•  63
    Space, Time, and the Openness of Hegel’s Absolute Knowing
    Idealistic Studies 36 (3): 169-181. 2006.
    While Hegel argues in the Phenomenology of Spirit’s chapter on “Absolute Knowing” that we must see the necessity of each of spirit’s transitions if phenomenology is to be a science, he argues in its last three paragraphs that such a science must “sacrifice itself ” in order for spirit to express its freedom. Here I trace out the implications of this self-sacrifice for readings of the transitions in the Phenomenology, playing particular attention to the roles that space and time play in absolute …Read more
  •  53
    Kierkegaard and Aristophanes on the Suspension of Irony
    Idealistic Studies 39 (1-3): 125-136. 2009.
    In The Concept of Irony, Kierkegaard aims to show the inadequacy of an ironic standpoint not through a generalized dialectical account of its failure onits own terms but through an empirical examination of the actual life of Socrates. Crucial to his methodology, I argue, is his use of the term “suspend” (svæve).Socratic irony is not overcome, superseded, or annulled, but rather “suspended” in its incomplete connection to its community. In both his depiction of Socratesas hanging in a basket and …Read more
  •  44
    Introduction -- Suspension -- Hegel and Schelling -- Outline of the whole -- The surge of reason : faculty epistemology in Kant and Fichte -- The first critique's basic distinction -- The third critique -- Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre -- Ascendant reason : the early Schelling -- Of the I -- The treatises -- Metastatic reason : Schelling's nature philosophy -- Organic reason : ideas for a philosophy of nature -- Rational nature : on the world-soul -- Inhibition of nature : the Erster entwurf -- Sy…Read more
  •  33
    Sovereign Gratitude: Hegel on Religion and the Gift
    Research in Phenomenology 41 (3): 374-395. 2011.
    In this paper I argue that one of the most important impulses that structure Hegel's account of religion is the need to show gratitude for the gift of creation. Beginning with the “Love“ fragment and 1805-6 Realphilosophie , I first explore what it means to see God's relationship to spirit as one of externalization or divestment ( Entäusserung ). Then, relying on the Berlin Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, I argue that Hegel takes Christianity to be the Consummate Religion because it not …Read more
  •  26
    Confronting the Anthropocene: Schelling and Lucretius on Receiving Nature's Gift
    Comparative and Continental Philosophy 8 (2): 160-179. 2016.
    This essay interprets Schelling's positive philosophy as an effort to conceive nature as a gift. Schelling ruminated throughout his career on the paradoxical relation between humanity and nature that is expressed in the contemporary term “Anthropocene,” but this essay argues that Schelling's most productive response to this paradox can be found in his reflections on how to receive the gift of nature. After laying out the project of positive philosophy, the essay first explores Schelling's effort…Read more
  •  19
    Kant and Jealousy in Derrida's Glas
    Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 40 (1): 54-65. 2009.
  •  18
    Petrified Intelligence (review)
    Review of Metaphysics 60 (2): 427-429. 2006.
  •  10
    The Last Living God: Reading Schelling in Hawaii
    Environment, Space, Place 14 (1): 53-69. 2022.
    Abstract:This essay maintains that despite the pervasive racism of his writings, Schelling can nevertheless contribute to an understanding of how to inhabit divine places such as the home of the goddess Pele on Hawai’i Island. First, his late Philosophy of Mythology shows how non-religious people can avoid the phenomenon explored by Jean-Luc Nancy of experiencing certain places as sacred and yet without gods. Second, Schelling’s early speculative geology can help make sense of a local issue in e…Read more
  •  8
    Intimacy: a dialectical study
    Bloomsbury Academic, An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc/Bloomsbury. 2016.
    An important contribution to the burgeoning field of the ethics of recognition, this book examines the contradictions inherent in the very concept of intimacy. Working with a wide variety of philosophical and literary sources, it warns against measuring our relationships against ideal standards, since there is no consummate form of intimacy. After analyzing ten major ways that we aim to establish intimacy with one another, including gift-giving, touching, and fetishes, the book concludes that ea…Read more
  •  4
    11. Esposito, Nancy and the Evasion of Dialectics
    In Tilottama Rajan & Antonio Calcagno (eds.), Roberto Esposito: New Directions in Biophilosophy, Edinburgh University Press. pp. 232-246. 2021.