My theoretical grounding is in continental philosophy and the history of western philosophy. My primary interests lie in 19th and 20th century continental philosophy (especially German), late medieval mysticism and Neoplatonism, and metaphysics of the infinite. In recent years my research has focused on the nature of the epochal transition from the late medieval to the early modern age. My interest, here, is not purely historical. Rather, my work on the epochal transition aims at illuminating contemporary efforts at self- and world-understanding. I am interested in philosophical readings of this transition, which either implicitly or explicitly serve to provide existential orientation for the present age. Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Alexandre Koyré, Hannah Arendt, and in particular, Hans Blumenberg, are important figures of interest for me in this context.

If we are seriously to evaluate the status of the "legitimacy" of the modern world-view, then we must seek to understand the emergence of that world-view in its historical context. It is not possible to evaluate the legitimacy of any given system of self-and world-interpretation in isolation, apart from its particular context, as though at any point in time humanity is in a position to take its pick from countless available Weltanschauungen. Rather, the way in which we are able to make sense of the world and of ourselves is essentially contextual and has to do with the way in which we find ourselves already imbedded in the intricate web of interpretations woven and re-woven over time. The very questions we feel compelled to ask about the world and about our place in it are motivated in one way or another by the history of interpretations which we have inherited, and to which we feel compelled to respond in order to tell our story about ourselves and our world. Hence, in seeking existential orientation in the present, we always already find ourselves in a responsive dialogue with the interpretive systems of the past.

My current research projects revolve around the themes of radical beginnings, and the temporality of the moment or Augenblick (e.g. in the thought of Kierkegaard and Heidegger). Here, as in my earlier work, I am interested in basic philosophical issues concerning the relationship between the one and the many, parts and wholes, and the infinite and the finite.

My recent publications include:

"How can the infinite 'measure' the finite? Three Mathematical Metaphors from De docta ignorantia," Cusanus: The Legacy of Learned Ignorance, edited by Peter Casarella, Washington, D.C.: Catholic University Press, 2006.

The Immanence of the Infinite: Hans Blumenberg and the Threshold to Modernity, Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2002.

"Meister Eckhart and Nicholas of Cusa on the 'Where' of God," Nicholas of Cusa and His Age: Intellect and Spirituality, edited by Thomas Izbicki and Christopher Bellitto, Leiden: EJ Brill, 2002.

"From Vita Contemplativa to Vita Activa: Modern Instrumentalization of Theory and the Problem of Measure," International Journal of Philosophical Studies, Volume 9, Number 1, February 2001, pp. 19-40.

"Hans Blumenberg and Hannah Arendt on the 'Unworldly Worldliness' of the Modern Age," Journal of the History of Ideas, 61 (2000), pp. 513-530.

"Transitions to a Modern Cosmology: Meister Eckhart and Nicholas of Cusa on the Intensive Infinite," Journal of the History of Philosophy, 37 (1999), pp. 575-600.