Hi, I’m Jimmy.
I’m an intellectual who works outside the university system. I’ve decided to claim the term “independent scholar.” If you want to read more about what I mean by this idea, I unpack it further in my Independent Scholar’s Manifesto.
I think of being an intellectual—or a philosopher—not primarily as a way of engaging ideas, participating in an academic discipline, or arguing with other people, but as a practice. Being a scholar is a way of a life. I like to call it an examined life with friends. As a teacher, I think of my role as empowering others to think and act for themselves.
I completed a PhD in Christian ethics/moral theology from the University of Notre Dame in 2020. My dissertation was on authenticity as a norm in two eighteenth-century philosophers, Moses Mendelssohn and Immanuel Kant. I also studied philosophy, theology, and ancient Greek at Wheaton College and Hebrew at the Ohio State University.
At Notre Dame, I designed and taught a course on religion and ecology, called “Creation, Ecology, and Technology.” I won a university-wide teaching award for this course, which included site visits to local organizations involved in sustainable agriculture. Before that, I taught the Bible as literature at Ohio State. And before that, I taught rhetoric, logic, and philosophy at a small private school in Columbus, Ohio.
During and after graduate school, I published a number of academic articles across multiple academic disciplines in journals such as the Journal of Religious Ethics, Political Theology, and the Journal of Biblical Literature. I also have ongoing academic writing projects under development. You can view my published work here.
In 2022, I left the academic world and worked in the renewable energy industry for three years. In 2025, I stepped away from that position to focus on building my own independent offerings.
I currently run a YouTube channel called “Philosophy for Everyday Life,” write on Substack, and hold philosophy intensives for those who want to go deeper in their intellectual journeys. If you’d like to find out more about my next intensive, you can do so here!
In my spare time, I enjoy rock climbing, playing the piano, and spending time with my two children.