David Mark Kovacs January 2024

CONTACT
Address: Tel Aviv University
Department of Philosophy
Gilman 363
Ramat Aviv
Tel Aviv 6997801 E-mail: david.mark.kovacs@gmail.com
Israel Website: davidmarkkovacs.weebly.com

EMPLOYMENT
Tel Aviv University
Senior Lecturer, 2020–
Lecturer, 2017–2020
Bilkent University
Assistant Professor, 2016–2017
EDUCATION
Cornell University
PhD, Philosophy (defense passed with no corrections, 2016 May)
Dissertation Title: Explanation, Dependence, and Ontology: Essays in Meta-metaphysics
Committee: Theodore Sider (chair), Karen Bennett, Matti Eklund, Nicholas Silins
MA, Philosophy (2014 January)
Eotvos Lorand University of Sciences
LLM, Law (2010 July)

RESEARCH INTERESTS AND TEACHING COMPETENCE

AOS: Metaphysics, Philosophy of Mind
AOC: Philosophy of Language, Epistemology, Philosophy of Science, Early Modern, Applied
Ethics

PUBLICATIONS
Journal article
24. Forthcoming: “Property Dualists Shouldn’t Be Nominalists about Properties,” Inquiry (with
Daniel Giberman)
23. Forthcoming: “Pregnant Thinkers,” Philosophical Quarterly
22. 2023: “Varieties of Grounding Skepticism,” The Monist, 106: 301–16
21. 2022: “Against the Status Response to the Argument from Vagueness,” Synthese, 200: 468
20. 2022: “Self-making and Subpeople,” Journal of Philosophy, 119 (9):461–488
19. 2022: “An Explanatory Idealist Theory of Grounding,” Nous, 56: 530–53
18. 2022: “The Question of Iterated Causation,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 104:
454–73
17. 2021: “There is no distinctively semantic circularity objection to Humean laws,” Canadian
Journal of Philosophy, 51: 270–81
16. 2021: “What is priority monism?,” Philosophical Studies, 178: 2873–93
15. 2021: “The oldest solution to the circularity problem for Humeanism about the laws of nature,”

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 Synthese, 198: 8933–8953
14. 2021: “Intuitions about Objects: From Teleology to Elimination,” Mind, 130: 199–213
13. 2021: “How to be an uncompromising revisionary ontologist,” Synthese, 198: 2129–2152
12. 2020: “Four Questions of Iterated Grounding,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research,
101: 341–64
11. 2020: “Constitution and Dependence,” Journal of Philosophy, 117: 150–77
10. 2020: “Diachronic Self-making,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 98: 349–62
9. 2020: “Metaphysically Explanatory Unification,” Philosophical Studies, 177: 1659–83
8. 2019: “Deflationary Nominalism and Puzzle Avoidance,” Philosophia Mathematica, 27: 88–104
7. 2019: “The myth of the myth of supervenience,” Philosophical Studies, 176: 1967–89
6. 2018: “What is wrong with self-grounding?”, Erkenntnis, 83: 1157–1180
5. 2018: “The Deflationary Theory of Ontological Dependence,” Philosophical Quarterly, 68: 481–
502
4. 2017: “Grounding and the Argument from Explanatoriness”, Philosophical Studies, 174: 2927–52
3. 2016: “Self-made People,” Mind, 125: 1071–99
2. 2014: “What do we want to know when we ask the Simple Question?”, Philosophical Quarterly,
64: 254–66
1. 2010: “Is there a conservative solution to the Many Thinkers Problem?”, Ratio, 23: 275–90
Article in edited volume
3. Committed: “Conventionalist accounts of personal identity”, Philosophy Compass
2. In print: “Laws and Explanation,” in Kathrin Koslicki and Michael J. Raven (eds.), The Routledge
Handbook of Essence
1. 2020: “Modality,” in Michael J. Raven (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Metaphysical
Grounding, 348–60
Book review
4. 2019: Review of Reality and Its Structure: Essays on Fundamentality (by Ricki Bliss and Graham
Priest, eds.), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
3. 2017: Review of Ontology and the Ambitions of Metaphysics (by Thomas Hofweber), Journal of
Philosophy, 114: 623–8
2. 2017: Review of Experimental Metaphysics (by David Rose, ed.), Notre Dame Philosophical
Reviews
1. 2011: Review of The Phenomenal Self (by Barry Dainton), Mind, 120 (480): 1242–7
Editing
2012: “Current Issues in Metaphysics” (special issue of Hungarian Philosophical Review; co-edited
with Gabor Bacs and Janos Tozser)

