The "tree in the quad" by Caldwell Hall. © Michael Hobbs, used with permission.
My work examines the ways in which metaphysics can alienate us as human beings: how it undermines our understanding of ourselves, our presence in the world, and our relations to each other. Must it or ought it to be this way? Perhaps we can find a metaphysics that returns us to our proper place. (And is true!)
One major area of my research is idealism: the view that physical truths are settled by truths about the actual and possible conscious experience of macroscopic subjects. Admittedly, this description makes idealism sound like some kind of bewildering, speculative metaphysical hypothesis. But I argue that, properly understood, idealism vindicates our pre-reflective understanding of the sensible world and our place in it. (In fact, it aligns with the metaphysics that most of us already accept when we are not doing philosophy.) Idealism also helps us face up, in a clear-eyed way, to anxieties about the mind-body problem, external world skepticism, perceptual illusion, ontology, the scientific image, and our perceptual access to the world. And, of course, there is also the master argument.
In my most recent work, I am delving into questions raised by the metaphysics of Iris Murdoch. There has been much discussion of Murdoch's moral thought. But her moral thought cannot be separated from her (neglected) work in metaphysics. My first paper in this area, with Vida Yao at UCLA, is on Murdoch's ontological argument:
One major area of my research is idealism: the view that physical truths are settled by truths about the actual and possible conscious experience of macroscopic subjects. Admittedly, this description makes idealism sound like some kind of bewildering, speculative metaphysical hypothesis. But I argue that, properly understood, idealism vindicates our pre-reflective understanding of the sensible world and our place in it. (In fact, it aligns with the metaphysics that most of us already accept when we are not doing philosophy.) Idealism also helps us face up, in a clear-eyed way, to anxieties about the mind-body problem, external world skepticism, perceptual illusion, ontology, the scientific image, and our perceptual access to the world. And, of course, there is also the master argument.
In my most recent work, I am delving into questions raised by the metaphysics of Iris Murdoch. There has been much discussion of Murdoch's moral thought. But her moral thought cannot be separated from her (neglected) work in metaphysics. My first paper in this area, with Vida Yao at UCLA, is on Murdoch's ontological argument:
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Abstract: According to Murdoch, the Good is the “transcendent magnetic centre” of moral life. The Good shares many of the attributes traditionally assigned to God: it is a “single perfect transcendent non-representable and necessarily real object of attention”. And just as theologians have sought to establish the existence of God through the ontological proof, Murdoch uses an ontological proof to establish the existence of the Good.
This paper explicates, defends, and incarnates Murdoch’s ontological argument. It does so by considering a series of characters interpreting the proof. There is the modern metaphysician who is clever enough never to draw conclusions about reality on the basis of our mere concepts. There is the linguistic philosopher, sophisticated enough to recognize that metaphysics cannot ignore language; like any other term, ‘good’ has rules governing its correct applicability. The idealist is perceptive enough to recognize that our talk of goodness is not just another language game; the Good is a very precondition on the possibility of cognition itself. To walk with these characters is itself a Platonic passage – another image of understanding and moral progress that influences Murdoch’s work. In stopping with each along the way, we progressively overcome certain forms of illusion, prejudice, and self-deceit. But though these companions approach the Good, each is still “bound by words and images”. We have not understood Murdoch's ontological proof until we see that it is less a proof and more a beacon. We are not convinced by her ontological proof until we are past the point of needing proof at all. In this paper, we wait and watch. We watch until we directly see the Good (as made incarnate in Murdoch's reflections on the Proof). We wait until this glimpse trains us to see other incarnations of the Good, until its reality is proved "everywhere and by the whole of life". |