Department of Philosophy - University of Missouri-Columbia

PhDs Awarded and Placement History

2011

Darin Finke (May)
Initial Appointment: Lecturer, Missouri University of Science and Technology
Current Appointment: Lecturer, Missouri University of Science and Technology
Dissertation Title: Van Fraassen And A Defense Of Inference To The Best Explanation
Adviser: Weirich

Ashton Sperry (May)
Initial Appointment: Lecturer, University of Missouri (Fall 2011)
Current Appointment: NA
Dissertation Title: Bounded Rationality In Games Of Strategy
Adviser: Weirich

2010

Joel Dittmer (May)
Initial Appointment: Visiting Assistant Professor Missouri University of Science and Technology
Current Appointment: Assistant Professor, Missouri University of Science and Technology
Dissertation Title: Rawlsian Ethical Act Contractarianism
Adviser: Kierland and Vallentyne

Michael Hartsock (December)
Initial Appointment: Assistant Professor, Millikan University
Current Appointment: Same
Dissertation Title: Absences as Causes: A Defense of Negative Causation
Adviser: Ariew

Andrew Moon (August)
Initial Appointment: Mizzou Advantage Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Missouri
Current Appointment: Mizzou Advantage Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Missouri
Dissertation Title: The Nonepistemic Psychological Requirements for Knowledge
Adviser: Markie

Brandon Schmidly (May)
Initial Appointment: Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Evangel University
Current Appointment: Same
Dissertation Title: A Proprietarian Theory of Custodial Rights Over Children
Adviser: Vallentyne

2009

Anthony Thomas (April)
Initial Appointment: Assistant Professor, Kishwaukee College
Current Appointment: Same
Dissertation Title: Attending to Our Work: A Framework for
Understanding and Evaluating the Division of Labor
Adviser: Bien

2008

Soon-Pil (Phil) Choi (August)
Initial Appointment: Longstanding non-academic position
Current Appointment: Same
Dissertation Title: In Defence of Scientific Realism
Adviser: Weirich

Christopher Haugen (August)
Initial Appointment: Dominican Novitiate
Current Appointment: Unchanged
Dissertation Title: Intuitions and Adequate Philosophical Solutions
Adviser: Weirich

Jason Hedderman (December)
Initial Appointment: None
Current Appointment: Adjunct Instructor
Dissertation Title: The Phenomenal Brain: Making Room for a
Phenomenal- Neural Type Identity Theory of Phenomenal
Consciousness
Adviser: Melnyk

Melanie Johnson-Moxley (May)
Initial Appointment: Adjunct Instructor, University of Missouri
Current Appointment: Visiting Assistant Professor (begins Fall 2011), Columbia College
Dissertation Title: Vasubandhu's Consciousness Trilogy: A Yogacara
Buddhist Process Idealism
Adviser: Gupta

James McBain (May)
Initial Appointment: Instructor, Kansas State University
Current Appointment: Assistant Professor, Pittsburgh State University
Dissertation Title: Philosophical Intuitions – Philosophical Analysis
Adviser: Markie

Justin McBrayer (May)
Initial Appointment: Assistant Professor, Fort Lewis College
Current Appointment: Same
Dissertation Title: A Defense of Moral Perception
Adviser: Markie

Eric Roark (May)
Initial Appointment: Assistant Professor, Millikin University
Current Appointment: Same
Dissertation Title: Using and Coming to Own: A Left-Proprietarian
Treatment of the Appropriation and Just Use of Common Resources
Adviser: Vallentyne

Allan Tomhave (August)
Initial Appointment: Visiting Assistant Professor, Occidental College
Current Appointment: Assistant Professor, Youngstown State University
Dissertation Title: An Analysis of the State
Adviser: Vallentyne

2007

Jason Berntsen (August)
Initial Appointment: Assistant Professor, Xavier University
Current Appointment: Same
Dissertation Title: Moral Arguments and Moral Motivation in a
Non-Cognitivist Framework
Adviser: Johnson

Brian Casey (December)
Initial Appointment: Associate at Covington and Burling LLP, Washington DC
Current Appointment: Assistant US Attorney, Kansas City
Dissertation Title: Natural Law and the Challenge of Legal Positivism
Adviser: Johnson

Clanton Dawson (December)
Initial Appointment: Visiting Fellow, Colorado College
Current Appointment: Assistant Professor, Bethune Cookman University
Dissertation Title: A Philosophical Analysis of Four Concepts of Race
Adviser: Bien

