•  3
    There have been significant changes in the ways in which humans experience music from the time of the publication of Gadamer’s Truth and Method in 1960 until today. While music was formally listened to in “earthier” formats, whether that be through live concerts or huddled around vinyl record players, we now live in a digital age in which music is largely experienced through what we can refer to as more “liquidated” formats, such as music streaming services or smart speakers and similar modaliti…Read more
  •  12
    Heidegger and Music (edited book)
    with Jeff R. Warren
    Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2022.
    This volume, the first to tackle Heidegger and music, features contributions from philosophers, musicians, educators, and musicologists from many countries throughout the world, utilizes Heidegger’s philosophy to shed light on the place of music in different contexts and fields of practice.
  •  152
    Review of Kevin Aho, One Beat More: Existentialism and the Gift of Mortality (review)
    Journal of the Pacific Association for the Continental Tradition 5 (1). 2023.
    Book Review of Kevin Aho's One Beat More: Existentialism and the Gift of Mortality (Polity, 2022)
  •  4
    Never Go Against the Family
    In Joshua Heter & Richard Greene (eds.), The Godfather and Philosophy: An Argument You Can't Refute, Carus Books. pp. 24. 2023.
    A philosophical interpretation of the Corleone moral code as represented in the first Godfather film through the lenses of Aristotle and Nietzsche.
  •  2
    Philosophy is commonly criticized for being too abstract and detached from practical spheres. Upon chronicling how philosophy has gained this reputation, the authors explore the philosophical fields of phenomenology and hermeneutics that have explicitly attempted to merge philosophy with everyday life contexts. In recent decades, phenomenology and hermeneutics have been applied to healthcare. In the realm of nursing, Patricia Benner's nursing theory is especially informed by phenomenology, which…Read more
  • The current breakdown in the relationship between humans and the rest of the natural world is evident in the crisis of anthropogenic climate change. This critical situation has prompted intellectuals to think through a proper name for our contemporary era. Some opt for the “Anthropocene,” the era of humans, which highlights the uniquely human role in planetary destruction. Others prefer the “Capitalocene” to emphasize capitalism’s role in the crisis. Still others argue that our era is marked by …Read more
  •  3
    The events on January 6th should signal to us just how divided the United States is as a country and prompt us to think through some of the challenges we face—as well as what we can reasonably hope for in terms of restoring a belief in the most coveted ideals of American democracy as outlined in the Declaration of Independence, namely, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Upon analyzing Trump’s rise to political power via the lenses of Hannah Arendt’s concept of ideology and…Read more
  •  71
    Responding to Unexpected Urine Drug Test Results: A Phenomenological Approach
    Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2023 1-12. 2023.
    As a response to the opioid epidemic in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published the CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain in 2016. This document served as a means to reduce risks and address harms of opioid use by recommending that clinicians conduct periodic urine drug testing for patients on chronic opioid therapy. As an unintended result of this recommendation, providers began using unexpected urine drug test results as a reason to di…Read more
  •  6
    Phenomenologically-Informed Cancer Care: An Entryway into the Art of Medicine
    Journal of Medical Humanities 43 443-453. 2022.
    In December of 1899, Sir John Scott Burdon-Sanderson delivered an address to the Middlesex Hospital Medical Society in London on the relation between science and medicine. Commenting specifically on the future of medicine in the upcoming century, he criticized the gap between scientific research in academic settings and the practice of medicine in the clinical setting. He ends by stating that “all depends on whether you accept the proposition I have submitted to you—namely, that the science of m…Read more
  • How Could We Drink up the Sea? From Technological Nihilism to Dwelling in the Anthropocene
    Das Questões : Filosofia Tradução Arte 13 (1): 12-29. 2021.
    Humans face wide-ranging and global challenges in the Anthropocene, the most prominent of which is anthropogenic climate change. One initial pivot towards sustainability, particularly in my home country of the United States, has been to rely heavily on technological innovation powered most obviously by engineers. Using the climate activist Greta Thunberg ’ s speech at the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference as my inspiration, I try to show how some of the technology- based solutions on…Read more
  •  11
    Somewhere Between Plato and Pinker: A Heideggerian Ontology of Music
    In Casey Rentmeester & Jeff R. Warren (eds.), Heidegger and Music, Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 235-252. 2022.
    Chapter 14 of Heidegger and Music
  •  5
    Early Punk and the Dionysian Lion-Child
    In Joshua Heter & Richard Greene (eds.), Punk Rock and Philosophy: Research and Destroy, Carus Books. pp. 109-116. 2022.
    A book chapter in the volume Punk Rock and Philosophy: Research and Destroy on how punk rock can be interpreted through the lens of Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy
  •  13
    A book chapter for the volume Eco-Anxiety and Planetary Hope: Experiencing the Twin Disasters of COVID-19 and Climate Change using Nietzsche's philosophy and primarily based on archival research done by William A. B. Parkhurst.
  •  8
    Chapter 9. Kant’s ethics in the age of online surveillance : An appeal to autonomy
    In L. Samuelsson, C. Cocq, S. Gelfgren & J. Enbom (eds.), Everyday Life in the Culture of Surveillance, Nordicom. pp. 187-204. 2023.
    Using Michel Foucault’s conception of pervasive power, the purpose of this chapter is to analyse the contemporary paradigm of online surveillance from a philosophical perspective by unpacking the power dynamics involved in online surveillance, ultimately arguing, with McKenzie Wark, that there is an asymmetry of power that puts individual persons at risk. I then turn to Martin Heidegger’s notion of Gelassenheit as a helpful way to think through what an intentional stance towards online surveilla…Read more
  •  8
    Claustrophobia-Related Anxiety During MR Imaging Examinations
    Radiologic Technology 94 (1): 53-57. 2022.
    Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging has proven to be a highly effective medical imaging technique that produces detailed cross-sectional images of organs, tissues, and skeletal structures. Because of its versatility, MR imaging has been called “one of the most powerful diagnostic tools in contemporary clinical medicine.”1 MR imaging is advantageous because it does not rely on potentially harmful ionizing radiation used in other imaging techniques; however, the MR imaging scanner can cause considerab…Read more
  •  180
    World peace was a common theoretical consideration among philosophers during Europe’s Enlightenment period. The first robust essay on peace was written by Charles Irénée Castel de Saint- Pierre, which sparked an intellectual debate among prominent philosophers like Jean- Jacques Rousseau and Jeremy Bentham, who offered their own treatises on the concept of peace. Perhaps the most influential of all such writings comes from Immanuel Kant, who argues that world peace is no “high- flown or exaggera…Read more
  •  6
    Phenomenologically-Informed Cancer Care: An Entryway into the Art of Medicine
    with Mark Bake and Amy Riemer
    Journal of Medical Humanities 2022 (3): 443-453. 2022.
    There has been increased interest in what the philosophical subdiscipline of phenomenology can contribute to medical humanities due to its dual emphases on practicality and its attempt to understand the experience of others, thus positioning it as a potentially helpful conceptual toolkit to guide clinical care. Using various figures from the phenomenological tradition, most prominently Martin Heidegger and Martin Buber, the authors illuminate relevant philosophical concepts, employ them in vario…Read more
  •  212
    Humans face wide ranging and global challenges in the Anthropocene, the most prominent of which is anthropogenic climate change. One initial pivot towards sustainability, particularly in my home country of the United States, has been to rely heavily on technological innovation powered most obviously by engineers. Using the climate activist Greta Thunberg's speech at the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference as my inspiration, I try to show how some of the technology based solutions only …Read more
  •  281
    Hermeneutical Healing: Physical Therapy with a Gadamerian Twist
    Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 1 (2021): 1-14. 2021.
    In recent decades, phenomenology has been utilized not only as a conceptual framework from which to understand medical encounters in healthcare settings, but also to guide medical professionals in providing care. In the realm of physical therapy, phenomenology has been touted as a philosophically-based avenue to aid in helping to understand what it means to be a patient. The works of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger have been utilized as paths to approach phenomenologically-informed care in p…Read more
  •  142
    Book Review of Roisin Lally's Sustainability in the Anthropocene (review)
    Journal of the Pacific Association for the Continental Tradition 3. 2020.
    Róisín Lally’s Sustainability in the Anthropocene provides a wealth of essays on the philosophical meanings and implications of renewable technologies, as well as glimpses of novel ways toward a sustainable future that integrate deeply meaningful ways of being for humans. The edited collection features some of the most reputable thinkers in the philosophy of technology, such as Don Ihde, Babette Babich, and Trish Glazebrook, as well as some newcomers with novel perspectives that need to be taken…Read more
  •  21
    Having sold more than 100 million records worldwide, KISS has come to be one of the best selling bands of all-time. From their over-the-top stage personas and theatrics to their eclectic merchandising endeavors that span from condoms to caskets, KISS has lived up to their famous tagline as “the hottest band in the world.” This chapter analyzes the band—and the brand—that is KISS through the lenses of the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche and Mikhail Bakhtin. KISS’s music can be properly unders…Read more
  •  18
    Pharmaceutical Advertising and the Subtle Subversion of Patient Autonomy
    Journal of Medical Humanities (Online First): 159-168. 2020.
    Direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising is pervasive in the United States. Beyond its effect on consumer behavior, DTCPA changes the relationship between individuals and physicians. The author provides a brief history of pharmaceutical advertising in the United States. The author then analyzes the current commonly used marketing techniques of pharmaceutical companies and argues that pharmaceutical companies are “irrational authorities” in Erich Fromm’s sense of the term since they seek to …Read more
  •  334
    Are You Ready to Meet Your Baby? Phenomenology, Pregnancy, and the Ultrasound
    Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2 (2020): 1-13. 2020.
    Iris Marion Young’s classic paper on the phenomenology of pregnancy chronicles the alienating tendencies of technology-ridden maternal care, as the mother’s subjective knowledge of the pregnancy gets overridden by the objective knowledge provided by medical personnel and technological apparatuses. Following Fredrik Svenaeus, the authors argue that maternal care is not necessarily alienating by looking specifically at the proper attention paid by sonographers in maternal care when performing ultr…Read more
  •  14
  •  287
    Informed Consent in Computed Tomography: A Case for Standardization
    Radiologic Technology 90 (3): 300-306. 2019.
    Informed consent has become the most obvious instantiation of patient autonomy in contemporary medicine, though as a practice it does not encompass all spheres of medicine. While diagnostic radiological procedures carry some risk due to the use of radiation, there is no standardized practice of informed consent in the United States. The authors describe the ethical justification of informed consent, the legal background surrounding it, and a brief history of radiology and radiological protection…Read more
  •  833
    Adding academic rigor to introductory ethics courses using Bloom’s taxonomy
    International Journal of Ethics Education 3 (1): 67-74. 2018.
    Since philosophy is a notoriously difficult subject, one may think that the concept of adding rigor to a philosophy course is misguided. Isn’t reading difficult texts by Immanuel Kant or Friedrich Nietzsche enough to categorize a class as academically rigorous? This question is based on the misguided assumption that academic rigor has only to do with course content. While course content is a component of academic rigor, other aspects such as higher-order thinking, as well as how an instructor de…Read more
  •  34
    Heidegger, communication, and healthcare
    Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy (3): 01-07. 2018.
    Communication between medical professionals and patients is an important aspect of therapy and patient satisfaction. Common barriers that get in the way of effective communication in this sphere include: (1) gender, age, and cultural differences; (2) physical or psychological discomfort or pain; (3) medical literacy; and (4) distraction due to technological factors or simply being overworked. The author examines these communicative barriers from a philosophical lens and then utilizes Martin Heid…Read more
  •  34
    Heeding Humanity in an Age of Electronic Health Records
    Nursing Philosophy 19 (3). 2018.
    The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) required healthcare providers in the United States to adopt and demonstrate meaningful use of electronic health records (EHRs) by January 1, 2014. In many ways, EHRs mark a notable improvement over paper medical records as they are more easily accessible and allow for electronic searching and sharing of medical history. However, as EHRs have become mandated by ARRA, many nurses now rely upon computers far more heavily during nurse–patient…Read more
  •  64
    Heidegger and the Environment
    Rowman & Littlefield International. 2016.
    This work is an attempt to provide the scaffolding of a viable environmental ethics using the later writings of Martin Heidegger.