Faculty/Staff

• Associate Professor, Philosophy

First Year at Xavier University:

2003

Degrees:

• BA, MA, Ph.D. (Boston University)

Expertise:

Political Philosophy, Ethics, Kant

Biography:

Aaron Szymkowiak received a BA in philosophy and an MA in Political Science from the Pennsylvania State University. He received his PhD in 2002 from Boston University, where he wrote his dissertation "Kant and the Question of the State: Freedom Permission, and Republicanism" under the direction of Knud Haakonssen and Henry Allison. Dr. Szymkowiak's work is concerned with Kant's notion of republicanism and its roots in a "permissive" conception of law.

While at Boston University, Dr. Szymkowiak was awarded a fellowship from the Institute for Humane Studies, and maintains an ongoing interest in the history of liberal political theory. His teaching at Xavier includes Philosophical Anthropology, as well as courses on the Social Contract tradition and the Scottish Enlightenment. He is currently working on kant's theory of international relations and the moral theory of Adam Smith.