Robert Finan

About Me, broadly:
I'm Robert, a philosopher and mathematician based in Dublin. I graduated from Trinity College Dublin with a First Class Honours degree (Philosophy SH pathway from Mathematics & Philosophy), and I am about to begin an MLitt in Philosophy at the University of St Andrews.

My own research is in the philosophy of logic and language, the philosophy of mathematics, and metametaphysics. I have published papers in the Trinity Student Philosophical Review, have further papers under review and in preparation, and I'll be presenting at conferences in Salzburg, Potsdam and LMU later this year. I also write and campaign on philosophy education in Ireland, including a public proposal for introducing Philosophy as a Leaving Certificate subject, so teaching this material well, at every level, is something I am extremely passionate about.

On the maths side: I got 625 points (maximum) in my own Leaving Certificate (including H1s in Mathematics, Computer Science, Physics, Applied Mathematics, etc.), and I have been tutoring maths ever since. I am very familiar with the the course and the marking scheme, and where students typically lose marks.

I have been teaching logic and philosophy professionally since 2023, and I find it genuinely rewarding to help students (from secondary school to university level) get to grips with difficult material that can otherwise feel abstract or intimidating. My lessons are structured but personalised to each student. We focus on ensuring understanding first and foremost, because that's what actually carries you through assignments, exams, research, and beyond.

I teach online, and in person across Dublin, Louth, Meath, and the surrounding areas.

Philosophical & Formal Logic:
- University-level tutoring in first-order quantificational logic, higher-order logics, and modal logic, for bachelor's and master's students.
- 1 or 2 hour sessions (1 hour recommended)
- Online and in person
- Proof methods, past-paper and practice questions, and strategies for constructing counterexamples and finding countermodels
- Lessons are built around problem-solving: we work through proofs and problems together until the underlying method is clearly understood and repeatable


Philosophy & History of Philosophy
- For more text-based, discursive philosophy (suitable for secondary-school students through to undergraduate) covering the history of philosophy from antiquity to the present, primarily in the analytic tradition, as well as core areas like epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and philosophy of language and logic.
- 1 or 2 hour sessions (2 hours recommended)
- Online and in person
- Close reading of primary texts, argument reconstruction and evaluation, essay planning and structure, and exam or interview technique
- We will work on reading philosophical texts carefully, reconstructing and evaluating the arguments inside them, and turning that into clear, well-structured writing.

Mathematics (Primary School to Leaving Certificate)
- I know the Irish mathematics courses, the marking schemes, and the common pitfalls inside out, from primary school right through Junior Cycle to Leaving Cert Ordinary and Higher Level.
- 1 or 2 hour sessions
- Online and in person
- Topic-by-topic teaching, exam technique, past-paper practice, and clear feedback on exactly where marks are being lost