Daniel Maher joined the Philosophy Department at Assumption in 2008, and he has directed the Core Texts & Enduring Questions program since 2023. He has research interests in ancient philosophy, especially Aristotle, and is co-editor of the Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy. His teaching and research interests extend to medical ethics, early modern philosophy, and philosophy of science. He has published in journals such as Review of Metaphysics, Society, Logos, National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, and Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association. He is co-editor of and a contributor to To Turn the Soul: Essays Inspired by Jacob Klein (Paul Dry Books, 2025).
Education Background
The Catholic University of America, BA (1986), PhL (1987)
Boston College, PhD (1997)
Courses Taught
PHI 245 Reason: Ancient & Modern
PHI 302 Person, Mind, and Brain
PHI 311 Biomedical Ethics
Publications
“Charity Ends at Home: Francis Bacon’s Advancement of Learning,” forthcoming in Place Matters: Explorations in Philosophy, Theology, Literature, and Film, edited by Tuan Hoang, Mercer University Press.
“Simon Stevin and the Matter of Number,” in To Turn the Soul: Essays Inspired by Jacob Klein, edited by Daniel P. Maher and Andrew Romiti, 234–56 (Philadelphia: Paul Dry Books, 2025).
“Or and/or And: Defining Euthanasia,” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 24:1 (Spring 2024): 107–38.
“The Place of Forms,” in Soul and Life: Psyche in Seminal Ancient Greek Thinkers, edited by Marina Marren, 192–213 (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2024).
“Augustine’s Confessions and Augustine’s Confessions: Ipsa est beata vita,” So Ancient and So New: St. Augustine’s Confessions and Its Influences, edited by Glenn Arbery (St. Augustine’s Press 2019), 47–69.
“New Pitchforks and Furtive Nature,” Reproductive Ethics: New Ideas and Innovations, edited by Lisa Campo-Engelstein and Paul Burcher (Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2018): 113–23. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-89429-4.9.
“Roger Scruton’s On Human Nature and the Starting Point of Science,” (review essay) Society 54:6 (2017): 574–78. DOI: 10.1007/s12115-017-0192-z
“Human Action in Philosophy and Poetry,” Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 20:2 (2017): 84–104.
“Simon Stevin’s Vita Politica: Pre-provisional Morality?” Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy 43:2 (2017): 215–32.
“‘The World in Its Human Involvement’: Francis Slade and the Appropriation of Classical Philosophy,” Perspectives on Political Science 45 (2016): 1–3. Guest editor for the symposium on Francis Slade; articles by Robert Sokolowski, Mary M. Bolan, Herbert E. Hartmann, Alan Udoff, and Ann Hartle. DOI: 10.1080/10457097.2015.1024573
“Friendship and Teaching Philosophy in Nicomachean Ethics IX.1,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 87 (2013): 271–83. Online First: DOI: 10.5840/acpaproc2014448, published 5 April 2014
Presentations
“Constructing Modern Reason as Rule,” panel chair (Reason: Ancient & Modern) and paper presentation at Association for Core Texts and Courses Conference, Madison, WI, 4 April 2025.
“Augustine’s Confessions, Book IX,” for Association for Core Texts and Courses Lectio on Augustine’s Confessions, 26 October 2024.
“The Seeming Must Be Taken Away: Republic 361b8,” a poster presentation at American Catholic Philosophical Association, Houston, 17 November 2023.
“What Law Wishes to Be,” 36th Annual Meeting of the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy, Christopher Newport University, Newport News, VA, 20 October 2018.
“Teaching Plato’s Minos,” for Association of Core Texts and Courses Conference, Framingham, MA, 20 April 2018.
“Who Is Fit to Be a Parent?” for Third Reproductive Ethics Conference, Alden March Bioethics Institute at Albany Medical College, Albany, NY, 12 April 2018.
Organizer and chair of “Author Meets Critics: Wagering on an Ironic God by Thomas S. Hibbs,” at American Catholic Philosophical Association, Dallas TX, 19 November 2018. Participants: Paul J. Griffiths, Virgil Martin Nemoianu, John C. McCarthy, and Thomas S. Hibbs.
“New Pitchforks and Furtive Nature,” for Reproductive Ethics Conference: New Ideas and Innovations, Alden March Bioethics Institute at Albany Medical College, Albany, NY, 7 April 2017.
“Renewing the Ecclesiastical Principality,” for “Pope Francis’ Vision for the Renewal of the Church,” Franciscan University, Steubenville, OH, 11 November 2016.
“Self-Love and Love of Another Self: Aristotle, Plato, and Aquinas,” invited paper in the Fall Lecture Series at The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, 21 October 2016.“Simon Stevin and the Matter of Number,” Jacob Klein Conference, St. John’s College (Annapolis), 4–5 June 2013.
Professional Affiliations
American Philosophical Association
American Catholic Philosophical Association
American Society for Bioethics and Humanities
Ancient Philosophy Society
Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy
Representative for Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy