Here are some papers I am working on. Please do contact me if you are interested in these topics and you'd like to discuss them or see a draft of my work.
Love first, ask questions later
Abstract: In this essay, I will advance a view about the nature of agapic love. The claim I will defend is that agape is a kind of loving openness. Agape, I argue, is similar to personal love in that it is rational in form: it requires justification by reference to the love-worthiness of the other. But it is dissimilar from personal love in that this justification must come retroactively. I will animate a tension within the very idea of agapic love by first advancing an attractive view – drawing from Martin Buber – according to which agape requires disregarding individuating characteristics of the other (§1), and then by drawing from Simone Weil to advance an exactly contrary view (§2). Despite this tension, I will explore the deeper compatibility of the two views and argue that they can be construed as complimentary episodes that together comprise the stance of agapic love (§3).
The musicality of verbal address
When people speak to one another they are sensitive to the music of one another’s voices. As well as using musical devices like intonation, rhythm, timbre, and dynamic variation to aid our interlocutors in parsing the words that we utter, such qualities imbue our speech with additional meaning. For instance, such qualities are vehicles for the communication of a speaker’s emotions. Moreover, while some of these extra-linguistic meanings are recognised and decoded by our addressees, forming one layer of pragmatically communicated meaning, others are not. That is, sometimes our speech bears certain musical characteristics – certain melodies, rhythms, tempi, and so on – which are not even intended to convey any specific information by the speaker. In this work, I draw attention to this underlying aesthetic quality of the soundscape – the musical context – within which our verbal communication is set. I argue that we implicitly appraise the aesthetic qualities of one another's voices. I go on to consider how such appraisals might figure in one's practical relations to others - that is, whether implicit aesthetic judgements can play a role in determining reasons for acting in others' interests.
Interpersonal encounters and value epistemology
In this paper, I advance the view that interpersonal encounters can be a site of cognition of a source of value – namely the value of the other person. Moreover, I argue that this view can answer a certain species of moral scepticism. Unlike other accounts of the formation of the axiological convictions at the foundation of one’s moral outlook, this view can respond well to the challenge that such beliefs are erroneously induced by the ideology of one’s society.
Love first, ask questions later
Abstract: In this essay, I will advance a view about the nature of agapic love. The claim I will defend is that agape is a kind of loving openness. Agape, I argue, is similar to personal love in that it is rational in form: it requires justification by reference to the love-worthiness of the other. But it is dissimilar from personal love in that this justification must come retroactively. I will animate a tension within the very idea of agapic love by first advancing an attractive view – drawing from Martin Buber – according to which agape requires disregarding individuating characteristics of the other (§1), and then by drawing from Simone Weil to advance an exactly contrary view (§2). Despite this tension, I will explore the deeper compatibility of the two views and argue that they can be construed as complimentary episodes that together comprise the stance of agapic love (§3).
The musicality of verbal address
When people speak to one another they are sensitive to the music of one another’s voices. As well as using musical devices like intonation, rhythm, timbre, and dynamic variation to aid our interlocutors in parsing the words that we utter, such qualities imbue our speech with additional meaning. For instance, such qualities are vehicles for the communication of a speaker’s emotions. Moreover, while some of these extra-linguistic meanings are recognised and decoded by our addressees, forming one layer of pragmatically communicated meaning, others are not. That is, sometimes our speech bears certain musical characteristics – certain melodies, rhythms, tempi, and so on – which are not even intended to convey any specific information by the speaker. In this work, I draw attention to this underlying aesthetic quality of the soundscape – the musical context – within which our verbal communication is set. I argue that we implicitly appraise the aesthetic qualities of one another's voices. I go on to consider how such appraisals might figure in one's practical relations to others - that is, whether implicit aesthetic judgements can play a role in determining reasons for acting in others' interests.
Interpersonal encounters and value epistemology
In this paper, I advance the view that interpersonal encounters can be a site of cognition of a source of value – namely the value of the other person. Moreover, I argue that this view can answer a certain species of moral scepticism. Unlike other accounts of the formation of the axiological convictions at the foundation of one’s moral outlook, this view can respond well to the challenge that such beliefs are erroneously induced by the ideology of one’s society.
