•  25
    The Problem of Free Will
    Journal of Speculative Philosophy 36 (4): 436-456. 2022.
    ABSTRACT In this article, the author dissolves the problem of free will and reconstructs it for pragmatic purposes. The article begins by locating the historical ruptures that have given rise to three different formulations of the problem itself throughout the history of philosophy, then turns to the insights of American Pragmatism for the purposes of rejecting the free will/determinism dualism, reconstructing the problem of free will as the social problem of obstruction, and illustrating why me…Read more
  •  2
    The Philosophy of Race
    Critical Philosophy of Race 1 (2): 248-250. 2013.
  •  46
    Relational Empathy as an Instrument of Democratic Hope in Action
    Journal of Speculative Philosophy 33 (2): 200-219. 2019.
    Historically, philosophers have understood hope in relation to an individual's character and have questioned whether or not hope is rational. American pragmatists, however, have tended to characterize hope as fundamentally social and have been concerned with the problems that arise when different hopes for a better future conflict with one another. Pragmatism's philosophy of social hope is often referred to as meliorism, the idea that the world can be made better with human effort. But in a demo…Read more
  •  49
    Relational Empathy
    International Journal of Philosophical Studies 27 (2): 162-179. 2019.
    ABSTRACT This work explains the practical benefits of a new and pluralistic notion of empathy that I call relational empathy. Rather than defining empathy as a thing or an activity, as most scholars have done, I define empathy as a set of three conceptually distinct though experientially overlapping relations: the relations of feeling into, feeling with, and feeling for. I then turn to historical discourses about empathy from the late 1700s to the present to demonstrate how different conceptuali…Read more
  •  20
    Pluralistic Conceptualizations of Empathy
    Journal of Speculative Philosophy 30 (1): 27-44. 2016.
    Imagine you are driving up a long and winding road in the mountains. It is nighttime; there are no streetlights or traffic lights, no moon illuminating the sky, and barely shining through a few clouds, the faint, flickering stars above grant you only a fraction of light to see the path ahead. The quiet, serene scene of this moonless, cool night coupled with the sweet scent of pine reminds you of the wonders and beauty of nature. Then, unexpectedly, as you begin to steer around a sharp turn in th…Read more