Sam Cowling
CV | cowlings[at]denison[dot]edu
I'm a professor in the Department of Philosophy at Denison University. I work mainly in metaphysics and the philosophy of comics with a focus on ontology (what exists), modality (how things could have been), fiction (stories we make up), and cartooning (how comics convey information). I also teach logic and the philosophy of science.
I was born and raised on Vancouver Island, home of the Nanaimo Bar.
Books
Philosophy of Comics with Wesley D. Cray (2022)
Abstract Entities (2017)
Articles
Omnipresence and Mathematical Reality (forthcoming) Oxford Handbook of Omnipresence
Hume's Razor (forthcoming) Philosophical Methodology after Carnap
Portraits as Parts of Comics (forthcoming) Essays on the Comics of Alex Ross
Speech Balloons (2024) Bloomsbury Contemporary Aesthetics
Self-Defense for Superheroes in The Hawk and the Dove (2024) BOOM! Splat! Comics and Violence
Are Properties Abstract Entities? (2024) Routledge Handbook of Properties
Naturalism and Non-Qualitative Properties (2021) Common Sense Metaphysics
Recombining Non-Qualitative Reality (2021) Synthese
Rethinking Racial Ontology through McDuffie's Deathlok (2020) Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society
Ideology and Ontology (2020) Routledge Handbook of Metametaphysics
Prioritizing Platonism (w/ Kelly Trogdon) (2019) Philosophical Studies
Universals (2019) Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Conceivability Arguments for Haecceitism (2017) Synthese
Intrinsic Properties of Properties (2017) Philosophical Quarterly
How to be Omnipresent (w/ Wesley D. Cray) (2017) American Philosophical Quarterly
Resemblance (2017) Philosophy Compass
Haecceitism (2015) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Advice for Eleatics (2015) Palgrave Handbook of Philosophical Methods
Non-Qualitative Properties (2015) Erkenntnis
No Simples, No Gunk, No Nothing (2014) Pacific Philosophical Quarterly
The Way of Actuality (2014) Australasian Journal of Philosophy
Instantiation as Location (2014) Philosophical Studies
The Modal View of Essence (2013) Canadian Journal of Philosophy
Ideological Parsimony (2013) Synthese
Haecceitism for Modal Realists (2012) Erkenntnis
The Limits of Modality (2011) Philosophical Quarterly
Kantian Humility and Ontological Categories (2010) Analysis
Selected Reviews
About Haecceity by Matthew Davidson, NDPR
Essence and Existence by Bob Hale, NDPR
Ontology without Borders by Jody Azzouni, Mind
Superhero Thought Experiments: Comic Book Philosophy by Gavaler & Goldberg, Teaching Philosophy
Ontology & the Ambitions of Metaphysics by Thomas Hofweber, Philosophical Quarterly
God and Necessity by Brian Leftow, Australasian Journal of Philosophy