User:Parableman

My name is Jeremy Pierce. I completed my Ph.D. in philosophy from Syracuse University in August 2011. I'm an adjunct assistant professor in philosophy at Le Moyne College, and I also teach at Onondaga Community College.

My areas of specialization for my Ph.D. work have been metaphysics, philosophy of race, and philosophy of religion. My dissertation was on the metaphysical and ethical issues of racial classification, and I have published my work in this area with Lexington Books (a division of Rowman & Littlefield) as A Realist Metaphysics of Race: A Context-Sensitive, Short-Term Retentionist, Long-Term Revisionist Approach (2015). I also have an article in the summer 2013 issue of Journal of Social Philosophy entitled "Glasgow's Race Antirealism: Experimental Philosophy and Thought Experiments". I also have strong interests in philosophical questions related to disability, especially autism and to other issues in social philosophy, including the metaphysics of sex, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity.

I have written several chapters on pop culture and philosophy, including on mutants and race in the X-Men (2007), on destiny and prophecy in Harry Potter (2009), on the metaphysics and ethics of time travel in Lost (2010), and on prophecy, time, disability, and teleology in Philip K. Dick's short story "The Golden Man" (2011). I have also written two chapters for Discworld and Philosophy (2016) from Open Court, one on personal identity and the other (a dialogue between Death and Lao Tzu) on free will, determinism, and foreknowledge. I contributed "Monday...Again" to The X-Files and Philosophy: The Truth is In Here (2017) and "Brain, Hodor, and Disability in Westeros" to The Ultimate Game of Thrones and Philosophy (2017).

In 2003, Faith and Philosophy published my review of Gregory Ganssle, ed., God and Time: Four Views, from InterVarsity Press. I also have published a review of a book on sexual orientation and bullying in the journal Men and Masculinities.

My other areas of competence in undergraduate teaching are logic, critical thinking, ethics (applied, theory, and history), epistemology, and the history of philosophy (esp. the ancient, medieval, and early modern periods). My philosophical interests include personal identity, persistence through time, material constitution, the nature of time, vagueness, arguments for and against the existence of God, determinism and freedom, foreknowledge and freedom, affirmative action, abortion, gender, disability, sexual orientation, Plato, the Stoics, Augustine, John Locke, and Gottfried Leibniz.

I have a weblog called Parableman, where I discuss philosophy, theology, biblical studies, Christian apologetics, politics, language, autism, and whatever else might catch my interest. It has taken a backseat to teaching and more formal publications of late, but I update it when I get a chance to write about something I've been thinking about. It also serves to organize links to sermons and studies from my congregation's teaching. I have also blogged at the now-defunct (but still accessible) First Things blog Evangel, and the no longer extant Syracuse University philosophy graduate student blog OrangePhilosophy. I was a co-founder of the also now-gone philosophy of religion blog Prosblogion.