• University of Notre Dame
    Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Philosophy
    Department of Philosophy
    Assistant Teaching Professor
Notre Dame, Indiana, United States of America
  •  23
    In this paper, I present a Foucauldian reflection on our datafied present. Following others, I characterize this present as a condition of “digital capitalism” and proceed to explore whether and how digital conditions present an important change of episteme and, accordingly, an importantly different mode of subjectivity. I answer both of these concerns affirmatively. In the process, I engage with Colin Koopman’s recent work on infopower and argue that, despite changes in episteme and modes of su…Read more
  •  35
    In this paper, I provide the outlines of an alternative metaphilosophical orientation for Continental philosophy, namely, a form of scientific naturalism that has proximate roots in the work of Bachelard and Althusser. I describe this orientation as an “alternative” insofar as it provides a framework for doing justice to some of the motivations behind the recent revival of metaphysics in Continental philosophy, in particular its ecological-ethical motivations. In the second section of the paper,…Read more
  •  22
    I present an account of nihilism, following Foucault and Nietzsche, as a sort of colonization of our thinking by a religious form of normativity, grounded in our submission to truth as correspondence, in the idea that the facts themselves could be binding upon us. I then present Brassier’s radicalization of nihilism and showed how it remains subservient to this religious ideal of truth. I argue, further, that far than showing how a commitment to Enlightenment reason and science demands a cold me…Read more
  •  37
    A Friendly Critique of Levinasian Machine Ethics
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 60 (1): 118-149. 2022.
    The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Volume 60, Issue 1, Page 118-149, March 2022.
  • Feeling our way to machine minds: People's emotions when perceiving
    with Daniel Shank
    Computers in Human Behavior 98. 2019.
  •  59
    Did Foucault do Ethics? The "Ethical Turn," Neoliberalism, and the Problem of Truth
    Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy 26 (1): 107-133. 2018.
    This paper argues against a common misunderstanding of Foucault's work. Even after the release of his lectures at the Collège de France, which ran throughout the 1970s until his death in 1984, he is still often taken to have made an "ethical" turn toward the end of his life. As opposed to his genealogies of power published in the 1970s, which are relentlessly suspicious of claims of individual agency, his final monographs focus on the ethical self-formation of free individuals. I suggest that th…Read more
  •  39
    In this article I want to argue that Foucault’s engagement with the Iranian Revolution was neither romantic fascist atavism nor does it presage any sort of transformation of his thought. Indeed, Foucault’s investigations of neoliberalism and subsequent work on spirituality, truth-telling and ethics are fully continuous with his critical genealogy of power. This is an important point, as we shall see, insofar as Foucault’s journalism on the Iranian Revolution occurs in the midst of his Collège de…Read more
  •  37
    Ricoeur and Foucault: Between Ontology and Critique
    Études Ricoeuriennes / Ricoeur Studies 4 (2): 90-107. 2013.
    In this paper, I trace some of Ricoeur’s criticisms of Foucault in his major works on historiography, and evaluate them. I find that Ricoeur’s criticisms of Foucault’s archaeological project in Time and Narrative are not particularly worrisome, and that Foucault’s “critical” project actually provides alternatives for enriching and expanding on some of Ricoeur’s later insights in Memory, History, Forgetting and – in particular – for troubling the distinction made between critique and ontology
  •  40
    Walter Benjamin’s Archive (review)
    Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy/Revue canadienne de philosophie continentale 12 (1): 193-195. 2008.
  •  24
    Walter Benjamin’s Archive
    Symposium 12 (1): 193-195. 2008.
  •  74
    Leibniz, Absolute Space and the Identity of Indiscernibles
    Proceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 16 107-113. 2008.
    The goal of this paper is to set out the structure and order of Leibniz’s discussion of the so-called “static shift,” in his correspondence in Clarke. The immediate point of this exercise is to determine precisely how Leibniz puts to use his two famous principles – the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) and the Principleof Identity of Indiscernibles (PII) – in constructing, and defending his relational view of space, while providing a refutation of Absolute Space. In specific, it is to set out…Read more
  •  88
    Artificial virtue: the machine question and perceptions of moral character in artificial moral agents
    with Daniel B. Shank, Carson Arnold, and Mallory North
    AI and Society 35 (4): 795-809. 2020.
    Virtue ethics seems to be a promising moral theory for understanding and interpreting the development and behavior of artificial moral agents. Virtuous artificial agents would blur traditional distinctions between different sorts of moral machines and could make a claim to membership in the moral community. Accordingly, we investigate the “machine question” by studying whether virtue or vice can be attributed to artificial intelligence; that is, are people willing to judge machines as possessing…Read more
  •  38
    Ethics at a Standstill
    Symposium 12 (2): 205-209. 2008.
  •  16
    Ethics at a Standstill (review)
    Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy/Revue canadienne de philosophie continentale 12 (2): 205-209. 2008.