I am interested in the way that early (broadly) empiricist and idealist philosophers (most prominently, Berkeley, Du Chatelet, and Edwards) responded to the challenge of the emergence of Newtonian Mechanics. In particular, I focus on the role of metaphysics (matter, space/motion, force) in early modern scientific theories, and on the empiricist tradition's attempt to rid scientific theory of metaphysical assumptions in favor of experiment and observation. 

I am interested in the place of the faculty of imagination in the early modern period. In particular, I am interested in how the imagination begins as the fledgling faculty for retrieving and manipulating sensory contents, and becomes the foremost faculty of the mind (and perhaps even identical to the mind) in Hume and Kant. I am also interested in the relationship between the imagination and the passions in Malebranche and Du Chatelet.