• El lenguaje se expresa a sí mismo
    In David Pérez Chico (ed.), Cuestiones de la filosofía del lenguaje ordinario, Prensas De La Universidad De Zaragoza. 2023.
  •  9
    Book Reviews (review)
    with Stephen Vaughn, John Dunn, Thomas William Heyck, Elliott Levine, Pauline Croft, Michael Hangan, Iakovos Vasiliou, Helen Pringle, Barbara S. Krasner, G. M. Ditchfield, Laurence Brockliss, Linda Munk, Kenneth Fincham, G. Royden Hunt, James R. Watson, Brian Holden Reid, Christoph Hollender, Stephen Darwall, John Peacock, Raphael Obermann, Perry R. Wilson, Geoffrey Koziol, H. Zmora, Paul Capezzuto, Eugenia Paulicelli, Fredric S. Zuckerman, Joseph Rykwert, David J. Denby, Marvin B. Becker, Ann Blair, Philip Thody, Patrick Bishop, Thomas Anderson, Harold Stone, R. A. Houlbrooke, John Freeman, Anthony Pym, Noel Gray, Richard Sheldon, Gary K. Browning, Tetsuzo Nakano, M. Weyemburgh, Frederick M. Schweitzer, Robert Zuzowski, Katharine D. Kennedy, George V. Strong, Anthony Zielonka, David Allan, Svend Erik Larsen, and Jean‐Philippe Mathy
    The European Legacy 1 (7): 2119-2178. 1996.
  •  25
    Bats? Again? William James, Consciousness, and Our Insipid Existence
    Journal of Speculative Philosophy 29 (4): 522-546. 2015.
    ABSTRACT It is easy to think of consciousness as a medium, with two teams of philosophers disagreeing over whether the medium is transparent or translucent. G. E. Moore's “Refutation of Idealism” is still enlisted in defense of transparence, and Thomas Nagel's “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” is still used to motivate translucency. I argue against both of these familiar interpretations of these articles and proceed to defend the very first response to Moore's article: James's insistence that consc…Read more
  •  7
    Life Drawing: A Deleuzean Aesthetics of Existence
    Fordham University Press. 2013.
    Deleuze's publications have attracted enormous attention, but scant attention has been paid to the existential relevance of Deleuze's writings. In the lineage of Nietzsche, Life Drawing develops a fully affirmative Deleuzean aesthetics of existence. For Foucault and Nehamas, the challenge of an aesthetics of existence is to make your life, in one way or another, a work of art. In contrast, Bearn argues that art is too narrow a concept to guide this kind of existential project. He turns instead t…Read more
  •  14
    A Pedagogy of Things
    Journal of Philosophy of Education 54 (4): 1098-1109. 2020.
    Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.
  •  13
    Wittgenstein: Spiritual Practices
    Journal of Philosophy of Education 53 (4): 701-714. 2019.
  •  12
    Political Philosophy without Human Content
    Dialogue and Universalism 29 (1): 105-116. 2019.
    The essay characterizes an anthropological impasse of political philosophy dividing those in a more liberal tradition from those in a more Hegelian tradition, and then it proceeds to sketch a political philosophy without any human or anthropological content. I rely on Foucault’s notion of parrhesia to activate such a political philosophy, and I rely on the philosophical life of the Cynic to make parrhesia possible. Finally by invoking exercises of ascent and of descent, I suggest that this kind …Read more
  •  14
    Careful becomings: Foucault, Deleuze, and Bergson
    Human Affairs 27 (4): 400-415. 2017.
    This essay argues for a convergence between, on the one side, Foucault’s characterization of the care of the self as a way of overcoming the traps of anthropological sleep, and on the other side, Deleuze’s characterization of initiating becomings as a way of fleeing the traps of organization, a line of flight, becoming becoming. This convergence is defended on the basis of a Bergsonian ontology of becoming, and in particular, Bergson’s opposition to what he calls the retrograde motion of truth. …Read more
  •  3
    GENERAL PHILOSOPHY Derrida and Wittgenstein
    Philosophical Books 37 (2): 118-119. 1996.
