About Me

I originally hail from Fort Worth Texas but have lived and worked in a variety of places. Until recently, I lived in Cardiff Wales where I taught philosophy at St David’s Catholic Sixth Form College and served as the Assistant Chaplain to Eastern Christians at Cardiff University. Currently, I am an adjunct faculty member at both Messiah University and Washington State Community College. I obtained my doctorate in philosophy from the University of Birmingham (UK) under the supervision of professors Yujin Nagasawa and Alastair Wilson. 

I have numerous research interests! To begin with, I'm fascinated by the eutaxiological argument for the existence of God and apophatic theism. In my dissertation, I proffer a rigorous defense of a novel version of the eutaxiological argument. I also provide a fresh response to the various problems facing the doctrine of divine ineffability (which is a fundamental tenet of apophatic theism). 

I'm also deeply interested in two closely related concepts; namely, the concept of 'the physical' and the concept of 'order'. To that end, I'm writing an article explicating and defending what I call the order-based conception of the physical. Unlike current attempts by physicalists at defining what it is to be physical, the order-based conception is not vulnerable to standard objections to physicalism such as Hempel's Dilemma. Additionally, I'm interested in the nature of explanations and in whether it is ever reasonable to believe that an unexplained fact is a brute fact. Traditionally, philosophers have argued against the existence of brute facts by endorsing some version of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR). Rather than follow this familiar path, I'm willing to grant that PSR is false whilst simultaneously arguing that it is never reasonable to believe an unexplained fact is ontologically brute. I recently published an article defending this position here.  

In addition to this, I am co-editing a volume for Palgrave-McMillian entitled Eastern Christian Approaches to Philosophy. It contains original articles from philosophers specializing in ancient, continental, and analytic philosophy and encompasses a wide range of issues including religious epistemology, philosophy of language, environmental ethics, human rights, and philosophical theology. 

Contact: joshuamatthanbrown@gmail.com