MAJOR GRANTS AND AWARDS

Israeli Science Foundation, personal grant (title: “Explanation First: A Generalized Idealist Theory
of Explanatory Structure”). Principal Investigator, 2023–2026, 270k NIS
Minerva-Gentner Symposium grant (title: “The epistemology of metaphysics: contemporary
issues”), 2024 (co-PI with Thomas Sattig), EUR 30k
Rutgers University – Tel Aviv University research cooperation grant (title: “Persons: material and
immaterial, real and conventional”), 2022-2024 (co-PI with Dean W. Zimmerman), $30k
Israeli Science Foundation, workshop grant (title: “Metaphysical Explanation: Theory, Applications,
and Prospects), 2022, 65k NIS
Israeli Science Foundation, personal grant (title: “The Idealist Program of Metaphysical
Explanation”). Principal Investigator, 2019–2023, 330k NIS
Newton Advanced Fellowship (title: “Explanation without Explanatory Relations”). Principal
Investigator (Turkey-based), with UK co-applicant Jack Woods (2017–2020, declined due to
leaving Turkey)
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 Younger Scholar Prize (Oxford Studies in Metaphysics), runner-up (2016)

TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Courses
I taught a large variety of courses in my AOS-s and AOC-s at various levels at Cornell, Bilkent and
TAU.

Supervision
Active
Alexios Stamatiadis-Brehier (postdoc, Azrieli Fellow), Tel Aviv University (topic: Humean
metaphysical explanation in ethics), 2022–2025
Doron Yasphe (PhD), Tel Aviv University (topic: metaontology and fragmentalism), 2019– present
Yaron Alon (PhD), Tel Aviv University (topic: grounding and panpsychism), 2021– present
Hila Koum (MA), Tel Aviv University (topic: the metaphysics of information), 2021- present

Past
Jack Himelright (postdoc), Tel Aviv University (topic: nominalism about abstract objects), 2021–
2022. Currently Visiting Assistant Professor at Kansas State University
Daniel Moor (MA), Tel Aviv University (topic: composition), 2018–2020. Currently PhD student at
the University of Haifa

SERVICE
Committee work
Committee for assisting reservist students (Tel Aviv University, 2024–)
Teaching and curriculum committee (Tel Aviv University, 2019–)
Colloquium committee (Bilkent University, 2016–2017)
Conference organization
“Metaphysical explanation: methodology, theory, and applications”, conference at Tel Aviv
University (June 2022)
“Persons, selves, and organisms”, conference at Bilkent University (February 2017)
Refereeing
Presses: Bloomsbury Press, Oxford University Press, Routledge
Journals: American Philosophical Quarterly, Analysis, Analytic Philosophy, Australasian Journal of
Philosophy, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Canadian Journal of Philosophy,
Dialectica, Ergo, Erkenntnis, European Journal of Analytic Philosophy, Filozofia Nauki (The
Philosophy of Science), Hungarian Philosophical Review, Inquiry, Journal of Consciousness
Studies, Journal of the American Philosophical Association, Journal of Philosophical Research,
Journal of Philosophy, Metaphilosophy, Metaphysica, Metaphysics, Mind, Nous, Pacific
Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophers’ Imprint, Philosophia, Philosophica, Philosophical Papers,
Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophical Review, Philosophical Studies, Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research, Philosophy of Science, Res Philosophica, Review of Metaphysics,
Southern Journal of Philosophy, Studia Neoaristotelica, Synthese, Theoria, Thought
Conferences: CEU Philosophy Graduate Conference (2010, 2012), Indiana Philosophical
Association (2014, 2016, 2017), 4th Philosophy Cocoon Conference (2016), Vienna Conference on
Deflationism in Metaphysics (2017), Israeli Philosophical Association (2018, 2019, 2021, 2023)
Grants: PRELUDIUM – National Science Centre (Poland), Israel Science Foundation
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Other
Member of the Philosophy Panel for the Undergraduate Awards (2016)
External Reviewer for PhD proposals in Israel and abroad

PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS
American Philosophical Assocition
Israeli Philosophical Association
Imperfect Cognitions Network