Research

Dissertation abstract forthcoming.

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

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.

A paper on Franz Rosenzweig, the act of address, and the unity of metaphysics.

"The Problem of the Transition." On Kant's question about the sameness of the territory of nature and freedom in the third Critique.

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

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

"Metaphors of the Philosophical Act." On different metaphorical framings of the situation of philosophical speech.

A paper on the contrast drawn in The Sickness unto Death between the self as “negative unity” and the self as “positive third term,” and on the systematic significance of this contrast in Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous works; in part, a commentary on and critique of Theunissen's famous reading of Sickness.

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 the structure of the conceptual transitions in the fourth chapter of Hegel's Phenomenology.

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

A paper drawing connections between issues in the contemporary grounding literature and issues in post-Kantian philosophy.