Biography
The single idea that interests me most is the interconnection between truth and beauty. This connection takes many different forms, including the Platonic convertibility of transcendentals, the significance of ‘form’ for ‘content’, the place of aesthetic judgements in the natural sciences, and some more critical views that see beauty as a disguise for ideology. I like to ground myself primarily in continental philosophy, though I am particularly interested in its relationships to theology, English literature, and the ancient sense of philosophy as a spiritual practice (as per Hadot and Foucault). My current research projects include a monograph on beauty in English Romanticism, and a series of articles on the aesthetics of Merleau-Ponty’s writings. In future, I would like to write more about philosophy as a spiritual practice, and the relationship between rationality and hope.
Publications
- 'Merleau-Ponty: Beauty, Phenomenology, and the "Theological Turn"', Theory, Culture & Society 38, no. 3 (SAGE Publications) (2021): 71-90.
- 'Coleridge and the Materiality of Translucence', European Romantic Review 33, no. 4 (Routledge) (2023): 423-40.
- 'Coleridge: Sublimity or Beauty?' European Romantic Review 31, no. 1 (Routledge) (2020): 21-36.
- 'Beauty' and 'Sublime', in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, ed. Andrew Louth, 4th edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022).
- 'Coleridge’s Metaphysics of Beauty', Religion & Literature 52, no. 3 (University of Notre Dame) (2021): 1-25.
- 'The Eolian Harp: Coleridge’s Middle Voice?' Literature & Theology 34, no. 1 (Oxford University Press) (2020): 101-19.
- '"On Poesy or Art": A Poisoned Chalice?' Notes & Queries 68, no. 4 (Oxford University Press) (2021): 441-45.
- Review of Merleau-Ponty and Nancy on Sense and Being: At the Limits of Phenomenology, by Marie-Eve Morin. The Review of Metaphysics 76, no. 4 (2023): 760-76.
Teaching and Supervisions
I currently teach a number of different papers. My MPhil paper, titled The Sublime and the Beautiful, traces the development of these two ideas from their early forms in Plato and Longinus through to their contemporary instantiations in modern art and the postmodern sublime. At an undergraduate level, I teach paper C11 (Truth, God and Metaphysics) and the first part of paper A8 (Philosophy of Religion). Paper C11 is essentially concerned with the nature of truth and the way our reflections on this topic are always intertwined with questions about the ultimate nature of reality (i.e., metaphysics). It spans the whole range of thought from Plato and Thomas Aquinas through to cutting-edge developments in French philosophy. In paper A8, I cover the development of philosophy of religion from Plato through to Nicholas of Cusa. I have previously been involved in teaching papers on the imagination and the development of philosophical atheism.
