Noël Saenz is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy. His areas of specialty are metaphysics and the philosophy of religion.

Saenz’s current research in metaphysics focuses on issues having to do with a layered view of reality. Front and center, here, are topics having to do with grounding, fundamentality, parts and wholes, and the existence and nature of facts. His current research in the philosophy of religion focuses on issues where metaphysics and the philosophy of religion overlap. In particular, some questions that have taken center stage have to do with divine simplicity and divine necessity. 

Saenz has published papers on a range of matters in his areas of specialty. These include publications having to do with parts and wholes, truthmaker theory, divine simplicity, the cosmological argument, grounding principles, and how grounding and ontology relate. In the future, Saenz plans to investigate the role that necessity should play when it comes to accounts of the divine and to develop a picture of grounding that will, hopefully, result in a book. 

Saenz has taught courses on critical reasoning, logic, biomedical ethics, recent modern philosophers, value theory, the philosophy of mind, mereology, grounding, and other philosophical issues relevant to society. He regularly teaches introduction to philosophy and the department’s standard course in metaphysics.