Sydney Penner

Curriculum vitae

The authoritative and more aesthetically pleasing PDF version can be found here: CV in PDF.

Academic Employment

Asbury University, Wilmore, KY
Instructor, Spring 2015-to present

University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY
Instructor, Spring 2016

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Visiting Assistant Professor, Fall 2014

The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
Visiting Assistant Professor, Spring 2014

Asbury University, Wilmore, KY
Instructor, Fall 2013

Merton College, Oxford, UK
Junior Research Fellow, 2010-2013

Education

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
Ph.D., Philosophy, May 2011
'Francisco Suárez on Practical Reason and Action'
Committee: Scott MacDonald (chair), Andrew Chignell, Terence Irwin, and Sukjae Lee
M.A. in Philosophy, August 2008

Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
B.A. in History and Philosophy, May 2005
History thesis: 'Sixteenth-Century Anabaptists and the Miraculous'
Advisor: Carlos M. N. Eire
Philosophy thesis: 'Kant on the Emotions'
Advisor: Michael Weber

Acadia University, Wolfville, NS, Canada
History and Philosophy, 2001–03

Rosedale Bible College, Irwin, OH, USA
A.A. in Biblical Studies, May 2001

Areas of Specialization

Medieval, Early Modern

Areas of Competence

Ancient, Ethics, Metaphysics, Moral Psychology, Philosophy of Religion

Books

Suárez's Metaphysical Disputations: A Critical Guide, edited with Shane Duarte (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming)

Published and Forthcoming Papers

'Hurtado on Concurrentism and the Individuation of Effects', in Hurtado and the Matrix of Baroque Scholasticism, edited by Daniel D. Novotný and Lukáš Novák, forthcoming
'Making Use of the Testimonies: Suárez and Grotius on Natural Law', Grotiana 41 (2020): 108-36
'Debates about the Will and Its Freedom', in Philosophy of Mind in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance, edited by Stephan Schmid (London: Routledge, 2019), 144-64
'Early Modern Scotists and Eudaimonism: The Affection for Advantage and the Affection for Justice', American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 93.2 (2019): 227-50
'Suárez on Substantial Forms: A Heroic Last Stand?', in Francisco Suárez (1548-1617): Jesuits and the Complexities of Modernity, edited by Robert Aleksander Maryks and Juan Antonio Senent de Frutos (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 46-71
'Four Kinds of Intention: Actual, Habitual, Virtual, and Interpretative', Pensamiento 74 (2018): 91-121
'Free Will', in The Routledge Companion to Sixteenth Century Philosophy, edited by Benjamin Hill and Henrik Lagerlund (New York: Routledge, 2017), 493-515
'Why Do Medieval Philosophers Reject Polyadic Accidents?', in The Metaphysics of Relations, edited by Anna Marmodoro and David Yates (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 55-79
'Final Causality: Suárez on the Priority of Final Causation', in Suárez on Aristotelian Causality, edited by Jakob Leth Fink (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 121-48
'Free and Rational: Suárez on the Will', Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 95, no. 1 (2013): 1-35
'Suárez on the Reduction of Categorical Relations', Philosophers' Imprint, 13, no. 2 (2013): 1-24
'Rodrigo de Arriaga on Relations', The Modern Schoolman 89, no. 1-2 (2012): 25-46

Encyclopedia Entries

'Suárez, Francisco', The Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Religion, edited by Stewart Goetz and Charles Taliaferro (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2021)
'Scholasticism and Aristotelianism: Fourteenth to Seventeenth Centuries', in Oxford Bibliographies in Renaissance and Reformation, edited by Margaret King. 2019. DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195399301-0419
'Francisco Suárez (1548-1617)', Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by James Fieser and Bradley Dowden (2015)
'Relation', New Catholic Encyclopedia, Supplement 2012-13 (Detroit: Gale, 2013), vol. 4, 1319-22

