•  6
    Dufrenne, Kant, and the Aesthetic Attitude
    The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy 21 565-590. 2023.
    This chapter reconstructs Dufrenne’s phenomenological interpretation of the aesthetic attitude. I argue that Dufrenne develops a fecund alternative to competing formulations, advances an innovative proposal for how artworks are perceived on their own terms, and undercuts the claim that a reliance on the subject-object frame- work in aesthetics entails a commitment to ‘subjectivism.’ On Dufrenne’s view, the aesthetic attitude is an intentional stance toward a special category of perceived object,…Read more
  •  21
    abstract: I argue that Merleau-Ponty's reading of Hegel's account of experience exerts a significant and hitherto overlooked influence on his attempt to recast Phénoménologie de la perception 's account of intentionality. This reading informs two important claims of his later projects: that intentional relations are more fundamental than their relata, and that a metaphysical condition irreducible to consciousness or object constitutes the structure of intentionality. I argue that these positions…Read more
  •  205
    Sartre, Kant, and the spontaneity of mind
    European Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.
    I argue that Sartre's Transcendence of the Ego draws on Kant's theory of spontaneity to articulate its metaphysical account of consciousness's mode of being, to defend its phenomenological description of the intentional structure of self‐consciousness, and to diagnose the errors that motivate views of consciousness qua person or substance. In addition to highlighting an overlooked dimension of Sartre's early relation to Kant, this interpretation offers a fresh account of how Sartre's argument fo…Read more
  •  200
    Nature, Consciousness, and Metaphysics in Merleau-Ponty’s Early Thought
    Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 9 (n/a): 1160-1198. 2022.
    La structure du comportement details consciousness-nature relations by navigating between realist and intellectualist alternatives. A phenomenological reading of form guides its attempt to formulate a view that does not reduce consciousness to matter or perceptual structure to a product of mind. I show that this strategy relies on hitherto overlooked idealist commitments. Forms are perceived objects whose intentional structure is intelligibly organized. Having denied that forms are constituted b…Read more
  •  562
    Phenomenological Themes in Aron’s Philosophy of History
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 59 (1): 113-143. 2021.
    Aron’s writings are lauded for their contributions to liberal political theory, international relations, and sociology. I argue that his early thought also offers phenomenological considerations for a relativist view of historical meaning, whose important role in the text’s argument has been suppressed by received interpretations. Drawing a direct link between introspective, intersubjective, and historical understanding, Aron argues that the “objectification” of intentions necessarily transforms…Read more
  •  20
    Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Language
    Rowman & Littlefield International. 2019.
    Through accessible analyses of Merleau-Ponty’s views of linguistic expression and understanding, and by tracing the evolution of these views throughout the course of his philosophical career, Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Language offers a comprehensive picture of his engagement with the philosophy of language.
  •  1
    Merleau-Ponty, Hegel, and the Task of Phenomenological Explanation
    Phänomenologische Forschungen 2018 (1): 27-52. 2018.
    This paper provides an analysis of Merleau-Ponty’s view of philosophical explanation. Some commentators stress his indebtedness to the transcendental tradition, but this influence does not extend to his view of explanation. I argue that Merleau-Ponty gives up on the transcendental ideal of explanatory completeness, shared by Husserl and Kant. Motivated by a distinctive understanding of transcendental expression, he argues that phenomenological reflection, and the explanations that issue from it,…Read more
  •  378
    Sense, Language, and Ontology in Merleau-Ponty and Hyppolite
    Research in Phenomenology 48 (1): 92-118. 2018.
    Hyppolite stresses his proximity to Merleau-Ponty, but the received interpretation of his “anti-humanist” reading of Hegel suggests a greater distance between their projects. This paper focuses on an under-explored dimension of their philosophical relationship. I argue that Merleau-Ponty and Hyppolite are both committed to formulating a mode of philosophical expression that can avoid the pitfalls of purely formal or literal and purely aesthetic or creative modes of expression. Merleau-Ponty’s at…Read more
  •  478
    The Systematic Import of Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy of Literature
    Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 49 (1): 1-17. 2018.
    Scholarly discussions of Merleau-Ponty’s aesthetics tend to focus on his philosophy of painting. By contrast, comparatively little attention has been paid to his philosophy of literature. However, he also draws significant conclusions from his work on literary expression. As I will argue, these reflections inform at least two important positions of his later thought. First, Merleau-Ponty’s account of “indirect” literary language led him to develop a hybrid view of phenomenological expression, on…Read more
  •  604
    On the motivations for Merleau-Ponty’s ontological research
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy 26 (2): 348-370. 2018.
    This paper attempts to clarify Merleau-Ponty’s later work by tracing a hitherto overlooked set of concerns that were of key consequence for the formulation of his ontological research. I argue that his ontology can be understood as a response to a set of problems originating in reflections on the intersubjective use of language in dialogue, undertaken in the early 1950s. His study of dialogue disclosed a structure of meaning-formation and pointed towards a theory of truth (both recurring ontolog…Read more
  •  1254
    Intentionality, Constitution and Merleau‐Ponty's Concept of ‘The Flesh’
    European Journal of Philosophy 25 (3): 677-699. 2017.
    Since Husserl, the task of developing an account of intentionality and constitution has been central to the phenomenological enterprise. Some of Merleau-Ponty's descriptions of ‘the flesh’ suggest that he gives up on this task, or, more strongly, that the flesh is in principle incompatible with intentionality or constitution. I show that these remarks, as in Merleau-Ponty's earlier writings, refer to the classical, early Husserlian interpretations of these concepts, and argue that the concept of…Read more
  •  29