Mat Konieczka (August)
Initial Appointment: Visiting Assistant Professor, Hampden-Sydney College
Current Appointment: Assistant Professor, Newbury College
Dissertation Title: Critical Pluralism: A New Approach to Religious Diversity
Adviser: Kultgen

Alan Nichols (December)
Initial Appointment: Visiting Assistant Professor, Georgia State University
Current Appointment: Assistant Professor, Georgia Highlands College
Dissertation Title: Foucault, Governmentality and the Absurd
Adviser: Bien

Ronald Novy (August)
Initial Appointment: Visiting Instructor and College Adviser, University of Central Arkansas
Current Appointment: Lecturer, University of Central Arkansas
Adviser: Bien

Jon Trerise (August)
Initial Appointment: Lecturer (renewable), Florida International University
Current Appointment: Assistant Professor (tenure-track), Coastal Carolina University
Dissertation Title: A Justified System of Intellectual Property Rights
Adviser: Vallentyne

2006

Lily Chang (August)
Initial Appointment: Visiting Instructor, University of Texas-Pan American
Current Appointment: Instructor, University of Texas-Pan American
Dissertation Title: Aristotle on Happiness: A Comparison with Confucius
Adviser: Gupta

Ted Poston (May)
Initial Appointment: Assistant Professor, University of South Alabama
Current Appointment: Same
Dissertation Title: Sellars and Socrates: An Investigation of the Sellars
Problem for a Socratic Epistemology
Adviser: Kvanvig

Jeffrey White (August)
No academic position found
Dissertation Title: Conscience: Mechanics of Morality
Adviser: Kultgen

2005

Regine Lamboy (December)
Initial Appointment: None
Current Appointment: Adjunct Professor, Missouri University of Science and Technology
Dissertation Title: Hannah Arendt on Thought and Political Action
Adviser: Bien

Troy Nunley (May)
Initial Appointment: Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Texas-Pan American
Current Appointment: Assistant Professor, Denver Seminary
Dissertation Title: Alvin Plantinga's Argument Against
Evolutionary Naturalism
Adviser: Kvanvig

2003

Edward Omar Moad (August)
Initial Appointment: Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Texas-Pan American
Current Appointment: Assistant Professor, Qatar University
Dissertation Title: Prolegomena to an Occasionalist Metaphysics
Adviser: Kvanvig

Brian Lang (August)
Initial Appointment: Assistant Professor, Jamestown College
Current Appointment: Associate Professor, Jamestown College
Dissertation Title: Cartesian Simplicity
Adviser: Markie/Sievert

2002

Yeongseo Yeo (December)
Initial Appointment: Assistant Professor, Dongduk Women's University
Current Appointment: Director of Center for Integrative Studies at Dongduk University
Dissertation Title: Bayesian Scientific Methodology: A Naturalistic
Approach
Adviser: Weirich

2001

Jared Bates
Initial Appointment: Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota-Duluth
Current Appointment: Assistant Professor, Hanover College
Dissertation Title: Epistemic norms and epistemological methods
Adviser: Weirich

Jeffrey Freelin
Initial Appointment: Visiting Assistant Professor, Drake University
Current Appointment: Assistant Professor, Lincoln University
Dissertation Title: Toward a Complete Virtue Ethic
Adviser: Gupta

Cynthia McWilliams Jones
Initial Appointment: Assistant Professor, University of Texas-Pan American
Current Appointment: Associate Professor and Director, Pan American Collaboration for Ethics in the Professions (PACE), University of Texas-Pan American.
Dissertation Title: Competent Persons, Identity, and Mortal Decisions
Adviser: Bondeson

Gary Thiher
Appointment: Lecturer I, University of Central Arkansas
Dissertation Title: The Concept of Need
Adviser: Bien

2000

Frances Gill
Initial Appointment: Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Missouri
Current Appointment: Same
Dissertation Title: Self-Determination as a Goal of Correctional
Counseling
Adviser: Kultgen

Mark Price
Initial Appointment: Assistant Professor, Columbia College
Current Appointment: Associate Professor, Columbia College
Dissertation Title: Life and Death Issues: A Practical Approach
to Moral Theory
Adviser: Kultgen

1999

Lori Underwood
Appointment: Associate Professor, Christopher Newport University
Dissertation Title: Kant on Truth
Adviser: von Schönborn

Jamie Phillips
Initial Appointment: Assistant Professor, Clarion University
Current Appointment: Associate Professor, Clarion University
Dissertation Title: The Problem of Adhocness in Epistemology
Adviser: Melnyk

