research

I am a philosopher of science and technology, and a scholar of Buddhist philosophy. Perhaps the central issue unifying my research concerns vulnerability: how might we best understand and reconcile ourselves to a fragmented world?  At the moment, I am focusing on a specification of this problem at the intersection of Buddhist metaphysics and philosophy of mind: how might a theory of mind support conceptualizing the world as a realm of thoroughgoing interdependence ? 

Fazang Website

Philosophy of Science

"Inference," in The SAGE Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, ed. James Mattingly (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2023),  375-380.

"Strategies of Explanatory Abstraction in Molecular Systems Biology," Philosophy of Science 85.5 (2018), 955-968.

"Network Analyses in Systems Biology: New Strategies for Dealing with Biological Complexity" (with Sara Green, Maria Serban, Raphael Scholl, Ingo Brigandt, and William Bechtel), Synthese 195 (2018), 1751-1777.

"Inference to the More Robust Explanation," British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 69 (2018), 75-102.

"Extracting Phenomena, Integrating Explanations, and Styling Representations: Some Frontiers for Philosophizing about Biology," in S.Green (ed), Philosophy of Systems Biology: Perspectives from Scientists and Philosophers (Springer, 2017): 147-156.

"Constraint-Based Reasoning for Search and Explanation: Strategies for Understanding Variation and Patterns in Biology" (with Sara Green) 70.3 dialectica (2016): 343-374.

"Bowtie Structures, Pathway Diagrams, and Topological Explanation," Erkenntnis 79.5 (2014): 1355-1155.

"Don't Blame the Idealizations," Journal for the General Philosophy of Science 44 (2013): 85-100.

"Diagrams as Locality Aids for Explanation and Model Construction in Cell Biology" (with Olaf Wolkenhauer), Biology and Philosophy 27.5 (2012): 705-721.

"General Relativity and the Standard Model: Why Evidence for One Does Not Disconfirm the Other," Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 40.2 (2009): 124-132.

"Is All Abstracting Idealizing?" The Reasoner 2.4 (2008): 4-5.


Asian Philosophy

Metaphors for Interdependence: Fazang's Buddhist Metaphysics. Oxford University Press. Under contract.

"A Buddhist Approach to Moral Knowledge without God," International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, forthcoming.

"Dependent Arising and Mutual Identity in Fazang's Huayan Thought," 2023華嚴專宗國際學術研討會論文集 [Proceedings of the 2023 International Symposium on Hua-yen Buddhism] (2024), 173-205.

"Harmonizing Chinese Buddhist Ethics," in J.Tiwald (ed), Oxford Handbook of Chinese Philosophy (Oxford University Press), forthcoming.

"Metaphysical Foundationalism, Heterarchical Structure, and Huayan Interdependence," Asian Journal of Philosophy 2 (2023), article 65. 

"Soteriological Mereology in the Pāli Discourses, Buddhaghosa, and Huayan Buddhism," Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 22.1 (2023), 117-143.

"Holistic Cognitive Style, Chinese Culture, and the Sinification of Buddhism," with Ryan Nichols, Res Philosophica 100.1 (2023), 93-120.

"Interpreting Interdependence in Fazang's Metaphysics," Journal of East Asian Philosophy 2.1 (2022), 35-52.

"Mereological Composition in Analytic and Buddhist Perspective," Journal of the American Philosophical Association 7.2 (2021), 173-194.

"An Account of Generous Action and Esteem in Pāli Buddhism," International Journal of Buddhist Thought & Culture 30.2 (2020), 195-225.

"A Russellian Analysis of the Buddhist Catuṣkoṭi," Comparative Philosophy 11.2 (2020), 63-89.

"Huayan Buddhism," with Bryan Van Norden, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (November 2019).

"The Architecture of Fazang's Six Characteristics," British Journal for the History of Philosophy 27.3 (2019), 468-491. *Winner of the Rogers Prize from the British Society for the History of Philosophy, for the best article published in 2019.

"Huayan Numismatics as Metaphysics: Explicating Fazang's Coin-Counting Metaphor," Philosophy East and West 68.4 (2018), 1155-1177.

"Metaphysics of Identity in Fazang's Huayan Wujiao Zhang: The Inexhaustible Freedom of Dependent Origination," in S.A.Wawrytko and Y.Wang (eds), Dao Companion to Chinese Buddhist Philosophy (Springer, 2018), 295-323.

"Dharma in Abhidharma Buddhism," 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology (June 2018).

"Fourth Industrial Dukkha: A Buddhist Case for Techno-Pessimism," in Encounter of Buddhism & the 4th Industrial Revolution 불교와  4차 산업 (Seoul: Korean Association of Buddhist Studies [한국불교학회], 2017), 595-625 (Korean translation 627-647).

