My research examines human beings and scientific understanding from a hermeneutic-philosophical perspective. I believe in the value of theoretical questions about interpretation and meaning for practically focused scientific research, and accordingly I aim to bring research in the natural and human sciences into closer conversation with modern hermeneutic philosophy.
Since the eighteenth century, hermeneutic philosophers have argued that scientific understanding is necessarily founded upon the basic “fore-structure” of human understanding as a whole, i.e., the socially- and historically situated “pre-understanding” which frames everyday human reasoning. Our understanding of the world is achieved only on the basis of an interpretive context which prefigures the way we derive and assign meaning, and accordingly it is essential to the pursuit of understanding itself that we turn reflexively on this context and interpret our basic “hermeneutic situation.”
In my current research, I am studying the value of hermeneutic philosophy for research across the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. This focus is consistent across multiple directions:
- Book project — Living/Dead: Nietzsche, Dilthey, and the Birth of Modern Philosophical Hermeneutics: The aim of this book is to compare Friedrich Nietzsche’s and Wilhelm Dilthey’s efforts to reframe scientific knowledge from the immanent perspective of “life,” and to establish the importance of these efforts for modern philosophical hermeneutics. My main thesis is that although Nietzsche and Dilthey used the concept of “life” in significantly different ways, and moreover defended significantly different visions for the possibility of a “living” approach to scientific understanding, both thinkers nevertheless shared in common the objective of returning scientific inquiry to the immanent reality of our basic “hermeneutic situation,” i.e., the socially- and historically effected context of all possible interpretation. In this way, Nietzsche’s and Dilthey’s attempts to reframe scientific knowledge from the perspective of “life” were fundamentally hermeneutically motivated, and can be brought into much closer conversation with contemporary hermeneutic inquiry. Nietzsche’s and Dilthey’s philosophies are rich with untapped resources for hermeneutic philosophy and interpretative practices across the natural and human sciences, and I believe hermeneutic philosophers would greatly benefit from a rereading of these philosophies.
- In-progress research articles: I am currently working on several research articles which examine the history, aims, and resources of hermeneutic philosophy. In particular, I am drawing on the writings of Wilhelm Dilthey, Friedrich Nietzsche, Paul Ricoeur, Hannah Arendt, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Michel Foucault, and Achille Mbembe, among many others. I have three publications forthcoming in 2025: (1) one article which examines the influence of eighteenth-century popular philosophical discourse on classical German philosophy and the formation of the modern research university (this will be published with Philosophica: International Journal for the History of Philosophy); (2) one book chapter which examines Dilthey’s account of the ontological connection between “life” and “death” as well as its relevance for historical interpretation and religious experience (this will be published as a chapter within Kristof Vanhoutte (ed.)’s forthcoming collection, Hermeneutical Reflections of the Afterlife); and finally (3) one article which raises questions for Gadamer’s interpretation of Lebensphilosophie through an analysis of Nietzsche and Dilthey’s commentaries on “life” and “death.”
- Dissertation research (May 2024): I successfully defended my doctoral thesis at Fordham University in spring 2024. My dissertation project examined Friedrich Nietzsche and Wilhelm Dilthey’s cross-disciplinary uses of the concept of “life” and efforts to reframe scientific knowledge from the perspective of “life.” I argued that the standard life-philosophical reading of Nietzsche and Dilthey fails to represent these thinkers’ efforts to represent the singular hermeneutic situation that is in question with all scientific research, and therefore the value of Nietzsche and Dilthey’s writings for philosophical inquiry about scientific reasoning.
- Fulbright research (September 2022-July 2023): During the academic year of 2022-2023 I was a guest researcher at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum/Research Center for Classical German Philosophy (Das Forschungszentrum für Klassische Deutsche Philosophie) in Bochum, Germany. I spent this time researching the history of industrialism in Germany, and studying the ways that the history of industrialism intersects with the history of philosophical thinking about technology and progress. In particular, I examined classical German philosophers’ commentaries on the modern research university and the importance of these commentaries for modern scientific research.
Below are a list of my recent publications and presentations:
PUBLICATIONS:
“Lebensphilosophie Before the 19th Century: The Influence of Early Life Philosophy on Classical German Philosophy.” Philosophica: International Journal for the History of Philosophy, Vol. 32, No. 1 (2025) (forthcoming).
“Historical Consciousness as “Being with the Dead”: Rereading Dilthey as a Philosopher of Life and Death,” in Hermeneutical Reflections of the Afterlife, ed. Kristof Vanhoutte (2025) (forthcoming).
“Gadamer and Lebensphilosophie: Reconceptualizing Historical Science as Being with the Dead.” Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. 39, No. 1 (2025) (forthcoming).
“Rereading Nietzsche with Philosophical Hermeneutics: ‘Life’ as the ‘Hermeneutic Situation’.” Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy, Vol. 28, No. 2 (2024) (winner of Hans-Georg Gadamer essay prize (North American Society for Philosophical Hermeneutics).
“Prolegomena to Any Future Historicizing: The Dilthey-Husserl Debate and Why It Matters for Critical Phenomenology.” Puncta: Journal of Critical Phenomenology, Vol. 4, No. 1 (2021): 107-126.
“Lebensphilosophie and the Task of Interpreting Philosophy Historically.” Sociedad Castellano-Leonesa De Filosofía (SCLF): “Filosofía y Experiencia de la Vida”, XXVIII Encuentro Internacional. Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca (2021).
BOOK REVIEWS:
“Review of Church’s Nietzsche’s Unfashionable Observations: A Critical Introduction and Guide.” New Nietzsche Studies, Volume 12 (2023) (forthcoming).
