William A. Bauer

I am a faculty member in Philosophy at North Carolina State University. Currently a Teaching Assistant Professor, I will become Teaching Associate Professor effective 16 Aug 2020. I was the Scholar in Residence at the University Honors Village for three academic years (2011-14). I arrived at NC State in 2010 after completing my doctoral work in Philosophy at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Prior to that, I completed an MA in Philosophy at Miami University (Ohio), noted for its emphasis on the history of philosophy, served as a U.S. Army medical services officer, and studied biology and philosophy at Illinois Tech. Working primarily in metaphysics and applied ethics, my specific research interests include the nature of fundamental physical properties (I defend a dispositional or powers-based view), personal identity, animal minds and ethics, and the social and ethical implications of AI. I regularly teach Bio-Medical Ethics, Thinking Logically, and Introduction to Philosophy.

Publications
Ethics of AI
AI Assistants and the Paradox of Internal Automaticity
   (w/Veljko Dubljević) Neuroethics (online 2019) DOI: 10.1007/s12152-019-09423-6
Virtuous vs. Utilitarian Artificial Moral Agents [Springer SharedIt]
   AI & Society 35: 263-271 (2020, online 2018) DOI: 10.1007/s00146-018-0871-3

Causal Powers and Dispositions
Powers and the Pantheistic Problem of Unity [Springer SharedIt]
   Sophia 58: 563-580 (2019, online 2018) DOI: 10.1007/s11841-018-0654-9
Physical Intentionality, Extrinsicness, and the Direction of Causation [Springer SharedIt]
    Acta Analytica, 31(4): 397-417 (2016) DOI: 10.1007/s12136-016-0283-2
Dispositional Essentialism and the Nature of Powerful Properties [open access]
    Disputatio: International Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 5, No. 35: 1-19 (2013)
    DOI: 10.2478/disp-2013-0001
Four Theories of Pure Dispositions [links to self-archive PDF*]
    Properties, Powers and Structures: Issues in the Metaphysics of Realism, A. Bird, B. Ellis,
    & H. Sankey (Eds.), Routledge (2012)
An Argument for the Extrinsic Grounding of Mass [links to Springer]
    Erkenntnis, 74(1): 81-99 (2011) DOI: 10.1007/s10670-010-9269-4

Philosophy of Mind
Getting It Together: Psychological Unity and Deflationary Accounts of Animal Metacognition
    (w/Gary Comstock) [Springer SharedIt]
   Acta Analytica, 33(4): 431-451 (2018) DOI: 10.1007/s12136-018-0340-0
Against Branching Identity [Springer SharedIt]
    Philosophia, 45(4): 1709-1719 (2017) DOI: 10.1007/s11406-017-9870-8

Short Pieces and Reviews
Why Science Needs Philosophy [open access]
   Life as a Human (May 17, 2015)
Scientific Reasoning Can Be Circular [PDF*]
   The Reasoner, 8(1): 4-5 (2014)
Review of The Triple Helix: The Soul of Bioethics by Lisa Bellantoni [open access]
   Metapsychology Online Reviews 17(20) (2013)
Attributing Knowledge of the Virtues of Contextualism [PDF*]
The Reasoner, 2(8): 6-7 (2008)

Dissertation
The Ontology of Pure Dispositions [Digital Commons] over 1,200 downloads
University of Nebraska-Lincoln (2010) (Adviser: Professor Jennifer McKitrick)

* These PDF files are author-created versions for self-archiving purposes, in accordance with the copyrights held by the publishers.

Recent Courses Taught
Bio-Medical Ethics (online)
Thinking Logically (online)
Introduction to Philosophy
Introduction to Research Ethics (graduate)

Philosophy Resources
Critical Thinking Web
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
PhilPapers
Rotman Institute of Philosophy
The Society for the Metaphysics of Science
Some Texts from Early Modern Philosophy
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Society for the Philosophy of Information
Wireless Philosophy