1997

Jordan L. Lindbeg
Initial Appointment: Assistant Professor, Central Michigan University
Dissertation Title: Language, Logic, Knowledge, and Reality: The Logical
Atomisms of Russell and Wittgenstein
Advisers: Markie and Sievert

1996

Young-Ran Roh
Initial Appointment: Professor, Jeonju University
Current Appointment: Professor, Gwangju National University of Education
Dissertation Title: A Justification of Morality within the Rational Choice
Adviser: Kultgen

1995

Laurence Rohrer
Initial Appointment: Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Nebraska-Kearney
Current Appointment: Assistant Professor, Lincoln University
Dissertation Title: Psychological Bases of the Present Condition of Ethics
Adviser: Kultgen

Elizabeth Van Mil
Appointment: Grants Specialist and Part-time Philosophy Instructor, University of New Mexico
Dissertation Title: Antinomies of a Monological Use of Language
Adviser: Sievert

1994

Lavonna Lovern-Beckman
Initial Appointment: Assistant Professor, Central Methodist University
Current Appointment: Unknown
Dissertation Title: Rousseau on Equality
Adviser: Bien

Matthew Swanson
Appointment: Associate Professor of Philosophy, Misericordia University
Dissertation Title: The Social Contract Tradition and the Question of
Political Legitimacy
Adviser: Bien

1993

Eugene Jones
Initial Appointment: Full-time Faculty, Social Science Division, Mohidal University International College
Current Appointment: Unknown
Dissertation Title: International Law and the Necessity
for World Government
Adviser: Sievert

Mark Painter
Appointment: Professor and Chair of Philosophy Department, Misericordia University
Dissertation Title: The Philosophical Appropriation of Protestantism in
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Thought
Adviser: Bien

1992

Carl Hasler
Professor of Philosophy, Collin County Community College (Spring Creek Campus)
Dissertation Title: The Concept of Dread
Adviser: von Schönborn

Cathryn Bailey
Associate Professor and Department Chair, University of Minnesota Mankato
Dissertation Title: Feminism, Objectivity and Science
Adviser: Kultgen

1991

Thomas Huffman
Appointment: Associate Professor (part-time), University of Maryland University College; Technical writer, Westat, a research company in Rockville, Maryland
Dissertation Title: Personhood, Personality, and Abortion
Adviser: Markie

Timothy Patrick
Appointment: Assistant Professor of Health Informatics Health Management & Informatics and Associate Director Biomedical and Health Informatics Training Program, University of Missouri
Dissertation Title: Lewis-Style Semantics for Conditional Logic
of Obligation
Adviser: Weirich

George Mummert
Appointment: Minister
Dissertation Title: The Altruism of Mysticism
Adviser: Kultgen

1990

Thomas Manig
Appointment: Visiting Assistant Professor, Auburn University
Dissertation Title: A Socialist Theory of Distributive Justice
Adviser: Markie

Rory Conces
Appointment: Assistant Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs, University of Nebraska-Omaha
Dissertation Title: A Study of Intractable Ideological Disputes
Adviser: Kultgen

1989

David Raithel
Unknown
Dissertation Title: Rational Self-Interest and Gauthier's Proviso
Adviser: Markie

1987

Albert Messner
Unknown
Dissertation Title: Aristotle's Theory of Moral Weakness
Adviser: Markie

Kam-Lun Kwong
Unknown
Dissertation Title: Hegel's Critique of Kantian Morality
Adviser: von Schönborn

1986

Stephen Ben Wall-Smith
Appointment: Coordinator, Office of Campus Religious Life, Harris-Stowe State University
Dissertation Title: Magic and Mechanism in Current Peruvian Thought
Adviser: Berndtson

1985

Edward MacAlmon (retired)
Former Appointment: Divisional Social Services Director for the Salvation Army, St. Louis
Initial Appointment: Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies and Philosophy, Evangel University
Dissertation Title: Transactional Analysis as Good Social Science
Adviser: Kultgen

Thomas Martin
Appointment: Professor, Midland Lutheran College/University of Nebraska-Kearney
Dissertation Title: Dostoyevsky's Concept of a Nation
Adviser: Bien

Gilburt Goffstein
Appointment: Adjunct Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Radford University
Dissertation Title: The Origin and Nature of the Self
Adviser: Bien

Charles Schofield
Unknown
Dissertation Title: Argument and Unity in the Political and Moral
Teachings of Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan
Adviser: Bien

