Research

Dissertation abstract forthcoming.

"Paradoxes of Thought and Finitude." Res Philosophica 102 (3): 291-319. (Link; PhilPapers.)

Abstract: Thought about the world is interwoven with thought about ourselves and about others. If, interrelations notwithstanding, self, world, and other are three topics, then the judgments p, I think p, and A thinks p differ in determinate content. A Realist, who affirms the antecedent, faces a set of puzzles as to how to understand the transition from p to I think p, or from A thinks p and p to A correctly thinks p. An Eleatic maintains, by contrast, that we can only make sense of these transitions if we treat p, I think p, and A thinks p as displaying the same thought in three different ways. The Eleatic, however, faces a corresponding puzzle about how to make sense of the transition from A thinks p and A is F to someone F thinks p. Resolving the difficulty, I conclude, requires articulating a conception of human singularity.

Edited volume: Kant's Third Critique and Its Legacy, with Karl von der Luft.

Contributors: Alix Cohen, Nicholas Dunn, Eli Friedlander, Sebastian Gardner, Ido Geiger, Johannes Haag, Christian Martin, Lara Ostaric, Alexander Rueger, Sally Sedgwick, Kristi Sweet, Nicholas Stang, Sabina Vaccarino Bremner, Rachel Zuckert, others.

"Anthropocentric Metaphysics," with Karl von der Luft. On Kant's conception of metaphysics.

"The Problem of Zusammenstimmung as the Problem of the Human." On Kant's question about the sameness of the territory of nature and freedom in the Third Critique.

"Kant on Transcendental Constitution and Transcendental Accord." On Kant's "subjective deduction" as an investigation of the essential finitude of the human cognitive capacity.

"Aesthetics without Aisthēsis: Heidegger on Kant's Third Critique," with Karl von der Luft. On Heidegger's reading of the Third Critique.

"The Critique of Ontotheology." On Heidegger's account of the structure of metaphysical thought.

"The Temporality of Acknowledgment." A paper on Franz Rosenzweig, the act of address, and the unity of metaphysics.

"Can There Be a Justification of Hegelian Science?" On Hegel’s attempt in the Phenomenology to give a vindication of the standpoint of pure thinking that is not viciously circular.

Edited volume: Metaphysics and the Problem of Ontotheology: New Critical Essays, with Ian A. Moore and Karl von der Luft.

A paper on different metaphorical framings of the situation of philosophical discourse.

A paper on Kierkegaard's claim in The Sickness unto Death that the self is a "positive third term" rather than a “negative unity."

A paper distinguishing Kierkegaard's conception of freedom from Schelling's.

A paper on the significance of speech for ethical life in Buber, Rosenzweig, and Benjamin.

A paper on confession as a philosophical topic, and on the role of confession in philosophical reflection, in the work of Hegel and Wittgenstein.

A paper on Millikan's and Horwich's naturalistic treatments of rule-following issues raised by Wittgenstein, and on why these treatments fail.