  •  43
    Relativism as reductio
    Mind 94 (375): 389-408. 1985.
  •  17
    Aestheticide: Architecture and the Death of Art
    The Journal of Aesthetic Education 31 (1): 87. 1997.
  •  48
    Still looking for proof: A critique of Smith's relativism
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 49 (4): 297-306. 1991.
  •  24
    Effecting Affection: The Corporeal Ethics of Gins and Arakawa
    Journal of Aesthetic Education 44 (2): 40. 2010.
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Effecting AffectionThe Corporeal Ethics of Gins and ArakawaGordon C. F. Bearn (bio)No one has yet determined what the body can do …—Spinoza, Ethics, 1677, Part III, proposition 2, ScholiumWhat could be the educational relevance of an architecture designed to make its inhabitants live forever? At first, it is hard to take seriously that Madeline Gins and Arakawa, in their work Architectural Body, are trying to escape mortality. Many a…Read more
  •  6
  • I use a reading of Kuhn to sketch a form of relativism which maintains that what is considered reasonable to believe is relative to scientific traditions. This form of relativism is articulated by showing how it can be defended against criticisms from three different kinds of realism: convergent realism, metaphysical realism, and internal realism. This involves an interpretation of the work of H. Putnam and M. Dummett. Finally I consider the ancient charge that relativism is self-refuting. I arg…Read more
  •  156
    Differentiating Derrida and Deleuze
    Continental Philosophy Review 33 (4): 441-465. 2000.
    Repetition plays a significant, productive role in the work of both Derrida and Deleuze. But the difference between these two philosophers couldn''t be greater: it is the difference between negation and affirmation, between Yes and No. In Derrida, the productive energy of repetition derives from negation, from the necessary impossibility of supplementing an absence. Deleuze recognizes the kind of repetition which concerns Derrida, but insists that there is another, primary form of repetition whi…Read more
  •  17
    General philosophy Derrida and Wittgenstein
    Philosophical Books 37 (2): 118-119. 1996.
  •  13
    Waking to Wonder: Wittgenstein's Existential Investigations
    State University of New York Press. 1997.
    The central claim of this book is that, early and late, Wittgenstein modelled his approach to existential meaning on his account of linguistic meaning. A reading of Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy sets up Bearn’s reading of the existential point of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. Bearn argues that both books try to resolve our anxiety about the meaning of life by appeal to the deep, unutterable essence of the world. Bearn argues that as Wittgenstein’s and Nietzsche’s thought matured, they both separa…Read more
  •  16
  •  1
    The horizon of reason
    In M. Krausz (ed.), Relativism: Interpretation and Confrontation, Notre Dame University Press. pp. 205--231. 1989.
  •  36
    Instead of relativism
    The European Legacy 2 (4): 621-626. 1997.
    No abstract
  •  40
  •  55
    Effecting affection: The corporeal ethics of gins and arakawa
    Journal of Aesthetic Education 44 (2). 2010.
    No one has yet determined what the body can do …What could be the educational relevance of an architecture designed to make its inhabitants live forever? At first, it is hard to take seriously that Madeline Gins and Arakawa, in their work Architectural Body, are trying to escape mortality. Many are those who smile and say that what they call "the architectural surrounds" that they have designed and built for what they call "organisms that person" are intriguing enough, but this idea of slipping …Read more
  •  68
    The possibility of puns: A defense of Derrida
    Philosophy and Literature 19 (2): 330-335. 1995.
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Possibility Of Puns: A Defense of DerridaGordon C. F. BearnHow is a pun possible?—J. Derrida 1Puns are not high on the philosophical horizon. 2 Wittgenstein, it is true, thought that the depth of grammatical jokes was the same as the depth of philosophy, but it is not unusual to smile politely at this remark, and move on. 3 Jokes, like puns, are philosophically puny. Or worse. The air of crime clings to puns. In some contexts the…Read more