Research
Research
"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.
Kant's Third Critique and Its Legacy. Edited volume, Routledge, forthcoming.
Co-editor: 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.
"Aesthetics without Aisthēsis: Heidegger on Kant's Third Critique." On Heidegger's reading of the Third Critique. To appear in Kant's Third Critique and Its Legacy.
Co-author: Karl von der Luft.
"The Problem of the Transition Between Nature and Freedom." (Draft available by request.)
Abstract: Kant says the systematic problem of the Third Critique is to understand the "transition" between the domains of nature and freedom, or between the "manners of thinking" associated with theoretical and practical cognition. I propose a novel interpretation of this "Transition Problem." Most interpreters, I claim, mistakenly associate the Transition Problem with a problem that belongs either to theoretical or to practical philosophy. I argue that the Transition Problem is instead to understand how we can judge a priori 1) that we are the bearers of both theoretical and pure practical cognition, 2) that we can exercise these powers together in a functionally unified way, and 3) that there is a single world (or "territory") that we can use both of these powers to cognize. I conclude by suggesting that Kant intends the Analytic of the Beautiful to play a crucial role in accomplishing the transition.
"The Metaphysics of Kant's Transcendental Distinction." (Draft available by request.)
Co-author: Karl von der Luft.
Abstract: Standard metaphysical readings of Kant's transcendental distinction between noumena and phenomena understand this distinction to posit a grounding relation between two levels of reality. We call such readings "metaphysically dualistic" rather than "metaphysical" simpliciter, and we argue that they systematically commit Kant to claims about the identity or distinctness of noumena and phenomena that, by his own principles, he cannot hold. We then introduce an alternative interpretation of Kant's transcendental distinction that does not incur any such problematic commitments. This interpretation, which is metaphysical without being metaphysically dualistic, involves a novel construal of Kant's claim that noumena ground phenomena and sensible representations.
My dissertation gives a new interpretation of the Third Critique’s central systematic problem (the "Transition Problem") and of Kant’s solution to it. A one-page abstract of the dissertation is available by request.
"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.
"The Critique of Ontotheology." On Heidegger's account of the structure of metaphysical thought.
"The Ontology of Address: Franz Rosenzweig's New Thinking." On Franz Rosenzweig, the second person, and the unity of metaphysics.
"The Positive Third." On Kierkegaard's claim in The Sickness unto Death that the self is a "positive third term" rather than a "negative unity," and on the significance of this point for what is novel in Kierkegaard's conception of the self vis-à-vis German idealist predecessors such as Hegel and Schelling.
"Artificial Intelligence and the Concept of Humanity." On the way that generative AI threatens our sense of what it is to be a human being.
Co-author: Karl von der Luft.
Edited volume: Metaphysics and the Problem of Ontotheology: New Critical Essays.
Co-editors: Ian A. Moore, Karl von der Luft.
Contributors: Uygar Abaci, Steven Crowell, François Jaran, Marcela García-Romero, Christina Gschwandtner, Jean-Luc Marion, Philipp Schwab, Thomas Sheehan, Merold Westphal, Kate Withy, others.