Dr. Kevin R. Busch

Lecturer (DPhil, University of Oxford)

Areas of Specialization:
Early Modern Philosophy (esp. Hume), Modern Philosophy (esp. Kant), Metaphysics, Philosophy of Mind

Research Interests:
Dr. Busch works at the intersection of philosophy of mind and metaphysics, investigating how thought and perception represent objects, their sensible properties, and structural relations such as causation and modality—and what this means for metaphysical accounts of the world. He currently pursues these questions through work on Hume and Kant.

He is currently working on several papers on Hume and Kant. One paper asks whether a Humean account can explain modal thought without presupposing the modal resources it aims to explain. Another examines how Hume’s cognitive resources support thought about objects beyond immediate perception, using his treatment of spatiotemporal minima as a diagnostic case. A related paper on Kant explains how our sensory spatiotemporal representations can be independent of the understanding while remaining necessarily connected with it. A fourth paper identifies a central concern motivating Kant’s positive project, i.e., whether pure concepts can combine with sensible content to represent objects.

Select Publications:

  • 'Hume’s alleged lapse on the causal maxim' (2016), Hume Studies 42(1–2): 89–112.
  • 'Reason, induction, and the Humean objection to Kant' (2015), Kant Yearbook 7: 23–46.
  • 'Review of Bailey & O’Brien (eds.), Continuum Companion to Hume' (2017), Dialectica 71(1): 124–140.

Select Presentations:

  • 'Hume on thought of the external world', Hume Society session, APA Pacific Division (March 2027)
  • 'A Problem for Humean Modality', Maryland Philosophy Conference, Towson University (October 2026); Atlantic Canada Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy (July 2026); 52nd International Hume Conference, Charles University (June 2026)
  • 'Kant on rational sensibility', North American Kant Society Biennial Conference, McGill University (October 2025)
  • 'Kant’s Humean problem', Center for the Study of Scottish Philosophy Conference, Fordham University (May 2025)

Teaching:
Dr. Busch's teaching interests extend beyond his research areas to introductory philosophy, informal logic, epistemology, and ethics. At CSULB, his teaching assignments include:

  • PHIL448/548: Freedom and Agency (SP27)
  • PHIL423/523: Kant (FA27)
  • PHIL414/514: British Empiricism (SP27)

Future Directions:
Dr. Busch plans to investigate the notion of metaphysical cognition in Hume and Kant, especially our representation of substances, causal powers, and modal structure. He aims to do constructive work on the relation between cognition and the world it represents.