Academics
Philosophy Faculty
John Izzi
Department Chair
Professor of Philosophy
B.A. Fordham University; Ph.D. University of Paris-Sorbonne
Dr. Izzi is a specialist in European philosophy from the nineteenth century to the present (especially Nietzsche and Heidegger). He is also interested in the thought of Spinoza, Plotinus, and Chuang-Tzu. Dr. Izzi is currently researching the non-identifiable dimension of our self and the world. His most recent publication is “Proximity in Distance: Lévinas and Plotinus,” in Lévinas and the Ancients,” Indiana University Press, 2008.
Saint Edmund's Hall 242
Phone: 802.654.2367
Box 182
E-mail: jizzi@smcvt.edu
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Ronald Begley
Professor of Philosophy and Classics
B.A. Haverford College; M.A., Ph.D. University of North Carolina
Dr. Begley specializes in ancient philosophy, the scholastic-humanist debate, Pascal, Newman and Kierkegaard. He is currently collaborating with Daniel Sheerin (University of Notre Dame) on volume seventy-nine of the Collected Works of Erasmus, a translation and annotation of two apologiae of Erasmus against the Carthusian monk and Paris theologian, Pierre Cousturier. Recent Publications include Metaphor in the Apologia and Newman's Conversion in Ian Ker ed., Newman and Conversion.
Saint Edmund's Hall 236
Phone: 802.654.2313
Box 373
E-mail: rbegley@smcvt.edu
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Peter Tumulty
Professor of Philosophy
B.A. Cathedral College of the Immaculate Conception; M.A., Ph.D. University of Notre Dame
Dr. Tumulty's areas of competency are ethics, American philosophy, Wittgenstein and 17th-18th century philosophy. His interests are in social philosophy and Newman/religious humanism. Currently, Dr. Tumulty is researching the various types of preconditions for cognitively significant judgments, especially as they bear upon the formation of the young in a progressively secular and commercial society with disorienting consequences for ever more vulnerable individuals and communities. He joined Saint Michael's College faculty in 1974.
Saint Edmund's Hall 229
Phone: 802.654.2468
Box 191
E-mail: ptumulty@smcvt.edu
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Alicia Jaramillo
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
B.A. State University of New York at Buffalo; M.A. Yale University; Ph.D. Boston College
Dr. Jaramillo was the recipient of a Fulbright research fellowship during the 2004-05 academic year. Her dissertation title is “The problem of the finite and the infinite in Saint Thomas Aquinas: Aquinas’ solution to a question posed anew in modern philosophy.” During her Fulbright year in Louvain La Neuve, Belgium, she did research on Aquinas and Hegel.
Dr. Jaramillo’s article, “Alienation, the Unhappy Consciousness, and Self-Knowledge in Lonergan and Hegel,” has been accepted for publication in Method: Journal of Lonergan Studies. While a graduate student, she taught Philosophy of the Person I (2000-01) and II (2001) at Boston College, and History of Modern Christian Thought at Yale University (1998).
Phone: 802.654.2773
Box 123
E-mail: ajaramillo@smcvt.edu
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Katherine E. Kirby
Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Global studies
B.A. Salisbury State University; M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D. Fordham
A specialist in ethics and Continental philosophy, Dr. Kirby focuses on exploring human rights issues and the meaning of ethical behavior in the world today. Her work in applied ethics has focused on environmental philosophy, feminist ethics, and the problem of genocide.
Saint Edmund's Hall 128
Phone: 802.654.2873
Box 368
E-mail: kkirby@smcvt.edu
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Crystal L’Hôte
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
B.A. Colgate University; M.A., Ph.D. Johns Hopkins University
A specialist in philosophy of mind and metaphysics, Dr. L’Hôte focuses on aesthetics, ancient and medieval philosophy, bioethics, epistemology, feminist philosophy, philosophy of language and logic.
Saint Edmund's Hall 135
Phone: 802.654.2481
Box 376
E-mail: clhote@smcvt.edu
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R. Michael Olson
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
B.A. Boise State University; M.A., Ph.D. Emory University
Dr. Olson specializes in Ancient and Nineteenth-Century Philosophy. His interests within these areas include moral psychology, political philosophy and the philosophy of religion. Dr. Olson has published on John Henry Newman and is currently working on Aristotle’s philosophical psychology.
Saint Edmund's Hall 227
Phone: 802.654.2416
Box 354
E-mail: rolson@smcvt.edu
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Lara Ostaric
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
B.A. University of Chicago; M.A. McGill University; Ph.D. University of Notre Dame
Dr. Ostaric's research focuses on Kant, German Idealism, Kant's aesthetics and value theory. She offers courses on Kant, aesthetics, early modern philosophy, and modern political philosophy.
Phone: 802.654.2208
Box 153
E-mail: lostaric@smcvt.edu
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Keith R. Peterson
Instructor of Philosophy
B.A. Kent State University; M.A. Louisiana State University; Ph.D. DePaul University
Dr. Peterson's training is primarily in European philosophy from Kant to the present, and his primary areas of interest include value ethics, philosophy of nature, and philosophical anthropology. These three areas intersect in the traditional question of the “place of human beings in nature,” one of his current concerns. He has published a translation from German of an important text in the philosophy of nature by the German Idealist F. W. J. Schelling (SUNY Press, 2004), and is currently working on an undergraduate course book in philosophical anthropology called All That We Are: The Problem of Human Nature (forthcoming with SUNY Press, 2009). He is also Co-Chair of the Society for Ecofeminism, Environmental Justice, and Social Ecology (a subgroup of the International Association of Environmental Philosophy).
Founder’s Annex 260
Phone: 802.654.2746
Box 367
E-mail: kpeterson2@smcvt.edu
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Patrick Standen
Instructor of Philosophy
B.A., University of Vermont; M.A., Boston College
Mr. Standen’s interests in philosophy stem from a brilliant high school philosophy course he chanced to take. He would subsequently pursue an undergraduate degree in analytical philosophy and a graduate degree in continental thought. Mr. Standen has also completed graduate studies in psychoanalysis and philosophy at Harvard University, the philosophy of education at the University of Vermont, comparative law at Harvard Law School and literature and politics at Boston University. He served as an editorial assistant on the scholarly journal Philosophy and Social Criticism. His research interests include examining the philosophical and historic dimensions of disability, as well as studying the history of ideas and aesthetics.
Durick 332
Phone: 802.654.2407
Box 308
Email: pstanden@smcvt.edu