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57The Zhuangzi, creativity, and epistemic virtuePhilosophical Studies 180 (3): 815-842. 2023.This article explores how aspects of traditional Chinese thought regarding creativity can influence and enrich contemporary thought about related topics: specifically, how creativity can be construed as an epistemic or intellectual virtue, and the benefits of considering it as such. It proceeds in three parts. First, I review a conception of creativity suggested by aspects of the Zhuangzi that centrally involves forms of spontaneity and adaptivity engendered by embracing you 遊, or “wandering”, c…Read more
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18Skill and Mastery: Philosophical Stories from the_ ZhuangziLai, Karyn and Wai Wai Chiu (eds.), _Skill and Mastery: Philosophical Stories from the Zhuangzi, Rowman & Littlefield International, 2019, pp. v+289, £28.00 (paperback) (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 101 (4): 1022-1025. 2023.Skill and Mastery: Philosophical Stories from the Zhuangzi is part of Rowman & Littlefield International’s CEACOP (Center for East Asian and Comparative Philosophy) East Asian Comparative Ethics, P...
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47"See You in Your Next Life": Creativity, the Zhuangzi, and GriefRes Philosophica 100 (1): 121-149. 2023.Drawing from cross-cultural work on creativity undertaken within philosophical psychology, as well as contemporary commentaries on the philosophy of the Zhuangzi, this article motivates a conception of creativity that emphasizes spontaneity and adaptivity—rather than novelty or originality—engendered by embracing you 遊 (“wandering”). It argues that this approach to creativity can enable us to understand certain forms of religious experiences, especially those related to grief and bereavement, as…Read more
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45Oxford Studies in Epistemology 7 (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2022.Oxford Studies in Epistemology is a periodical publication which offers a regular snapshot of state-of-the-art work in this important field. Under the guidance of a distinguished editorial board composed of leading philosophers in North America, Europe, and Australasia, it publishes exemplary papers in epistemology, broadly construed. Topics within its purview include: - traditional epistemological questions concerning the nature of belief, justification, and knowledge, the status of scepticism,…Read more
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38Creativity and Yóu: the Zhuāngzǐ and scientific inquiryEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Science 12 (2): 1-26. 2022.Might traditional Chinese thought regarding creativity not just influence, but also enrich, contemporary European thought about the same? Moreover, is it possible that traditional Chinese thought regarding creativity might enrich contemporary thought both in a more broad, holistic sense, and more specifically regarding the nature and role of creativity as it pertains to scientific inquiry? In this paper, I elucidate why the answer to these questions is: yes. I explain in detail a classical Chine…Read more
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42Doubting Perspectives and Creative DoubtMidwest Studies in Philosophy 45 1-25. 2021.Doubt is often considered to be an enemy of creativity. But, might it be its friend, too? We see, in the Zhuangzi, a number of explorations that point toward an interesting affirmative answer to this question. To explain how the text can be interpreted as suggesting such an answer, this paper proceeds in two parts. First, in section one, I clarify what is meant by “doubt” for the purposes of this paper, as well as several ways in which it can be directed toward its relevant target: entire perspe…Read more
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57A Critical Introduction to FictionalismAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 99 (2): 419-419. 2021.
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38Apophatic Language, the Aesthetic, and the Sensus DivinitatisJournal of Analytic Theology 8 (1): 100-119. 2020.Across a variety of religious and philosophical traditions, it is common to think that it is possible that God defies all description. This presents a problem, however, as the claim that God defies all description itself appears to describe God. Drawing on multiple religious and philosophical traditions, this paper proposes an addition to the pragmatic stock of approaches to this problem. The proposal is that apophatic utterances are best interpreted—at least in the first instance—as invitations…Read more
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35The Vulnerability of Integrity in Early Confucian Thought, by Michael D. K. IngMind 129 (513): 299-307. 2020.The Vulnerability of Integrity in Early Confucian Thought, by IngMichael D. K.. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. x + 293.
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36Taking Skepticism Seriously: How the Zhuang-Zi Can Inform Contemporary EpistemologyComparative Philosophy 8 (2): 3-29. 2017.This paper explores a few of the ways that the Zhuang-Zi can inform contemporary analytic epistemology. I begin, in section 1, by briefly outlining and summarizing the case for my fictionalist interpretation of the text. In section 2, I discuss how the Zhuang-Zi can be brought into productive dialogue with the question of how we should respond to skeptical arguments. Specifically, I argue that the Zhuang-Zi can be reasonably interpreted as exemplifying an approach that is different from dominant…Read more
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72Is Zhuangzi a Fictionalist?Philosophers' Imprint 18. 2018.This paper explores the possibility that Zhuangzi can be fruitfully interpreted as a fictionalist. It proceeds in four parts. Part one discusses two distinct and very general types of fictionalism—force and content—that might prove useful for an interpreter of the Zhuangzi. The former type of view would have it that the expressions in question—that is, the expressions that Zhuangzi is held to advocate using and interpreting non-literally—are not best seen as used in a way that aims at, e.g., tru…Read more
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44Style, Substance, and Philosophical Methodology: A Cross-Cultural Case StudyDialogue 57 (2): 217-250. 2018.One challenge involved in integrating so-called ‘non-Western’ philosophies into ‘Western’ philosophical discourse concerns the fact that non-Western philosophical texts frequently differ significantly in style and approach from Western ones, especially those in contemporary analytic philosophy. But how might one bring texts that are written, for example, in a literary, non-expository style, and which do not clearly advance philosophical positions or arguments, into constructive dialogue with tho…Read more
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138The Oneness Hypothesis and Aesthetic ObligationPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 99 (2): 501-507. 2019.
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84Moral Cultivation: Japanese Gardens, Personal Ideals, and Ecological CitizenshipJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 76 (4): 507-518. 2018.
Yale University
PhD
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
Value Theory |
Philosophical Traditions |