Papers
Phenomenology
The Little Way of My Self's Revelation
Münchener Theologische Zeitschrift | forthcoming
In this essay, I advance toward a phenomenology of becoming little according to its spirituality’s namesake, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. The phenomenon of the little—the weak, the veiled, the lowly—is, by right, overlooked. Its revelation passes unnoticed while the self remains inflated. The arrival of the little awaits its selfless reducer, not the nihilating selflessness of an absolute alterity but a way of becoming little which occasions its fullest manifestation. So little, so revealed. I build on the phenomenologies of Emmanuel Levinas and Jean-Luc Marion pausing at three moments along the way: the return to childhood; the discovery, after me, of self-confidence; and an imbalanced audacity. The upshot is that the significance of the little is big: littleness makes possible the immanent glimpse of unconditional revelation, a glimpse of beauty.
Littleness and the Constitution of the Irreducible Person
In forthcoming volume with Vernon Press
In this chapter, I introduce the phenomenon of "littleness" to French phenomenology which opens a way toward preparing for the the manifestation of the person, the saturated phenomenon par excellence. The phenomenological concept of littleness introduced here is advanced and developed in my dissertation.
Foucault, Marion, and the Irreducibility of the Human Person
Quién. Revista de Filosofia Personalista 18 2023
In this article, I engage the works of Michel Foucault and Jean-Luc Marion on the nature of personhood and the self. I find Marion’s phenomenology of the “gift” a more compelling account of personhood, especially granting an intuition widely shared by personalist philosophers, namely, that persons are irreducible. I end by responding to objections to this analysis of the gift from within the Christian philosophical tradition.
Ethics
Can We Defend Normative Error Theory?
European Journal of Analytic Philosophy \ forthcoming
Normative error theorists aim to defend an error theory which says that normative judgments ascribe normative properties, and such properties, including reasons for belief, are never instantiated. Many philosophers have raised objections to defending a theory which entails that we cannot have reason to believe it. Spencer Case objects that error theorists simply cannot avoid self-defeat. Alternatively, Bart Streumer argues that we cannot believe normative error theory but that, surprisingly, this helps its advocates defend it against these objections. I think that if Streumer's argument is successful, it provides error theorists an escape from Case's self-defeat objection. However, I build upon and improve Case’s argument to show that we could never even successfully defend normative error theory whether we can believe it or not. So, self-defeat remains. I close by offering some reasons for thinking our inability to defend normative error theory means that we should reject it, which, in turn, would mean that it's false.
Why Ought We Be Good? A Hildebrandian Challenge to Thomistic Normativity Theory
International Philosophical Quarterly 63 (1) 2023
In this article, I argue for the necessity of including what I call “categorical norms” in Thomas Aquinas’s account of the ground of obligation (normativity theory) by drawing on the value phenomenology of Dietrich von Hildebrand. A categorical norm is one conceptually irreducible to any non-normative concept and which obligates us irrespective of pre-existing aims, goals, or desires. I show that Thomistic normativity theory on any plausible reading of Aquinas lacks categorical norms and then raise two serious objections which constitute master arguments against it. The upshot is that this theory requires reform. I end by proposing work remaining for such reform, namely, an expansion of the Thomistic metaphysic and anthropology.
Emotions and Moral Judgment: An Evaluation of Contemporary and Historical Emotion Theories
Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 2023
One desideratum for contemporary theories of emotion both in philosophy and affective science is an explanation of the relation between emotions and objects that illicit them. According to one research tradition in emotion theory, the Evaluative Tradition, the explanation is simple: emotions just are evaluative judgments about their objects. Growing research in affective science supports this claim suggesting that emotions constitute (or contribute to) evaluative judgments such as moral judgments about right and wrong. By contrast, recent scholarship in two historical emotion theories, Augustinian and Thomistic, emphasize their sharp distinction between cognitive judgments and affectivity or between reason and emotion. For these historical models, reason, not emotion, is responsible for moral judgment. Are the evaluative and historical models at irreconcilable odds? Should we discard old models that fail to satisfy intuitions about the intricate role of emotions in moral judgment? In this article, I compare these research programs and suggest a roadmap for collaboration.
Book Reviews
Being Unfolded: Edith Stein on the Meaning of Being
American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly
I review Thomas Gricoski's book with Catholic University of America Press which proposes a creative reading of the threefold meanings of "being" in the thought of Edith Stein.
Dissertation
My dissertation performs a phenomenological reading of the autobiography of Saint Thérèse whose spirituality described in that text just is one of becoming little. I put my analyses in dialogue with the so-called “French theological turn” in phenomenology, especially Emmanuel Levinas and Jean-Luc Marion. I move from introducing the paradox of the large effect of the little (chapter 1), to a three-moment process of the self’s unfolding according to features of the so-called Little Way of Spiritual Childhood in Thérèsian scholarship (chapters 2-4), and finally argue that the phenomenological concept of revelation names the beauty emergent from this process (chapter 5). I plan to submit my dissertation for publication in the summer of 2024.
Prospective Work
I plan to develop the other side of my dissertation in the next five years with a book on the coming of being. This project complements my work on the little self by advancing a process phenomenology beyond any ontology of becoming. I will engage historical process thinkers such as Heraclitus (and Melissus of Samos in a certain sense), and modern phenomenologists and metaphysicians from Hegel to Whitehead, and from Gilles Deleuze to Marion’s recent work on time (advent), love, and revelation. The aim of this project is to bring a little phenomenology of endless dynamic becoming one’s self into a traditionally metaphysical debate about the immutable versus process character of fundamental reality, a debate now returning among theological scholars of Maximus the Confessor, Gregory Palamas, and these in creative dialogue with Hegel.