I am Assistant Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy at the College of Charleston. I came to Charleston right after completing my doctorate at the Australian National University in 2005. I did my undergraduate work in philosophy at the University of Bucharest, where I also obtained an M.A. in 1993. I spent nearly four and a half years in India in the mid 1990s, pursuing studies in Indian and Buddhist Philosophy. While in India, I was affiliated with several research institutes, including the Asiatic Society in Calcutta (as a Research Fellow, 1995-1996), the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute and De Nobili College in Pune (1993), and the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, Sarnath, Varanasi (1996).

In 1997 I moved to Australia, and the following year I began graduate school at the Australian National University in Canberra. I spent the greater part of 2000 working on a proof of concept model for parsing Sanskrit based on the Interlingua system (the project was funded by a small ARC grant). Between November 2000 and March 2001 I was a visiting PhD student at Queens' College, Cambridge, L'Institut de Civilisation Indienne, Paris, and the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, Sarnath, Varanasi.

My research interests are fairly broad, ranging from classical Indian and Buddhist philosophy to phenomenology and consciousness studies. My most recent work focuses on classical Indian and Buddhist theories of perception, the contemporary reception of the Dignāga-Dharmakīrti school of Buddhist epistemology, and the intersections between phenomenology and cognitive science.

"Mind in Indian Buddhist Philosophy," The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)

"Naturalism and Intentionality: A Buddhist Epistemological Approach," Asian Philosophy, 19/3 (November 2009): 239-264.

"Buddhist Foundationalism and the Phenomenology of Perception," Philosophy East and West, 59:4 (October 2009): 409-439.

"Karma, Rebirth, and Mental Causation," in Charles Prebish, Damien Keown, and Dale S. Wright, Revisioning Karma: the eBook, Journal of Buddhist Ethics Online Books, 2007, pp. 133-154.

"An Essay on the Ascension of the Soul in Neoplatonism," Origins 3 (2003) 156-67

"Hermeneutics in a Buddhist Perspective," Origins 2002, 1: 145-50.

"The Continuity Between Madhyamaka and Yogācāra Schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism in India," Journal of the Asiatic Society (1996) 37, 2: 48-83.

Review of Simon P. James, Zen Buddhism and Environmental Ethics, Sophia (April 2008) 47, 1: 75-77.

Review of David E. Cooper and Simon P. James, Buddhism, Virtue, and Environment, Sophia (July 2007) 46, 2: 207-209.

"A Restricted Interpretation of Dharmakirti's Philosophy," Review of John Dunne, Foundations of Dharmakirti's Philosophy, H-Buddhism Reviews, March 2006.

A Review Essay of Destructive Emotions: How Can We Overcome Them? A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama. Journal of Buddhist Ethics 11/1 (2004): 98-102.

"The View from Everywhere: Consciousness and Naturalized Phenomenology," Toward a Science of Consciousness Conference, Tucson, AZ, April 2010 (forthcoming)

"Naturalism and Intentionality: A Buddhist Epistemological Approach," American Philosophical Association, Pacific Division Meeting, Vancouver, April 2009

"Naturalizing Buddhist Epistemology," The XVth Congress of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, Emory University, Atlanta, June 2008

"Eros and Psyche in Neoplatonism," Paper presented at the 3rd International Conference of the Association for the Study of Esotericism, College of Charleston, Charleston, May 2008

"Perception, Particulars, and the Question of Foundationalism in Buddhist Epistemology," American Philosophical Association, Pacific Division Meeting, San Francisco, April 2007

"Buddhist Hermeneutics. Response Paper," American Philosophical Association, Eastern Division Meeting, New York, December 2005

"Epistemic Expressions and the Rhetoric of Reason," Australasian Association of Philosophy Conference, Sydney, July 2005

"Apparitional Forms and False Colors: Is Perception Non-Erroneous or Non-Deceptive," Australasian Association of Philosophy Conference, South Molle Island, July 2004

"Mental Imagery and the Buddhist Epistemology of Perception," American Philosophy Association, Boston, December 2004

"Mental Imagery: Perspectives from the Buddhist Epistemological Tradition," poster presentation at the Joint International Conference on Cognitive Science, Sydney, July 2003

"Buddhist Epistemology and the Mind-Body Problem," Australasian Association of Asian and Comparative Philosophy, Melbourne, July 2002

"Priest and Dharmakīrti on Motion," Joint presentation with Chris Mortensen and Graham Priest, Australasian Association of Philosophy Conference, Hobart, July 2001

"Psychologizing Logic: The Triple Inferential Mark and Its Epistemological Significance," Australasian Association of Philosophy Conference, Hobart, July 2001

"Yogācāra Epistemology, Vaiyakaraṇa and the Origin of Buddhist Logic: Dignāga on the Unconstructed Nature of Perception," Australasian Association of Asian and Comparative Philosophy Conference, Brisbane, July 2000

"The Hermeneutics of the Two Truths," Indian Philosophical Congress, Haridwar, November 1995

"The Agama-sūtras of Gauḍapāda: Buddhist Influences on the Early Vedāntic Doctrine of Non-duality," All India Oriental Conference, Poona, May 1993

Since coming to the College of Charleston I have been teaching a range of topical courses in Metaphysics, Epistemology, Philosophy of Religion, and Indian and Buddhist Philosophy. I have also team taught (with seven other colleagues from across the School of Humanities) the Colloquium in Western Civilization course for the Honors College. Besides teaching regular classes, I often supervise independent research studies and bachelor's essays.

SPRING 2010

PHIL 298 - Mind, Body, Spirit - an interdiciplinary course team-taught with Lee Irwin (Religious Studies) and Moore Quinn (Anthropology).
PHIL 101 - Introduction to Philosophy.

COURSES TAUGHT

PHIL 450 - Senior Seminar in Philosophy (Spring 2009)
PHIL 307 - 20th Century Continental Philosophy (Spring 2007)
PHIL 320 - Metaphysics (Fall 2006, 2009)
PHIL 298 - Hermeneutics: Interpreting Across Boundaries (Fall 2005)
PHIL 255 - Philosophy of Religion (Spring 2006, 2008)
PHIL 234 - Eastern Philosophy (Spring 2006, Fall 2007, 2008)
PHIL 101 - Introduction to Philosophy (2005-2009)
HONS 170 - Honors Introduction to Philosophy (Fall 2009)
HONS 120 - Colloquium in Western Civilization (Fall 2006, 2007, 2008)

Liber Mundi - a practically defunct blog (I hope to revive it and move it to the cofc domain soon).

This past Spring (2009) I taught a capstone seminar on Consciousness, Intentionality, and Embodiment and experimented with the idea of a course blog.

Sanskrit Unicode Text Processing (for those using Emacs and LaTex on Linux machines; I moved to Mac OS X after the 10.2 system was released and never looked back).