About Me

Hello! I am Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. I work mainly in the philosophy of the arts and aesthetic practices, and those areas of value theory and practical philosophy that help us to make sense of them.

Bio

I have published a series of papers on aesthetic value, reasons, and obligations, as well as papers on literary interpretation, the relation between valuing and believing valuable, and the themes of love and desire in the novels of Marcel Proust. I also regularly teach courses on the ethics of data and technology. I am an Associate Editor at Analysis Reviews.

Before coming to UT Austin, I was for two years Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Before that, I did my Ph.D. at Columbia University, where I also taught in the humanities Core Curriculum. Before that, I studied at the Universities of Cambridge and St Andrews as a Marshall Scholar. Before that, I did my B.A. in Philosophy at Boston College. And before that, I graduated with an International Baccalaureate diploma from Westwood High School in Austin.

Articles

Art, Understanding, and Mystery, Ergo, forthcoming

Non-Monotonic Theories of Aesthetic Value, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, forthcoming

Aesthetic Blame, Journal of the American Philosophical Association, online first publication

The Art and Style of Crosswords, The Philosophers’ Magazine, online first publication

Art and Aesthetic Properties, in The Oxford Handbook of Social Ontology, eds. Stephanie Collins, Brian Epstein, Sally Haslanger, and Hans Bernhard Schmid (Oxford University Press, 2024), forthcoming

The Aesthetics of Crossword Puzzles, British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 63, Issue 3 (2023): 381-94

Proust on Desire Satisfaction, in The Proustian Mind, eds. Anna Elsner and Thomas Stern (Routledge, 2023), 335-48

Aesthetic Practices and Normativity, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 103, Issue 2 (2021): 408-25

Aesthetic Obligations, Philosophy Compass, Vol. 15, Issue 12 (2020): 1-13

Literary Intentionalism: A Shared Interpretive Policy, Metaphilosophy, Vol. 50, Issue 4 (2019): 503-15

Grounding Aesthetic ObligationsBritish Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 58, Issue 3 (2018): 271-85

Valuing and Believing ValuableAnalysis, Vol. 77, Issue 1 (2017): 59-65

Love and Transience in ProustPhilosophy, Vol. 91, Issue 4 (2016): 541-57

Philosophy, Literature, and Emotional Engagement: A Response to NanayJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 73, Issue 2 (2015): 196-200

Book Reviews

Rick Anthony Furtak, Love, Subjectivity, and Truth: Existential Themes in Proust, Romanic Review, forthcoming

Dominic McIver Lopes, Bence Nanay, Nick Riggle, Aesthetic Life and Why It Matters, British Journal of Aesthetics, forthcoming

Dominic McIver Lopes, Being for Beauty, Estetika, Vol. 56, Issue 2 (2019): 250-62

Richard Moran, The Philosophical ImaginationEuropean Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 26, Issue 3 (2018): 1180-3

Rafe McGregor, The Value of Literature, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 73, Issue 3 (2017): 311-4

Works in Progress (feel free to email me for drafts!)

A paper on artistic merit and achievement

A paper on artistic responsibility

A paper on aesthetic judgment

A paper on aesthetic value

A paper on Proust on the value of art

Other Links

My PhilPeople page

My Academia.edu page (outdated)