Book Reviews

Review of Ens rationis from Suárez to Caramuel: A Study in Scholasticism of the Baroque Era, by Daniel D. Novotný (New York: Fordham University Press, 2013), forthcoming in British Journal for the History of Philosophy
Review of The Political Morality of the Late Scholastics: Civic Life, War and Conscience, by Daniel Schwartz, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2020
Review of After Certainty: A History of Our Epistemic Ideals and Illusions, by Robert Pasnau, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2018
Review of Universals in Second Scholasticism, by Daniel Heider, Journal of Jesuit Studies 2.2 (2015): 314-16
Review of "Auctoritas omnium legum": Francisco Suárez's De legibus zwischen Theologie, Philosophie und Jurisprudenz, edited by Oliver Bach, Norbert Brieskorn, and Gideon Stiening, Renaissance Quarterly 67.2 (2014): 649-51
Review of Metaphysical Themes, 1274-1671, by Robert Pasnau (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), The Philosophical Review 123 (2014): 107-12
'"The Pope and Prince of All the Metaphysicians'': Some Recent Works on Suárez', British Journal for the History of Philosophy 21, no. 2 (2013): 393-403 (essay reviewing four recent books on Suárez)
Review of Suarezismus. Erkenntnistheoretisches aus dem Nachlass des Jesuitengenerals Tirso Gonzáles de Santalla (1624-1705), by Sven K. Knebel (Amsterdam, B. R. Grüner, 2010), Journal of the History of Philosophy 50 (2012): 459-60

Honours and Awards

NEH Summer Institute (Between Medieval and Modern: Philosophy from 1300-1700), 2015
Society for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy Founders Award, 2010
Cornell University Sage Fellowship, 2005–2006, Spr. 2008, and Spr. 2009
Andrew D. White Prize (for best senior essay in European history), 2005
Mellon Research Grant, 2004
Honours Summer Research Award, 2003
E. Blanche Thomas History Prize, 2002
Kirkconnell Scholarship, 2002
Traditio (Pew Younger Scholars), 2002

Presentations

'Suárez on Substantial Forms and Substantial Unities', Francisco Suárez: Predecessors and Successors, Loyola University Chicago, April 2019
'Making Use of the Testimonies: Suárez and Grotius on Natural Law', Legal Foundations and Themes in Grotius's De jure belli ac pacis, University of Leuven, November 2018
'A Unified Account of Unified Wholes: Suárez's Arguments for Substantial Forms', Substance in Early Modern Scholasticism, University of Groningen, June 2018
'Suárez on Substantial Forms: A Heroic Last Stand?', Seville, Spain, June 2018
'Final Causes and Divine Actions', The Morris Colloquium in Medieval Philosophy, University of Colorado, Boulder, April 2018
'Medicine or Poison? Aquinas on Lying', Transylvania University, February 2018
'Hurtado on the Individuation of Effects', Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza (1578-1641), University of South Bohemia, Ceske Budejovice, Czechia, November 2016
'Epistemic Conditions on Causation', 51st International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 2016
'Comments on Suárez, DM 10.1', The Moody Workshop on Medieval Logic, UCLA, February 2016
'"The Word of God is My Dutch Tube": Geulincx, Occasionalism, and Eudaimonism', Controversies in Early Modern Psychology, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, July 2015
'Suárez and Malebranche on Necessary Causes'
- NEH Summer Institute, University of Colorado, Boulder, July 2015
- Cornell Summer Colloquium in Medieval Philosophy, May 2015
'Suárez on Mid-level Goods and the Ultimate End', Colgate University, December 2014
'Renaissance Debates about the Will and Its Freedom', Berlin, Germany, October 2014
'Suárez on Universals', How Universal are Universals, University of Cambridge, UK, April 2014
'Suárez on the Priority of Final Causation', APA Central, February 2013
' "An Accident That Is Simultaneously in Two Subjects": Leibniz and Some Predecessors on the Possibility of Two-Subject Accidents', APA Eastern, December 2012
'Aquinas on Lying and Happiness', Cornell Summer Colloquium in Medieval Philosophy, May 2012
'Suárez on Final Causation', University of Copenhagen, February 2011
'Interpretative Intention in Suarez', The University of Toronto Colloquium in Mediaeval Philosophy, September 2010
'Termini and Final Causation', Discussion Club, Cornell University, December 2009
'Free and Rational: Suarez on the Will'
- APA Eastern, SMRP session, December 2010 (presented in my absence due to illness)
- Cornell Summer Colloquium in Medieval Philosophy, May 2009
'Suárez on Intellect and Will', Canadian Philosophical Association 53rd Annual Congress, Carleton University, May 2009
'Scotus's Two Affections of the Will in the Early Modern Period', North Sea Early Modern Philosophy Workshop, Leiden, February 2009
'Scotus's Two Affections of the Will in the Early Modern Period', Department Workshop, Cornell University, February 2009
'A Dualism of Theoretical Reason?', Department Workshop, Cornell University, April 2008
'Disagreement, Reasonableness, and Epistemic Values', Department Workshop, Cornell University, March 2007

