Sam Cowling
CV | cowlings[at]denison[dot]edu

I'm associate provost for academic affairs and professor of philosophy at Denison University. My research cuts across metaphysics, philosophy of science, and the philosophy of art with a focus on ontology (what exists), modality (how things could have been), abstract entities (things like numbers and fictional characters), and the philosophy of comics. I also teach courses on logic and the history of analytic philosophy. 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 Nominalism in Metaphysics (w/ Dan Giberman) (2025) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 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