• Making Way for Nothing
    In Ian M. Sullivan & Joshua Mason (eds.), One corner of the square: essays on the philosophy of Roger T. Ames, University of Hawaiʻi Press. 2021.
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    Representing the Great in Music
    Philosophy East and West 71 (1): 173-192. 2021.
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    Music with and Without Images
    Journal of Chinese Philosophy 47 (3-4): 137-153. 2020.
    Ji Kang's 嵇康 argument against the presence of emotions in music in “Sound Has Neither Sorrow nor Joy” (sheng wu ai le lun 聲無哀樂論) relies centrally on his claim that harmonious sounds are “without image” (wu xiang 無象). In contrast, the Ru 儒 (Confucian) view of music is that it transmits images and emotions between musicians and listeners, which provides the basis for the musical cultivation of virtue (de 德). In this paper, I provide a reading of Ji Kang's argument that elucidates key differences b…Read more
  •  42
    Race Magic and the Yellow Peril
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 77 (4): 423-433. 2019.
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    Only Music Cannot Be Faked
    Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 16 (3): 341-354. 2017.
    Among the various claims by early Chinese philosophers to hear someone’s de 德 or virtue through their music, the most astonishing statement may be found in the Yue Ji 樂記 : “Only Music cannot be faked”. While this classic Ru 儒 musical treatise on the development of human excellence in accordance with music is wide-ranging, the aim of this essay is narrow, in that it seeks to interpret this single sentence of the text by way of an explanation of the reciprocal patterning between authentic emotions…Read more
  •  3
    Sensing the Wind
    Environmental Philosophy 10 (1): 25-37. 2013.
    According to the Zhuangzi, listening to the music of nature draws the self into the silence required to experience things in their self-arising spontaneity. How does this happen? This essay answers by way of the Yue Ji (Record of Music), where it is said that great music embodies the timeliness of nature. Using both texts, I develop timeliness as the opportune moment, temporal natality, and nature’s memory. Listening to the timely music of nature is shown to be an act of ecological perception th…Read more
  •  33
    Sensing the Wind
    Environmental Philosophy 10 (1): 25-37. 2013.
    According to the Zhuangzi, listening to the music of nature draws the self into the silence required to experience things in their self-arising spontaneity. How does this happen? This essay answers by way of the Yue Ji (Record of Music), where it is said that great music embodies the timeliness of nature. Using both texts, I develop timeliness as the opportune moment, temporal natality, and nature’s memory. Listening to the timely music of nature is shown to be an act of ecological perception th…Read more