Mohamed Elrai
Unknown
Dissertation Title: Individual vs. State in Locke's and Rousseau's
Theories of Justice
Adviser: Bien

1983

Alexander Hooke
Appointment: Professor, Villa Julie College
Dissertation Title: Masters and Slaves: Studies in a Theory
of Intersubjectivity
Adviser: Kultgen

David Dye
deceased
Dissertation Title: Belief, Certainty, and Incorrigible
Foundations: An Examination of Panayot Butchvarov's
The Concept of Knowledge
Adviser: Markie

Richard McCarty
Appointment: Associate Professor of Philosophy, Eastern Carolina University
Dissertation Title: Aesthetic Experience and Value
Adviser: Berndtson

Sandra Reeves †
Appointment: Pasadena City College
Dissertation Title: Nietzsche's Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence: The Most
Scientific of all Possible Hypothesis
Adviser: Berndtson

1982

Lawrence Howe
Appointment: Associate Professor, University of West Florida
Dissertation Title: The Idea of Endosmosis in Bergson's Philosophy
Adviser: Berndtson

Lisa Isaacson
Appointment: Pastor, The Word Church
Dissertation Title: A Dialogue on Human Freedom: Sartre and
the Coherence/Stability Theory
Adviser: Kultgen

1981

Willis Van Groningen
Appointment: Chaplain, Trinity Christian College
Dissertation Title: A Logico-Ontological Synthesis
Adviser: Kultgen

Jane Uebelhoer
Appointment: Professor of Business Administration, Marymount University
Dissertation Title: Paternalism, Professionalsim and Ethics
Adviser: Kultgen

1980

Dean Cook
Former Appointment: Towson University
Current Appointment: Unknown
Dissertation Title: Chomsky: A Rationalist Philosophy of Science
Adviser: Kultgen

1979

Charles Harris
Former Appointment: Health Care Administrator
Current Appointment: Unknown
Dissertation Title: Justice and Health Care Delivery
Adviser: Bondeson

1977

O. A. Robinson
Former Appointment: Professor, Central Methodist College
Current Appointment: Unknown
Dissertation Title: Pattern and Social Decision
Adviser: Bien

Donald Baldwin (deceased)
Former Appointment: Professor, Vangard University of Southern California
Dissertation Title: The Divine Visual Language Argument in George Berkeley's Alciphron
Adviser: Kultgen

1976

John Shudy
Unknown
Dissertation Title: Justification of Induction: Primordial Induction
Adviser: Kultgen

Roger Gibson
Appointment: Professor, Washington University-St. Louis
Dissertation Title: The Logical Structure of Quine's Philosophy
Adviser: Kultgen

1975

Francis Baumli
Appointment: Professor Emeritius, Missouri Western College
Dissertation Title: Laughter, Comedy and Morals: A Bergsonian Synthesis
Adviser: Berndtson

1974

Eugene Hargrove
Appointment: Professor, University of North Texas; Editor, Environmental Ethics
Dissertation Title: Wittgenstein and Ethics
Adviser: Kultgen

Douglas Huff
Appointment: Professor, Gustavus Adolphus College
Dissertation Title: General Terms
Adviser: Wilcox

Anthony Waters
deceased
University of Louisiana-New Orleans
Dissertation Title: Alienation in the Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre
Adviser: Berndtson

1973

Eugene Bales
Appointment: Professor of Philosophy and Academic Vice-President, Bethany College
Dissertation Title: Plotinus: A Critical Examination
Adviser: Kultgen

John Bardi
Appointment: Lecturer in Philosophy, Penn State Mont Alto
Dissertation Title: Philosophy and the Phenomenon of Political Obligation
Adviser: Wilcox

George Georgacarakos
Initial Appointment: Professor, Kansas State University
Current Appointment: Professor, Gustavus Adolphus College
Dissertation Title: A Study in the Modal Extensions of Lewis S4
Adviser: Wilcox

John Richter
Unknown
Dissertation Title: New Light on Spinoza
Adviser: Kultgen

Ralph Nichols
deceased
Minister, Ft. Worth TX
Adjunct Professor, Texas Christian University
Dissertation Title: Being and Symbol in Paul Tillich
Adviser: Berndtson

1972

Phyllis Walden
Appointment: Director of Continuing Learning, Morton College/Depaul University School for New Learning
Dissertation Title: The Phenomenology of Loneliness
Adviser: Kultgen

Michael Boudreaux
deceased
Dissertation Title: Nothingness: The Adventure of the In-Itself
Adviser: Berndtson

