Rutgers University, Department of Philosophy, 1 Seminary Place, New Brunswick, NJ 08901 // 732.932.9861 // dwzimmer@rci.rutgers.edu
I'm a professor of philosophy at Rutgers University and the keyboardist for Jigs and the Pigs. You'll find a picture of me here, my curriculum vitae here, and my research below. I specialize in metaphysics and the philosophy of religion. I'm the director of Metaphysical Mayhem (a biennial summer workshop for graduate students) and co-organizer, with Michael Rota, of the St. Thomas Summer Seminars in Philosophy of Religion and Philosophical Theology (re-convening in 2014). I'm also co-editor of the Oxford Studies in Metaphysics with Karen Bennett. Currently, i'm writing a book on the philosophy of religion for the Princeton Foundations of Philosophy series.
"A Recent Defense of Monism Based upon the Interrelatedness of All Things" (draft)
"Materialism, Dualism, and 'Simple' Theories of Personal Identity." in Personal Identity: Complex or Simple?, ed. by Georg Gasser (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming) [pdf]
"Presentism and the Space-Time Manifold", The Oxford Handbook of Time, ed. by Craig Callender (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 163-244 [pdf]
"From Experience to Experiencer", in The Soul Hypothesis, ed. by Mark C. Baker and Stewart Goetz (New York and London: Continuum, 2011), pp. 168-96 [pdf]
"Dean Zimmerman" (answers to five questions), in Metaphysics: 5 Questions, ed. by Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen (Automatic Press: Copenhagen, Denmark, 2010), pp. 197-224
"From Property Dualism to Substance Dualism", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Vol. LXXXIV (2010), pp. 119-50 [pdf]
"Properties, Minds, and Bodies: An Examination of Sydney Shoemaker's Metaphysics", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 78, No. 3 (2009), pp. 673 738 [pdf]
"Problems for Animalism", Abstracta, Special Issue I (2008), pp. 23-31 [pdf]
"The Privileged Present: Defending an 'A-theory' of Time", in Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics, ed. by Ted Sider, John Hawthorne, and Dean W. Zimmerman (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2007), pp. 211-225 [pdf]
"Can One 'Take Tense Seriously' and Be a B-theorist?" (a postscript to "Temporary Intrinsics and Presentism"), in Persistence, ed. by Sally Haslanger and Roxanne Marie Kurtz (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T., 2006), pp. 404-424 [pdf]
"The A-theory of Time, the B-theory of Time, and 'Taking Tense Seriously'", Dialectica, Vol. 59, No. 4 (2005), pp. 401-57 [pdf]
"Prologue: Metaphysics After the 20th Century", in Oxford Studies in Metaphysics: Vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. ix-xxiv [pdf]
"Contemporary Metaphysics: An Introduction" (with Michael Loux), in Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, edited by Loux and Zimmerman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 1-7
"Material People", in Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, edited by Michael J. Loux and Dean W. Zimmerman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 491-526 [pdf]
"The Constitution of Persons by Bodies: A Critique of Lynne Rudder Baker's Theory of Material Constitution", Philosophical Topics, Vol. 30, No. 1 (2002), pp. 295-338 [pdf]
"Scala and the Spinning Spheres", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 64, No. 2 (March 2002), pp. 398-405
"Persons and Bodies: Constitution Without Mereology?", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 64, No. 3 (May 2002), pp. 599-606
"What Does it Take to Be an A-Theorist?", Chronos (Proceedings of the Philosophy of Time Society), Vol. IV (2001-2002), pp. 46-55
"Shoemaker's Argument for his Theory of Properties", Facta Philosophica, Vol. 2 (2000), pp. 271-290
"One Really Big Liquid Sphere: Reply to David Lewis", Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 77, No. 2 (June, 1999), pp. 213-215
"Temporary Intrinsics and Presentism", in Metaphysics: The Big Questions, ed. by Peter van Inwagen and Dean W. Zimmerman (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1998), pp. 206-219 [pdf]
"Temporal Parts and Supervenient Causation: The Incompatibility of Two Humean Doctrines", Australasian Journal of Philosophy Vol. 76, No. 2 (June, 1998), pp. 265-288
"Criteria of Identity and the 'Identity Mystics'", Erkenntnis, Vol. 48, Nos. 2 & 3 (1998), pp. 281-301
"Chisholm and the Essences of Events", in the Library of Living Philosophers volume, The Philosophy of Roderick M. Chisholm, ed. by Lewis Hahn (Peru, Illinois: Open Court, 1997), pp. 73-100
"Distinct Indiscernibles and the Bundle Theory", Mind, Vol. 106, No. 422 (April, 1997), pp. 305-309
"Coincident Objects: Could a 'Stuff Ontology' Help?", Analysis, Vol. 57, No. 1 (January, 1997), pp. 19-27.
