samuel@gmail.com. I always appreciate comments and feedback on my work.

Publications

Definition
The Semantic Foundations of Philosophical Analysis
Knowledge is Closed Under Analytic Content
Counterfactual Logic and the Necessity of Mathematics
Physicalism and the Identity of Identity Theories
Merely Partial Definition and the Analysis of Knowledge
On Question-Begging and Analytic Content
The Unreliability of Foreseeable Consequences: A Return to the Epistemic Objection

Works in Progress

The Levels of the Scientific Disciplines
Definition by Proxy
The Triviality of the Identity of Indiscernibles

Teaching Evaluations

Symbolic Logic
Critical Reasoning
Ethics and Society I
Ethics and Society II

Curriculum Vitae

CV