Ryan Christensen

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Department of Philosophy Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305

ryan.christensen(@)stanford.edu (801) 422–4821

Areas of Specialization

• Metaphysics (esp. truth, meta-ontology, modality, fictionalism)
• Philosophy of Language (esp. names, propositions, vagueness)
• Philosophy of Logic (esp. modal logic, consequence, the nature of logic)

Areas of Teaching Competence

• Epistemology
• Logic (to Gödel’s incompleteness theorems)
• Ancient Philosophy
• Philosophy of Religion

Education

• Stanford University
  • PhD, Philosophy, (expected) June 2008
  • M.A., Philosophy, June 2006
• Brigham Young University
  • B.A., Philosophy, August 2002

Dissertation

• Minimal Truth
• committee: Mark Crimmins (chair), John Etchemendy, John Perry

Academic Honors

• National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship, 2003–06
• Earhart Foundation Graduate Fellowship, 2002–03
• Gordon B. Hinckley (Presidential) Scholarship, 1996–97, 1999–2002
• Phi Kappa Phi, inducted 2001

Papers Presented

• “Minimal Axioms”
  • Department Colloquium, 2006, Stanford, California
• “Against the Axioms”
  • Berkeley-Stanford-Davis Graduate Conference 2006, Stanford, California
• “Charity and the Slingshot”
  • Berkeley-Stanford-Davis Graduate Conference 2004, Berkeley, California
• “Spoken Magic: Speech Act Theory in the Magic of Prospero”
  • Wooden O Symposium 2001, Cedar City, Utah

Publications

• “Argument” and “Fallacy,” New World Encyclopedia.
• “Noun-Adjective Compounds as a Poetic Type in Old English” (with Don Chapman), English Studies, 88 (2007): 447–64..
• “Bibliographical Note,” Early Christians in Disarray, Provo, Utah: FARMS (2005): 371–85.

Teaching

• as instructor
  • Deductive Logic
  • Metaphysics
  • Epistemology (next semester)
  • Ancient Philosophy (next semester)
• as graduate teaching assistant
  • God, Self, and World: an Introduction to Philosophy
  • Mind, Matter, and Meaning (a writing-intensive gateway course)
  • First-Order Logic
  • Medical Ethics

Professional Service

• Philosophy Talk webmaster, 2006–present
• Graduate admissions committee, 2005–06
• Hume Society co-president, 2003–04
• Aporia editor-in-chief, 2001–02

Languages

• Ancient Greek, Spanish