Kevin J. Kukla
- Office: 329 ten Hoor Hall
- Spring 2008 Office Hours: MWF, 2.00 -- 3.00 pm & by appointment
- Phone: 205/348.0407
- Fax: 205/348.7904
- Email: kjkukla@bama.ua.edu
- Website: http://www.bama.ua.edu/~kjkukla/
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Areas of Specialization
Philosophical Logic, Philosophy of Language
Metaphysics/Epistemology,
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Areas of Competence
Logic, Critical Thinking, Ethics, Modern Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, Philosopy of Mind, Philosophy of Science
Dr. Kukla received his Ph.D. from Syracuse University (2007) and joined the department in 2007. In his dissertation, An Anti-Bivalentist Solution to the Sorites Paradox, he argued that by extending classical logic and semantics to coherently deny bivalence one has the logical resources to resolve the sorites paradox. This non-classical solution to the sorites paradox respects our ordinary intuitions about sentences that seem neither-true-nor-false, such as "Divia is young", said of a thirty-year old women and has the logical apparatus to handle higher-order vagueness (e.g. at some times, it was unclear whether it was unclear whether Divia was young), irrespective of how many levels exist.
My research interests are in philosophical logic, philosophy of language, and contemporary analytic metaphysics/epistemology. My research can be classified into three projects: developing a non-bivalent logic and semantics (i.e. not every sentence is either true or false) in response to the sorites paradox and vagueness in natural language; defending the claim that logic has a normative relation to thought; and defending the claim that cosmic fine-tuning is a fact that needs to be explained. I am also interested in philosophical methodology (e.g. the nature and role of thought-experiments in philosophical reasoning), philosophy of science, just war theory, and modern philosophy.
He has one paper forthcoming and three papers currently under review.