Teaching Experience

Asbury University, Wilmore, KY

LA 100: Liberal Arts Seminar, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Fall 2021, Fall 2022
PHL 231: Ethics, Fall 2013, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2019, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022
PHL 343: Political and Social Philosophy, Fall 2016, Fall 2018, Fall 2020, Fall 2022
PHL 212: Modern Philosophy, Spring 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2021
PHL 211: Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, Fall 2019, Spring 2021
PHL 200: Introduction to Philosophy, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Fall 2020
PHL 293: Ethics Seminar with Lab, Spring 2020
PHL 441: Philosophical Theology, Spring 2015, Spring 2017, Spring 2020
PHL 393: Believing Responsibly, Spring 2019
PHL 322: Metaphysics, Fall 2015

University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY

PHI 100: Introduction to Philosophy, Spring 2016

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

PHIL 3210: Medieval Philosophy, Fall 2014
PHIL 6210: Medieval Philosophy (Suarez on Causation), Fall 2014

The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH

PHILOS 3220: History of Medieval Philosophy, Spring 2014
PHILOS 5850: Philosophy of Religion, Spring 2014

Merton College, Oxford

Tutorials

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Hilary 2012, Trinity 2012, Michaelmas 2012
Aquinas, Michaelmas 2012

Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Oxford

Tutorial

PHI/5 Ethics and the Good Life, Michaelmas 2011

Cornell University

Primary instructor

PHIL 1112 The Good Life, Fall 2009 and Spring 2010

Teaching Assistant

PHIL 2200 Ancient Philosophy, Fall 2008
PHIL 101 Introduction to Philosophy, Spring 2007 and Fall 2007
PHIL 217 19th and 20th Century European Thought, Fall 2006

Grader

PHIL 315 Medieval Philosophy, Fall 2007
PHIL 312 Modern Empiricism, Spring 2006

Dissertation Abstract

In my dissertation I explore the ethical views of Francisco Suarez (1548--1617), a philosopher who, although widely seen as one of the primary conduits between medieval scholasticism and early modern philosophy and once highly-regarded, has been strangely ignored in recent scholarship. I argue that, contrary to some recent suggestions, Suarez fits into the tradition of Aristotelian eudaemonism, although he develops the view in response to challenges raised by his predecessors.

Selected Non-philosophy Publications

'Swiss Anabaptists and the Miraculous', Mennonite Quarterly Review 80 (2006): 207-28

Service

Journal referee: American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Ergo, Filosoficky Casopis, History of Philosophy Quarterly, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Journal of the American Philosophical Association, Journal of the History of Philosophy, Philosophers' Imprint, The Review of Politics, The Southern Journal of Philosophy, The Thomist, Tijdschrift voor Filosofie
Co-ordinator and co-founder of Cornell's Graduate Student Visiting Philosopher Series, 2007-2009

Languages

Plautdietsch, English, German (reading), Latin (reading)

References

Scott MacDonald
Sage School of Philosophy
218 Goldwin Smith Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853

Andrew Chignell
1879 Hall, Washington Rd.
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ 08544

Terence Irwin
Keble College
Oxford
OX1 3PG
UK

Sukjae Lee
Department of Philosophy
Seoul National University
San 56-1, Sillim-dong, Gwanak-gu
Seoul 151-745, Korea

Cecilia Trifogli
All Souls College
Oxford
OX1 4AL
UK

Teaching Reference

Chris Bounds
Christian Studies and Philosophy
Asbury University
One Macklem Drive
Wilmore, KY 40390