Philosophy Department Faculty

Richard Buck, Department Chair
Associate Professor
B.A., Loyola University of Chicago; M.A., Ph.D., University of Kansas

Dr. Buck began teaching at Mount St. Mary's in 2001. His research and teaching interests lie primary in political philosophy, ethical theory, philosophy of law, and contemporary Jewish philosophy (focusing on the work of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik). He has presented and published essays on the idea of public reason and the role of religious argument in public debate, equality and deliberate democracy, democratic legitimacy, just responses to terrorism, and religious liberty in Catholic social thought. He regularly teaches courses in the Veritas curriculum, and frequently offers electives in political philosophy and philosophy of law.

Christopher Anadale
Assistant Professor
B.A., Salisbury University; M.A., Ph.D., Emory University

Dr. Anadale joined the department in 2009, from a background in seminary teaching. He designs and teaches some philosophy courses for pre-theology seminarians at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary, as well as teaching in the undergraduate philosophy core. His areas of interest include modern philosophy, faith and reason, and epistemology. His current research interests include contemporary debates about faith and reason, the role of philosophy in seminary formation, and nineteenth century Catholic liberalism. Dr. Anadale is also director of the master of arts in philosophical studies program.

William J. Collinge
Professor of Theology and Philosophy
B.A., Georgetown University; M.Phil., Ph.D., Yale University

Dr. Collinge primarily teaches theology courses, although in the past he has taught a broad range of philosophy courses. Two courses that he teaches regularly that are cross-listed with philosophy are St. Augustine and  mysticism east and west. He is currently finishing a third edition of his Historical Dictionary of Catholicism. His research interests are the thought of St. Augustine; Dorothy Day and the Catholic worker movement; the theology of John S. Dunne; and Catholic social thought. Dr. Collinge is also the chair of the Adams County Heritage Festival, an annual multicultural festival of the arts.

Gertrude Conway
Professor of Philosophy
B.A., College of New Rochelle; M.A., Ph.D., Fordham University

Trudy Conway began teaching at Mount Saint Mary's in 1979. Prior to that she taught at Shiraz University in Iran. She works in the area of contemporary philosophy and has published a book and articles on the works of Wittgenstein and Gadamer. She has published on the topic of intercultural understanding and dialogue and the hermeneutical issues and virtues associated with them. She has also written on, and is actively involved in the issue of the death penalty. She regularly teaches courses in the Veritas curriculum and a non-west course focusing on intercultural dialogue. She has offered a wide range of electives on topics in contemporary philosophy, specific moral virtues, and perspectives on the death penalty.

Jessy Jordan
Assistant Professor
B.A., Grand Canyon University; M. Div., Truett Seminary; M.A., Ph.D., Baylor University

Jessy Jordan earned his doctoral degree in philosophy from Baylor University in 2008, completing a dissertation entitled Iris Murdoch's Genealogy of the Modern Self: Retrieving Consciousness Beyond the Linguistic Turn. His areas of specialization are Iris Murdoch, ethics, and philosophical argument in the form of historical narrative. He was drawn to the Mount because of its community of learners and its commitment to its distinctive Catholic liberal arts Veritas program. A great deal of his teaching time is thus happily spent teaching courses in the Veritas curriculum such as the Catholic liberal arts symposium, classical philosophy, and life of virtue; however, he has also taught electives such as philosophy and literature, and contemporary Catholic philosophy. His scholarly work is currently focused on the historicity of human understanding and its implications on moral realism.

Michael Miller
Associate Professor
B.A., University of Notre Dame; M.A., Ph.D., Boston College

Dr. Miller earned his doctoral degree in 2000 from Boston College, where he completed a dissertation In Defense of the Reconciliation of Divine Will and Human Freedom According to St. Thomas Aquinas. His research continues to focus upon questions that investigate the nature of God, metaphysics, and human nature. In addition to his published articles he edited Doing More with Life, a collection of essays from the perspective of various disciplines about the meaning of vocation. Dr. Miller very much enjoys teaching the department's courses in the Veritas curriculum, as well as various electives, including Medieval philosophy, metaphysics, and Islamic philosophy, a now-west course in the curriculum. Dr. Miller currently holds the Monsignor Robert R. Kline Chair of Philosophy. He joined the department in 2002.

Thane Naberhaus
Associate Professor
B.A., Rice University; M.A., University of Memphis; Ph.D., Georgetown University

Dr. Naberhaus's areas of interest are phenomenology, 19th and 20th c. German philosophy, modern philosophy, and contemporary philosophy. His research focuses on the phenomenological tradition, especially in its classical form as developed by Edmund Husserl. More broadly, he is interested in the tradition of transcendental philosophy as an alternative to empiricism, pragmatism, and other philosophical approaches that see the methods of inquiry in the natural sciences as models for philosophical truth-seeking. This interest leads to a particular focus on questions of philosophical method, and on what is distinctive about the philosophical mode of inquiry. Currently, Dr. Naberhaus is working on a translation of Husserl's First Philosophy, which deals with just these questions in a sustained way.

Angela Schwenkler
Assistant Professor
B.A., College of the Holy Cross; Ph. D., University of Notre Dame

Dr. Schwenkler earned her Ph.D. in 2011 from the University of Notre Dame, and has been a member of the Philosophy Department since 2012. The main focus of her research is on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, especially the relationship of his moral theory to his metaphysical and theological views. She also has interests in ancient philosophy, especially Aristotle's ethics. She teaches a regular course on ancient philosophy, covering pre-Socratic philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, ancient skepticism, stoicism, and Epicureanism, and the rise of neo-Platonism.

John Schwenkler
Assistant Professor
B.A., Catholic University of America; Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley

Dr. Schwenkler earned his doctorate from U.C. Berkeley just before coming to the Mount at the start of 2010. His areas of interest include: philosophy of psychology (esp. perception, action, self-awareness), theory of knowledge (esp. self-knowledge), Anscombe, and Aquinas. His current research focuses especially on visual perception, self-awareness, and intentional agency, and he is interested particularly in the relationship of empirical research to philosophical questions, and in the twentieth-century Catholic philosophical tradition. He has a personal website not affiliated with the Mount with more information.

Msgr. Stuart Swetland
Associate ProfessorB.S., United States Naval Academy; B.A. ,and M.A., New College, Oxford University; M.Div., M.A., (Theology); Mount St. Mary's Seminary; S.T.L., S.T.D., The Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Family and Marriage/The Catholic University of America; Diocese of Peoria

Msgr. Stuart W. Swetland received his undergraduate degree in physics from the United States Naval Academy. Elected a Rhodes Scholar in 1981, he entered the Catholic Church while studying at Oxford. He has a bachelor's degree and master's degree in politics, philosophy and economics from Oxford; a M.Div. and M.A. from Mount St. Mary's Seminary; and his S.T.L. and S.T.D. from the Pontifical Lateran University. He was ordained a priest in 1991 for the Diocese of Peoria, IL. Msgr. Swetland was named a Prelate of Honor in 2000 by His Holiness John Paul II. He serves as director of homiletics and pre-theology at Mount St. Mary's Seminary and regularly teaches moral philosophy at the University. Msgr. Swetland leads the President’s Council for Catholic Identity that promotes on-going discussions about implementing faith in everyday life across campus. He holds the Archbishop Harry J. Flynn Endowed Chair for Christian Ethics. Msgr. Swetland is a well regarded commentator for EWTN’s coverage of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and hosts its series Catholicism on Campus.