Faculty and Staff

Daniel joined the department in 2009. He works in ethics and is currently writing a book on the ethics of gamete donation, with a special focus on the value of genetic knowledge and whether prospective parents should use an identity-release donor. He also plays in the indie rock band The Counterfactuals (with colleague Jason Decker) as well as the family music band Louis and Dan the Invisible Band. He has a dog named Messy Winkelman. In his spare time, he continues to work on his a priori proof that limes are just unripened lemons.

Read more about Daniel on his home page.

Jason came to Carleton in the fall of 2007 as a visiting professor of philosophy. He was hired tenure-track the following year on the condition that he either stop teaching environmental ethics or trade in his Jeep for a bicycle. He kept his word and is still at Carleton (so apparently someone gave him tenure at some point). He is interested in epistemology, logic, metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, and just about any philosophical problem worth its salt. He is also a member of the Cognitive Science department, which doesn’t make him a scientist, despite what he may have told you. He has published papers on a variety of topics including moral testimony and the epistemic significance of disagreement. He is currently working on two books—one on formal logic and one on conspiracy theories. If the two manuscripts come into contact, they will annihilate each other and neither will go to print. Jason lives in Northfield with his wife, Kim, and two smaller entities (one canine and one human).

St. Petersburg State University, Diploma; Central European University (Prague), Diploma; McGill University, Ph.D.

Anna Moltchanova received her Ph.D. from McGill University in 2001. Her most recent research is in social ontology, which includes defending a realist approach to group agency and developing a context-sensitive concept of group intentionality that would cover a range of political environments, from oppressive to liberal. She has worked on a number of issues in global justice and her book, National Self-Determination and Justice in Multinational States, was published in 2009 by Springer. She has an interest in Modern Political Thought and has written on Locke and Rousseau. Her articles have appeared in The Journal of Political Philosophy and Journal of Social Philosophy, and a number of peer-reviewed collections of papers.

Notre Dame, BA (Great Books); KU Leuven (Belgium), MA; Notre Dame, PhD

Allison was first drawn to ancient philosophy by the model of her father, who in theory and practice witnessed to the wisdom of Plato and Aristotle when it comes to the life well lived.

At Notre Dame she completed a dissertation on Aristotle’s account of friendship. Her current research partly focuses on core ideas from Aristotle’s account, including the way in which we perceive life – both individually and in communion with friends – as good and worthy of affirmation. A second area of research focuses on Plato’s Gorgias and the formative role of prior commitments on our ability to adjudicate between competing moral stances. She treasures the opportunities to explore these and other areas of philosophy with Carleton students, who are a joy to talk and to think with!

Allison began at Carleton as a Visiting Assistant Professor in 2017 and started tenure-track in 2019. Though she lived in the Midwest for 10+ years before Carleton, it wasn’t until her arrival in Minnesota that she learned how to dress appropriately for winter. No longer in imminent danger of frostbite, she has enjoyed using the Carleton arboretum to learn how to ski.

Illinois State University, BA; Northern Illinois University, MA; The Ohio State University, PhD

Hope will join the department this fall. She works on 17th and 18th century European philosophy, especially Anne Conway and Immanuel Kant. The themes of this research include time, freedom, and moral responsibility. In addition, she has a collaborative project in comparative philosophy that puts Conway and neo-Confucian feminist philosopher Im Yunjidang in dialogue on issues of moral equality. Her recent work is on feminist methodology in the history of philosophy.

Hope is excited to talk philosophy with Carls! She has also been told that Minnesota is cold, and has been preparing herself by writing all papers from within her refrigerator.

St. Olaf College, B.A.; Northwestern University, Ph.D.

Baylor University, B.A.; Harvard University, B.D.; Yale University, M.A., Ph.D.

Philosophy of social science, philosophy of religion, Ancient Greek philosophy.