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 papers on aesthetic value, reasons, judgment, appreciation, understanding, responsibility, obligations, and blame, as well as on crossword puzzles, 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
Cognition and Feeling in Aesthetic Judgment, British Journal of Aesthetics, forthcoming
Aesthetic Reactive Attitudes and Artistic Responsibility, Philosophers’ Imprint, forthcoming
On the Value of Irreplaceable Objects, with Harvey Lederman & Adam Lovett, The Journal of Philosophy, forthcoming
Art, Understanding, and Mystery, Ergo, Vol. 12, No. 35 (2025): 937-54
Non-Monotonic Theories of Aesthetic Value, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 103, No. 2 (2025): 449-68
Varieties of Aesthetic Response, Philosophical Topics, Vol. 52, No. 1 (2024): 43-59
Aesthetic Blame, Journal of the American Philosophical Association, Vol. 10, Issue 4 (2024): 744-60
The Art and Style of Crosswords, The Philosophers’ Magazine
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, 2025), 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
Dominic McIver Lopes, Bence Nanay, Nick Riggle, Aesthetic Life and Why It Matters, British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 65, Issue 1 (2025): 134–7
Rick Anthony Furtak, Love, Subjectivity, and Truth: Existential Themes in Proust, Romanic Review, Vol. 115, Issue 1 (2024): 223-6
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 Proust on imagination and beauty
Other Links
My Academia.edu page (outdated)