"Immanent Causation", in Noûs, supplementary volume, 1997 (Philosophical Perspectives, Vol. 11: Mind, Causation, and World), pp. 433-71
"Indivisible Parts and Extended Objects: Some Philosophical Episodes from Topology's Prehistory", The Monist, Vol. 79, No. 1 (January 1996), pp. 148-180
"Could Extended Objects Be Made Out of Simple Parts?", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 56, No. 1 (March 1996), pp. 1-29
"Persistence and Presentism", Philosophical Papers, Vol. 25, No. 2 (August, 1996), pp. 115-126 [pdf]
"Theories of Masses and Problems of Constitution", The Philosophical Review, Vol. 104, No. 1 (January, 1995), pp. 53-110 [pdf]
"Ist ein Körper-Austausch möglich? Kommentar zu Peter van Inwagen", in Metaphysik-Neue Zugänge zu alten Fragen, ed. by Johannes Brandl, Alexander Hieke, and Peter Simons (St. Augustin: Academia Verlag, 1995), pp. 265-268
"Two Cartesian Arguments for the Simplicity of the Soul," American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 3 (July, 1991), pp. 217-226
"Universals", Encyclopedia Britannica (published on-line; paper version forthcoming)
"Peter van Inwagen", A Companion to Metaphysics, 2nd ed., ed. by Gary Rosenkrantz, Ernest Sosa, and Jaegwon Kim (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2009), pp. 619-621 [pdf]
"Dualism in the Philosophy of Mind", Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd ed. (N.Y.: Macmillan, 2007), pp. 113-122
"Roderick M. Chisholm" (with Richard Foley), in Companion to Analytic Philosophy, ed. by David Sosa and Al Martinich (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2001), pp. 281-295 [pdf]
"Saving God from Saving God" (draft)
"Open Theism and the Metaphysics of the Space-Time Manifold", in God in an Open Universe: Science, Metaphysics, and Open Theism, ed. by William Hasker, Thomas Jay Oord, and Dean Zimmerman (Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick Publications, 2011), pp. 125-57
"An Anti-Molinist Replies", in Molinism: The Contemporary Debate, ed. by Ken Perszyk (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 163-86
"A Précis of 'Yet Another Anti-Molinist Argument'", in Molinism: The Contemporary Debate, ed. by Ken Perszyk (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 140-43
"Pro Haskeris Contradictione", in Molinism: The Contemporary Debate, ed. by Ken Perszyk (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 78-89
"Bodily Resurrection: The Falling Elevator Model Revisited", in Personal Identity and Resurrection: How Do We Survive Our Deaths?, ed. by Georg Gasser (Ashgate: Farnham, U.K., 2010), pp. 33-50 [pdf]
"Time and Open Theism", in Science and Religion in Dialogue, Vol. 2, ed. by Melville Stewart (Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), pp. 791-809
"Yet Another Anti-Molinist Argument", in Metaphysics and the Good, ed. by L. M. Jorgensen and Samuel Newlands (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 33-94 [pdf]
"Three Introductory Questions: Is Analytic Philosophical Theology an Oxymoron? Is Substance Dualism Incoherent? What's in this Book, Anyway?", in Peter van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman (eds), Persons: Human and Divine (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007), pp. 1-32 [pdf]
"God, Evil, and the Contemplation of Infinitely Many Options", Philosophic Exchange, Vol. 36 (2005-2006), pp. 79-120 [pdf]
"Richard Gale and the Free Will Defense", Philo, Vol. 6, No. 1 (2003), pp. 78-113
"Rejoinder to Lynne Rudder Baker", in Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion, ed. by Michael Peterson and Ray Van Arragon (Malden, Mass.: Basil Blackwell, 2004), pp. 338-41 [pdf]
"Should a Christian Be a Mind-Body Dualist?", in Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion, ed. by Michael Peterson and Ray Van Arragon (Malden, Mass.: Basil Blackwell, 2004), pp. 315-27 [pdf]
"God Inside Time and Before Creation", in God and Time, ed. by Greg Ganssle and David Woodruff (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 75-94 [pdf]
"The Compatibility of Materialism and Survival: The 'Jumping Elevator' Model", Faith and Philosophy, Vol. 16, No. 2 (April, 1999), pp. 194-212
"Materialism and Survival", in Philosophy of Religion: The Big Questions, ed. by Eleonore Stump and Michael Murray (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1998), pp. 379-86
"On the Logic of Intentional Help: Some Metaphysical Questions" (with Roderick M. Chisholm), Faith and Philosophy, Vol. 13, No. 3 (July 1996), pp. 402-404
"Theology and Tense" (with Roderick M. Chisholm), Noûs, Vol. 31, No. 2 (June, 1997), pp. 262-265
Mark Heller, The Ontology of Physical Objects, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 53, No. 1 (March, 1993), pp. 220-224
Joshua Hoffman and Gary S. Rosenkrantz, Substance: Its Nature and Existence, The Philosophical Review, Vol. 108, No. 1 (January, 1999), pp. 118-122
"Reasons to Believe in Baseballs" (review of Trenton Merricks, Objects and Persons), The Times Literary Supplement, No. 5174 (May 31, 2002), p. 28
"Possible Donkeys" (review of Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra, Resemblance Nominalism), The Times Literary Supplement, No. 5275 (May 7, 2004), pp. 10-11
"Dispatches from the Zombie Wars" (review of Gregg Rosenberg, A Place for Consciousness; and Daniel Dennett, Sweet Dreams), The Times Literary Supplement, No.5378 (April 28, 2006), pp. 8-9 [pdf]
Metaphysics: The Big Questions (with Peter van Inwagen), (Malden, Mass.: Basil Blackwell, 1st ed., 1998; 2nd ed., 2008)
Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, (with Michael Loux), (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003)
"Personal Identity" issue of The Monist (with Tamar Gendler), Vol. 87, No. 4 (2004)
Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics (with Ted Sider and John Hawthorne), (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2008)
Persons: Human and Divine (with Peter van Inwagen), (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)
Oxford Studies in Metaphysics (with Karen Bennett), (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004-present)
God in an Open Universe: Science, Metaphysics, and Open Theism (with William Hasker and Thomas Jay Oord), (Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick Publications, 2011)