Chere Shawer
Unknown
Dissertation Title: Abu Bakr Muhammad Ibn Zakariya Al-Razi on
Reason and Nature
Adviser: Kultgen

1971

Muhammed Harun-ar-Rashid
deceased
Dawson College
Dissertation Title: Alexander's Theory of Value and Its Foundations
Adviser: Kultgen

Karon Jack Turner
Unknown
Dissertation Title: Mind as a Principle of Order in the
Philosophy of C. S. Pierce
Adviser: Oliver

Jeanne St. Amour
Appointment: Glendale Community College
Dissertation Title: Transcendence in Teilhard and Blondel
Adviser: Kultgen

1970

Henry Smits
deceased
Professor, Truman State University
Dissertation Title: Some Aspects of the Ontological Argument
Adviser: Kultgen

George Yoos
Former Appointment: St. Cloud State University
Current Appointment: Unknown
Dissertation Title: An Analysis of Three Studies of Pictorial Representation
Adviser: Berndtson

Kathryn Cadigan (now Blair)
Appointment: Professor Emeritus, Truman State University
Dissertation Title: Neutrality in Metaethics
Adviser: Kultgen

Ronald Aichele
Appointment: Professor and Program Chair, Colorado State University-Pueblo
Dissertation Title: Dewey's Philosophy of Education
Adviser: Wilcox

1969

Frederick Aitken
Unknown
Dissertation Title: The Concept of Power in Nietzsche's Ethics
Adviser: Berndtson

Scott Yeargain
Former Appointment: Professor, Johnson City Community College
Current Appointment: Unknown
Dissertation Title: Freedom in Being and Nothingness
Adviser: Berndtson

William Blizek
Appointment: Professor, University of Nebraska-Omaha
Dissertation Title: Toward an Expressional Aesthetic
Adviser: Berndtson

Theodore Panish
Former Appointment: University of South Carolina
Current Appointment: Unknown
Dissertation Title: Phenomenology and the Human Body
Adviser: Kultgen

Anima Bhattacharya
Former Appointment: Oklahoma State College
Current Appointment: Adjunct Professor, Collin County Community College
Dissertation Title: Schopenhauer's Pessimism and Its Foundations
Adviser: Berndtson

1968

Sylvia Crocker
Former Appointment: Marquette/University of Wyoming
Current Appointment: Gestalt Therapist
Dissertation Title: Ontology and the Ontological Argument
Adviser: Berndtson

Duane Voskui
Former Appointment: University of North Dakota/Bismarck State College
Current Appointment: Violin maker
Dissertation Title: Whitehead's Metaphysical Aesthetic
Adviser: Berndtson

Delores Sweet
Former Appointment: California State Polytechnic University
Current Appointment: Unknown
Dissertation Title: Unity, Determinism and the Universe
Adviser: Kultgen

Kay Bikson
Former Appointment: University of Missouri-St. Louis
Current Appointment: Unknown
Dissertation Title: Peirce's Logic Treated as Semiotic
Adviser: Oliver

Charles Brown
Appointment: Professor Emeritus, Auburn University
Dissertation Title: Analyticity and Synonymy within the
Framework of Conceptual Meaning
Adviser: Oliver

Wayne Cogel
Appointment: Professor Emeritus, University of Missouri-Rolla
Dissertation Title: The Foundation of Bertrand Russell's
Philosophy of Value
Adviser: Berndtson

William Jaquette
Appointment: Professor Emeritus, Southwest Missouri State College
Dissertation Title: Value, Nothingness, and Sartre
Adviser: Berndtson

1967

David Higgins
Former Appointment: Southeast Georgia State College
Current Appointment: Unknown
Dissertation Title: Possibility in Peirce and Heidegger
Adviser: Oliver

Inez Byer
Appointment: Professor Emeritus, Cottey College
Dissertation Title: Tillich's Theory of God
Adviser: Berndtson

Richard Cording
Appointment: Professor, Sam Houston State University
Dissertation Title: Sartre's Theory of Freedom
Adviser: Kultgen

1966

Thomas Bikson
Former Appointment: Webster College
Current Appointment: Unknown
Dissertation Title: The Logical Atomism of Bertrand Russell
Advisers: Oliver and Scheer

William Brown
Appointment: Professor, Missouri State University
Dissertation Title: The Last Materialist: The Ontology of George Santayana
Adviser: Berndston

This list is a work in progress, if you are aware of any changes that need to be made, please contact Robert Johnson or Jonni Paxton.