“Review of Ferro’s Masters, Slaves and Philosophers: Plato, Hegel and Nietzsche on Freedom and the Pursuit of Knowledge”. Hegel-Studien, Band 56 (2022): 169-174.
PRESENTATIONS:
“Philosophy and Orphism: Hermeneutic Reflections on the Mythical Origins of Philosophy.” St. Damian Conference: “The Problem of Starting Points: Philosophical and Theological Perspectives,” April 2025 (forthcoming). Katholieke Universiteit Leuven: Leuven, Belgium.
“The Idea of a “Philosophical Anthropology” and its Relevance for the Future of the Humanities: Scheler, Ricoeur, Gadamer.” International Council for Philosophy and Human Sciences (CIPSH): Hermeneutical Rationality and the Future of the Humanities, November 2024 . University of Coimbra: Coimbra, Portugal (online presentation).
“Gadamer and Lebensphilosophie: Reconceptualizing Historical Science as Being with the Dead.” Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP) Annual Conference, September 2024. Rochester Institute of Technology: Rochester, New York.
“Pseudo-Historicity: Nietzsche, Mbembe, and the Crisis of Historicism,” Humanities Workshop in “Present and Crisis,” July 20th, 2024. a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities, Cologne, Germany.
“Nietzsche and the Politics of the Historical Dead.” Invited Guest Speaker: Fordham Social & Political Philosophy Workshop, February 6th, 2024. Fordham University: New York, New York.
“Dilthey’s Hermeneutics of the Living and the Dead: Rereading Dilthey on “Historical Consciousness” and “Religious Experience”.” Wilhelm Dilthey and Historical Consciousness International Conference, November 2-3, 2023. Royal Holloway: London, UK (Online Conference).
“Rereading Nietzsche with Philosophical Hermeneutics: “Life” as the “Hermeneutic Situation”.” North American Society for Philosophical Hermeneutics (NASPH), September 21st, 2023. University of Calgary: Alberta, Canada.
“Lebensphilosophie Before the University of Berlin: The Influence of Early Life Philosophy on Classical German Philosophy”. Keynote Address & Guest Researcher Presentation, Forschungszentrum für Klassische Deutsche Philosophie / Hegel-Archiv: Forschungskolloquium, May 9th, 2023. Ruhr-Universität Bochum: Bochum, Germany.
“Lebensphilosophie Before and After the University of Berlin; or the Attempt at a Living Conception of Time.” Weekly Colloquium for Early Career Researchers: Controversies and Crises in German Philosophy 1860-1914, October 2022. Online-Kolloquium der Forscher: Deutschland/Europa/Nordamerika.
“The Technologization of Life and Lebensphilosophie.” KU Leuven, Working Group on Philosophy of Technology, September 2022. University of Leuven: Leuven, Belgium.
“Nietzsche and Dilthey: Reconsidering Life Philosophy and Historical Science.” Congreso de la SCLF XXVIII, October 2021. Universidad de Salamanca: Salamanca, Spain. (online presentation)
“The Anachronistic Character of Time and What it Means for History and Politics.” Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP) Annual Conference, September 2021. (online presentation)
“Nietzsche, Dilthey, and the Lebensphilosophie shift in perspective on life and history.” Warwick Continental Philosophy Conference, March 2021. (online presentation)
“The Past that Lies in Front of Us: Nietzsche on Historical Science and the Oracular Voice of the Past.” NYC Nietzsche Colloquium, April 2020. Fordham University: New York, New York. (online presentation)
“Foucault in 1970-1971: History at the Limits of the Will to Know.” Collegium Phaenomenologicum Participants Conference, July 2019. Hotel Le Mura: Città di Castello, Italy.
“On the Sociopolitical Dimension of Date-Relations: Derrida and the Czech Monument Tank No. 23.” Comparative and Continental Philosophy Circle (CCPC) Annual Meeting, May 2019. Leiden University: Leiden, Netherlands.
——, UMass Amherst Graduate History Association Conference “The Routes of History”, March 2019. University of Massachusetts Amherst: Amherst, Massachusetts.
——, UK PGSA Conference on Social and Political Philosophy, March 2019. University of Kentucky: Lexington, Kentucky.
“The Unhistoricality of the Presocratic Philosophers.” Fordham Philosophy: First Philosophy Seminar Symposium, December 2018. Fordham University: New York, New York.
“Nietzsche in 1886: The Will to Health as a Willingness to Displacement”. NYC Nietzsche Colloquium, October 2018. Fordham University: New York, New York.
“Foucault’s Relationship to the Self and the Possibility of Biopower from Below.” Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP) Annual Conference, October 2018. Penn State University: State College, Pennsylvania.
“Affective Labor as Resistance in the Biopolitical Society.” philoSOPHIA: Society for Continental Feminism, March 2018. University of Richmond: Richmond, Virginia.
“On the Efficacy of Foucault and Kant’s Critiques of the A Priori Conditions of Knowledge.” Canadian Society for Continental Philosophy (CSCP) Annual Congressional Conference, September 2017. Ryerson University: Toronto, Canada.
“Deleuze and the Nomadic, Post-Oedipal Imagination.” Red Star Line Conference, August, 2017. University of Antwerp: Antwerp, Belgium.
“Heidegger on schweigen/verschwiegenheit: Dasein and Keeping Silent in Being and Time and the ‘Black Notebooks’.” Heidegger Seminar Symposium, May 2017. Fordham University: New York, New York.
“Deleuze’s Masochism and Nietzsche’s Genealogy.” Fordham Philosophical Society Graduate Colloquium, October 2016. Fordham University: New York, New York.