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
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 Obligations, British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 58, Issue 3 (2018): 271-85
Valuing and Believing Valuable, Analysis, Vol. 77, Issue 1 (2017): 59-65
Love and Transience in Proust, Philosophy, Vol. 91, Issue 4 (2016): 541-57
Philosophy, Literature, and Emotional Engagement: A Response to Nanay, Journal 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 Imagination, European 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 aesthetic understanding
A paper on artistic merit and achievement
A paper on artistic responsibility
A paper on Proust on the value of art
Other Links
My Academia.edu page (outdated)