William A. Bauer

I am a faculty member in Philosophy at North Carolina State University. 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. My research interests include philosophy of science, metaphysics, and applied ethics (especially bioethics and machine ethics). I'm particularly interested in the overlap between philosophy and science, the nature of fundamental physical properties (I defend a dispositional or powers-based view), personal identity, animal minds, animal ethics, and the social implications of AI. I frequently teach Bio-Medical Ethics, Thinking Logically, and Intro to Philosophy.

PUBLICATIONS
research articles
Virtuous vs. Utilitarian Artificial Moral Agents [links to Springer] Forthcoming in AI & Society
   DOI: 10.1007/s00146-018-0871-3
Powers and the Pantheistic Problem of Unity [links to Springer] Forthcoming in Sophia
   DOI: 10.1007/s11841-018-0654-9
Getting It Together: Psychological Unity and Deflationary Accounts of Animal Metacognition
    (w/Gary Comstock) [links to Springer] Forthcoming in Acta Analytica
    DOI: 10.1007/s12136-018-0340-0
Against Branching Identity [links to Springer]
    Philosophia, 45(4): 1709-1719 (2017) DOI: 10.1007/s11406-017-9870-8
Physical Intentionality, Extrinsicness, and the Direction of Causation [links to Springer]
    Acta Analytica, 31(4): 397-417 (2016) DOI: 10.1007/s12136-016-0283-2
Dispositional Essentialism and the Nature of Powerful Properties [links to PDF]
    Disputatio: International Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 5, No. 35: 1-19 (2013)
Four Theories of Pure Dispositions [links to 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 PDF*]
    Erkenntnis, 74(1): 81-99 (2011) DOI: 10.1007/s10670-010-9269-4

shorter pieces
Why Science Needs Philosophy Life as a Human, May 17, 2015
Scientific Reasoning Can Be Circular [links to PDF] The Reasoner, 8(1): 4-5 (2014)
Attributing Knowledge of the Virtues of Contextualism [links to PDF] The Reasoner, 2(8): 6-7 (2008)

dissertation
The Ontology of Pure Dispositions   over 1K downloads as of Jan 2018
[click title to see the abstract and download the PDF]
University of Nebraska-Lincoln (2010) (Adviser: Prof. Jennifer McKitrick)

book review
Review of The Triple Helix: The Soul of Bioethics by Lisa Bellantoni
Metapsychology Online Reviews 17(20) (2013)

short CV   [email me for a full CV]
academic positions & employment
Teaching Assistant Professor of Philosophy, NC State, 2010-Present
Teaching Assistant, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2005-2010
Graduate Assistant, Miami University (Ohio), 2003-2005
Officer, U.S. Army Medical Service Corps, 1996-2003 (attained rank of Captain)

education
Ph.D., Philosophy, University of Nebraska-Lincoln (2010)
M.A., Philosophy, Miami University (Ohio) (2005)
M.A., Humanities, California State University-Dominguez Hills (2001)
B.A. w/Honors, Biology, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago (1996)

awards
Summer Stipend, The Pantheism & Panentheism Project (John Templeton Foundation) (2017)
International Travel Grant, NC State College of Humanities & Social Sciences (2016)
Hinman Graduate Fellowship, University of Nebraska-Lincoln (2008-2009)
Chancellor’s Graduate Fellowship, University of Nebraska-Lincoln (2005-2007)
Distinguished Military Graduate, U.S. Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (1996)

* These PDF files are author-created versions for self-archiving purposes, in accordance with the copyrights held by the publishers; for all others, the copyright is held by the author, William A. Bauer.

COURSES
recent or current courses
Bio-Medical Ethics (online)
Thinking Logically (online)
Introduction to Philosophy
Introduction to Research Ethics (graduate, 2016-17)

some possible future courses
Metaphysics of Science (graduate seminar)
Symbolic Logic (introductory level)
Philosophy of Biology (advanced undergraduate)
Philosophy of Mind (advanced undergraduate)

RESOURCES (links)
philosophy resources
Critical Thinking Web
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
PhilPapers
Some Texts from Early Modern Philosophy
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The Indiana Philosophy Ontology Project
The Society for the Metaphysics of Science
Rotman Institute of Philosophy
Society for the Philosophy of Information
Power Structuralism in Ancient Ontologies (University of Oxford)

bioethics resources
Stem Cells: Biology, Bioethics, and Applications (Columbia Univ.)
NIH Bioethics Resources on the Web