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32Artful Truths: The Philosophy of MemoirBritish Journal of Aesthetics 64 (1): 136-139. 2023.You know that feeling when you see someone’s eyes light up when they talk about something they love? Now imagine reading a book that makes you feel that. In Art.
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253Imagination and the Permissive View of Fictional TruthAustralasian Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.Imagination comes with varying degrees of sensory accompaniment. Sometimes imagining is phenomenologically lean (cognitive imagining); at other times, imagining involves or requires sensory presentation such as mental imagery (sensory imagining). Philosophers debate whether contradictions can obtain in fiction and whether cognitive imagining is robust enough to explain our engagement with fiction. In this paper, I defend the Principle of Poetic License by arguing for the Permissive View of ficti…Read more
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24A Dual-Process Model of Xunzi’s Philosophy of Music (after minor corrections)Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. forthcoming.Music, alongside ritual, plays an important role in Confucian moral education. Among all the Confucians, Xunzi gives music the most radical ability to transform people, and this is striking given his pessimistic view of human nature. Though he set the standard for Chinese aesthetics for millennia, there is no systematic account that brings together Xunzi’s various commitments: that only music from virtuous previous dynasties are morally conducive, that music can bring about lasting character cha…Read more
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443Defending Juche Against an Uncharitable AnalysisApa Studies: Asian and Asian American Philosophy 22 (2): 12-17. 2023.In this article, I aim to do two things: first, introduce Juche, the official philosophy of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (“North Korea”), and second, defend Juche against Alzo David-West’s allegation that it is a nonsensical philosophy. I organize David-West’s complaints into two major strands—that Juche’s axiom is too vague to be of philosophical use and that Juche makes too stark a distinction between human vs. everything else—and offer responses to both strands. My goal isn’t to …Read more
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963Juche in the Broader Context of Korean PhilosophyPhilosophical Forum (4): 287-302. 2023.There is ongoing debate on whether Juche (주체/主體), the North Korean state ideology, is indigenous, Marxist-Leninist, or Confucian—or if it’s a real philosophy at all. In this article, I introduce Juche and show how characteristics that philosophers identify to be unique or pronounced in premodern Korean philosophy can be found in Juche as well. Intellectual adaptation, pragmaticism, and an emphasis on continual improvement are prominent in both premodern Korean thought and Juche. Juche should be …Read more
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493A Dual-Process Model of Xunzi’s Philosophy of MusicThe Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. 2023.Music, alongside ritual, plays an important role in Confucian moral education. Among all the Confucians, Xunzi gives music the most radical ability to transform people, and this is striking given his pessimistic view of human nature. Though he set the standard for Chinese aesthetics for millennia, there’s no systematic account that brings together Xunzi’s various commitments: that only music from virtuous previous dynasties are morally conducive, that music can bring about lasting character chan…Read more
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544Metaphysics as a Means in “Burnt Norton”Philosophers' Imprint. forthcoming.Philosophy-and-literature as a subfield theorizes about the relationship between the two. Though few would explicitly say that philosophy is the point and literature the means, it’s common to see discussions of literature serving as an expression of philosophical insight and uncommon to see discussions of philosophical ideas put in service of literature. So, the aim of this paper is to explore, and suggest one concrete instance of, a literary work where philosophical concepts are instrumental fo…Read more
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438Convention and Representation in MusicPhilosophers' Imprint 23 (1). 2023.In philosophy of music, formalists argue that pure instrumental music is unable to represent any content without the help of lyrics, titles, or dramatic context. In particular, they deny that music’s use of convention counts as a genuine case of representation because only intrinsic means of representing counts and conventions are extrinsic to the sound structures making up music. In this paper, I argue that convention should count as a way for music to genuinely represent content for two reason…Read more
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24Introduction to the Symposium on Korean Aesthetics: The Beginning is HalfJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 80 (3): 355-356. 2022.
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369Metaphors in Neo-Confucian Korean philosophyJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 80 (3). 2022.A metaphor is an effective way to show how something is to be conceived. In this article, I look at two Neo-Confucian Korean philosophical contexts—the Four-Seven debate and Book of the Imperial Pivot—and suggest that metaphors are philosophically expedient in two further contexts: when both intellect and emotion must be addressed; and when the aim of philosophizing is to produce behavioral change. Because Neo-Confucians had a conception of the mind that closely connected it to the heart (心 xin)…Read more
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1024Lyric Self-ExpressionIn Sonia Sedivy (ed.), Art, Representation, and Make-Believe: Essays on the Philosophy of Kendall L. Walton, Routledge. 2021.Philosophers ask just whose expression, if anyone’s, we hear in lyric poetry. Walton provides a novel possibility: it’s the reader who “uses” the poem (just as a speech giver uses a speech) who makes the language expressive. But worries arise once we consider poems in particular social or political settings, those which require a strong self-other distinction, or those with expressions that should not be disassociated from the subjects whose experience they draw from. One way to meet this challe…Read more
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1075Camus and Sartre on the AbsurdPhilosophers' Imprint 21 (32). 2021.In this paper, I highlight the philosophical differences between Camus’s and Sartre’s notions of the absurd. “The absurd” is a technical term for both philosophers, and they mean different things by it. The Camusian absurd is a mismatch between theoretical reasoning and practical reasoning. The Sartrean absurd, in contrast, is our theoretical inability to explain contingency or existence. For Sartre, there is only relative, local absurdity; for Camus, the absurd is universal and absolute. I show…Read more
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544A New Class of Fictional TruthsThe Philosophical Quarterly 72 (1): 90-107. 2021.It is widely agreed that more is true in a work of fiction than explicitly said. In addition to directly stipulated fictional content (explicit truth), inference and background assumptions give us implicit truths. However, this taxonomy of fictional truths overlooks an important class of fictional truth: those generated by literary formal features. Fictional works generate fictional content by both semantic and formal means, and content arising from formal features such as italics or font size a…Read more
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2340The Life and Influence of Thomas AquinasIn Florin Curta & Andrew Holt (eds.), Great Events in Religion: An Encyclopedia of Pivotal Events in Religious History, Abc-clio. 2016.A chapter in an encyclopedia for important events for religious history. I discuss the life, works, and influence of Aquinas.
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456Art beyond Morality and Metaphysics: Late Joseon Korean AestheticsJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 77 (4): 489-498. 2019.
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University of ArizonaAssistant Professor
Areas of Specialization
1 more
Aesthetics |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Language |
Asian Philosophy |
Existentialism |
Philosophy of Religion |