Faculty
![]() | Richard Buck, Chair | |
Dr. Buck began teaching at Mount St. Mary's in 2001. He works in the areas of 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, just responses to terrorism, and religious liberty in Catholic social thought. He regularly teaches the sophomore and senior philosophy core classes, and frequently offers electives in political philosophy and philosophy of law. | ||
Christopher Anadale | ||
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 degree program, which is open to both seminarians and lay students. Fall 2011 Office Hours: MWF 11-1 | ||
![]() | William J. Collinge | |
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 (1) St. Augustine and (2) Mysticism East and West. He is currently finishing a new (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 (www.icpj-gettysburg.org/festival.htm). | ||
![]() | Gertrude Conway B.A., College of New Rochelle; | |
Trudy Conway began teaching at Mount Saint’s 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 also 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 the sophomore Core courses, Moral Philosophy 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 B.A., Grand Canyon University; | |
Jessy Jordan received his Ph.D. 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 core courses such as Freshman Seminar, From Cosmos to Citizen, From Self to Society, and Moral Philosophy; 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 B.A., University of Notre Dame; | |
Dr. Miller earned his Ph.D. 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 core courses, 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 | |
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. | ||
John Schwenkler | ||
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. His web site is http://sites.google.com/site/jlschwenkler/. | ||
![]() | Msgr. Stuart Swetland 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 B.A. and M.A. 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. | ||
| ||