"Correlative Reasoning about Water in Mengzi 6A2," Dao: Journal of Comparative Philosophy 15.2 (2016), 193-207.

"法藏：阐释、因果和分体关系,"《世界宗教文化》2016年第0卷第2期 122-132 ["Fazang: Hermeneutics, Causation, Mereology," Religious Cultures of the World 2016: 2, 122-132], translated into Chinese by He Yaqin 何亚琴, with my name translated into Chinese as 尼古拉斯·琼斯.

"Buddhist Reductionism and Emptiness in Huayan Perspective," in K.Tanaka, Y.Deguchi, J.L.Garfield, and G.Priest (eds), The Moon Points Back (Oxford University Press: 2015), 128-149.

"Mereological Heuristics for Huayan Buddhism," Philosophy East and West 60.3 (2010): 355-368.

"Nyaya-Vaisesika Inherence, Buddhist Reduction, and Huayan Total Power," Journal of Chinese Philosophy 37.s1 (2010): 215-230.

"Fazang's Total Power Mereology: An Interpretive Analytic Reconstruction," Asian Philosophy 19.3 (2009): 199-211.

"The Logic of Soku in the Kyoto School," Philosophy East and West 54.3 (2004): 302-321.


Philosophy of Technology

"Does My Driver Share My Moral View? Effects of Humanlikeness and Morality in an Adapted Trolley Problem," with A.Atchley, H.M.Barr, E.H.O'Hear, C.E.Gray, A.F.Chesser, and Nathan F. Tenhunfeld, Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting 66.1 (2022), 187-191.

"Race, Technology, and Posthumanism" (with Holly Jones), in M.R.Thomsen and J.Wamberg (eds.), Bloomsbury Handbook of Posthumanism (Bloomsbury, 2020), 161-170.

"Fourth Industrial Dukkha: A Buddhist Case for Techno-Pessimism," in Encounter of Buddhism & the 4th Industrial Revolution 불교와  4차 산업 (Seoul: Korean Association of Buddhist Studies [한국불교학회], 2017), 595-625 (Korean translation 627-647).

"Race as Technology: From Posthuman Cyborg to Human Industry" (with Holly Jones), Ilha do Desterro 70.2 (2017), 39-51.

"A Principles-based Model of Ethical Considerations in Military Decision Making" (with G.S.Reed, M.D.Petty, A.W.Morris, J.P.Ballenger, and H.S.Delugach), Journal of Defense Modeling and Simulation 13.2 (2016), 195-211.

"Toward Modeling and Automating Ethical Decision Making: Design, Implementation, Limitations, and Responsibilities" (with G.S.Reed), Topoi 32 (2013): 237-250.


Philosophy of Religion

"A Buddhist Approach to Moral Knowledge without God," International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, forthcoming.

"An Atheistic Argument from Ugliness" (with S.Aikin), European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 7.1 (2015): 209-217.

"Evidence and Falsification: Reply to Gregory Peterson," Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 43.3 (2009): 599-604.

"Is Theology Respectable as Metaphysics?" Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 43.3 (2009): 579-592.


And More!


"A Buddhist Perspective on Energy Bending, Strength, and the Power of Aang's Spirit" (with Holly Jones), in Helen De Cruz and Johan De Smedt (eds.), Avatar: The Last Airbender and Philosophy (Blackwell, 2023), 225-234.

"Hesiod and Anaximander in Comparison," Classical Wisdom, 26 March 2021.

"At times of great suffering, the greatest gift is accompaniment by another," Aeon, 17 April 2020.

"Critical Epistemology for Analysis of Competing Hypotheses," Intelligence and National Security 33.2 (2018), 273-289.

"An Arrovian Impossibility Theorem for the Epistemology of Disagreement," Logos and Episteme 3.1 (2012): 97-115.

"Unreliable Informant Testimony" (with J.S.Neuschatz, S.A.Wetmore, and J.McClung), in B.Cutler (ed), Conviction of the Innocent: Lessons from Psychological Research (Washington, D.C.: APA Press, 2010), 213-238.

"Civility, Sincerity, and Ambiguity," Alabama Humanities Review 1.1 (2011). (Winner of 1st Whetstone-Seaman Faculty Development Award, sponsored by Alabama Humanities Foundation.)

"Idealizing, Abstracting, and Semantic Dispositionalism" (with A.Podlaskowski), European Journal of Philosophy 20.1 (2010): 166-178.


Sometimes I supervise paid summer research for undergraduates as part of a university-sponsored RCEU Program.


I also supervise capstone project research for students in the Honors College.


Community Contributions

In 2021-2022 and 2022-2023, I served as a member of the Desegregation Advisory Committee (DAC). The DAC is part of a Consent Order between the United States Department of Justice and Huntsville City Schools).