Lex Newman – Associate Professor and Undergraduate Director

Professor Newman joined the faculty in 2000. He specializes in early modern philosophy, especially Descartes and Locke. He received his PhD from the University of California, Irvine. Previously, he taught at University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and at University of Pittsburgh.

E-mail:  lnewman@philosophy.utah.edu

Office phone:  (801) 581-8749

Office location: CTIHB 413 (find on map)

Mailing address:

Department of Philosophy
University of Utah
215 Central Campus Dr, #413
Salt Lake City, UT 84112

Curriculum Vitae

Note: The poet of the same name is not me (I'm no poet).

    Office Hours – Summer 2012:

By appointment

    Research

Books

• Editor, The Cambridge Companion to Locke's Essay. Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Selected Papers

• "Locke on Judgment and Proposition Formation."  (In preparation)
• "Locke's Experiential Idea of Mechanism."  (In preparation)
• "Locke on Our Knowledge of the External World".  (In preparation)
• "Frankfurt and the Cartesian Circle", in the Debates in Modern Philosophy: The Essential Readings, ed. A. LoLordo and S. Duncan. (Routledge, forthcoming)
• "The Theory of Ideas", in the Routledge Companion to Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, ed. D. Kaufman. (Forthcoming)
• "Sensory Doubts and the Directness of Perception in the Meditations", Midwest Studies in Philosophy xxxv (2011)
• "Descartes' Epistemology", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta (substantive update, July 2010; http://plato.stanford.edu).
• "Ideas, Pictures, and the Directness of Perception in Descartes and Locke", Blackwell's Philosophy Compass 4 (2009)
• "Descartes on the Will in Judgment", A Companion to Descartes, ed. J. Broughton and J. Carriero.  Blackwell Publishing (2008), 334-352.
• "Locke on Knowledge", for the Cambridge Companion to Locke's Essay.  Cambridge University Press (2007).
• "Descartes' Rationalist Epistemology", A Companion to Rationalism, ed. A. Nelson.  Blackwell Publishing (2006).
• "Locke on Sensitive Knowledge and the Veil of Perception - Four Misconceptions", Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 85, no. 3 (Sept 2004), 273-300.
• "Rocking the Foundations of Cartesian Knowledge: Critical Notice of Janet Broughton, Descartes's Method of Doubt", Philosophical Review, vol. 113, no. 1 (January 2004), 101-125.
• Review of George Pappas' Berkeley's Thought (Cornell 2000).  Philosophical Review, vol. 111, no. 2 (April 2003).
• "Unmasking Descartes' Case for the Bête Machine Doctrine", Canadian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 31, no. 3 (September 2001), 389-426.
• Review of Thomas Vinci's Cartesian Truth (Oxford 1998), in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. 62, no. 3 (May 2001), 735-38.
• "Locke on the Idea of Substratum", Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 81, no. 3 (September 2000), 291-324.
• "The Fourth Meditation", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. 59, no. 3 (September 1999), 559-591.
• "Circumventing Cartesian Circles" (with Alan Nelson), Noûs, vol. 33, no. 3 (1999), 370-404.
• "Descartes' Epistemology", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta (posted December 3, 1997; http://plato.stanford.edu).
• "Descartes on Unknown Faculties and Our Knowledge of the External World", Philosophical Review, vol. 103, no. 3 (July 1994), 489-531.

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    Teaching

Courses:

• Spring 2012:
  • Phil 1002 – Intro: God, Faith & Reason (course web) (textbook info)
  
  
• Fall 2011:
  • Phil 5120/6120 – David Hume (Modern & Recent Phil) (course web) (textbook info)
  • Phil 3200 – Deductive Logic (course web) (textbook info)
  
  
• Spring 2011:
  • Phil 3300 – Theory of Knowledge (course web) (textbook info)
  • Phil 7130 – Graduate Seminar on Descartes (textbook info)
  
  
• Fall 2010:
  • Phil 1002 – Intro: God, Faith & Reason (course web) (textbook info)
  
  
• Spring 2010:
  • Phil 5120/6120 – British Empiricism (Modern & Recent Phil) (course web) (textbook info)
  
  
• Fall 2009:
  • Phil 3200 – Deductive Logic (course web) (textbook info)
  • Phil 4120 – Early Modern Philosophy (course web) (textbook info)
  
  

Technology Projects:

• Reasoning Tutor (developed with James Sage):

Reasoning Tutor is a series of computer delivered reasoning exercises enabling students to learn, and be tested, on basic reasoning concepts outside of the classroom – either online, or using a CD-ROM.

 

 

215 South Central Campus Dr, 4th Floor, Salt Lake City, UT  84112
Phone (801) 581-8161     Fax (801) 585-5195