Alexander Kocurek

What excites you most about joining our School of Arts and Humanities community?

“My colleagues! The Department of Philosophy at UC San Diego is top-notch when it comes to research. It is also a famously collegial department with a fantastic range of scholars in all sorts of areas. It is an exciting place to be and I’m excited to be here.”

Why did you choose your field? Why should students consider studying the arts and humanities?

“In high school, I was always STEM-focused and never really liked humanities that much. I always found more comfort in the objectivity of physics and mathematics—and, to some extent, that hasn’t changed. But at the University of Notre Dame, where I was an undergrad, everyone was required to take two philosophy and two theology courses. To my surprise, I found that philosophy was much more systematic and objective than I initially thought, and I realized that philosophical problems could be broken down in a logical manner just like physics problems. I was so captivated that I decided to double major in physics and philosophy. Over time, I found that both majors complemented each other: my understanding of physics improved as I became a better philosopher and vice versa. Eventually, I ended up fusing my interests in STEM and the humanities. I try to bring elements of both to my research and to my teaching.”

What research or project are you working on currently?

“At the moment, I have two broad areas of research. One concerns counterfactual reasoning, also known as hypothetical (or ‘what if’) reasoning. I’m specifically interested in reasoning about impossible and improbable scenarios. What would have happened if it was possible to square the circle? Or if I were to quantum tunnel to the moon? My work develops a general theory that can help understand the nature of reasoning about the impossible and the improbable.”

“The other project concerns the way we think, communicate and reason about matters of interpretation. Is there a fact of the matter as to whether Lil Nas X’s ‘Old Town Road’ is ‘country’? Or whether burritos are ‘sandwiches?’ Or do questions like this ultimately turn on an interpretive decision? I’m developing a formal logical framework for exploring these sorts of questions. In the end, the answer may simply be that what’s a matter of interpretation is itself a matter of interpretation.”

What’s your favorite class to teach and why?

“Puzzles & Paradoxes. This is the kind of course that initially got me excited about philosophy as a physics major. It’s an introductory course that’s designed to expose students to classic philosophical topics in a puzzle-based format. Each lecture, we cover a different paradox, breaking the paradox down and logically examining potential solutions. Some of the paradoxes are ancient (like Zeno’s paradoxes, the sorites and the Liar), while others have only emerged relatively recently (involving time travel, the simulation hypothesis, the trolley problem and AI ethics). I find this kind of course is especially approachable for students outside of the humanities (e.g., STEM majors), as well as anyone who like puzzles but is content with remaining puzzled.”

 What is something about yourself that is not typically included in your bio?

“I’m most famous for my guides to making TikZ diagrams in LaTeX.”

Alexander (Arc) Kocurek earned a Ph.D. in the Group in Logic and Methodology of Science at the University of California Berkeley in 2018. Most recently, he served as an assistant professor in the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell University.

Kocurek works primarily within philosophical logic, philosophy of language, metaphysics and epistemology, integrating insights from philosophy, mathematics and linguistics. His research focuses on counterfactual reasoning, the logic of impossibility, conceptual engineering and metaphilosophy.