Research

Ancient Greek Philosophy

My work on Aristotle focuses on his metaphysics and psychology. I see Aristotle as a subtle thinker with proto-phenomenological insights, who made great efforts to understand the dynamism and interconnectedness of life.

I am currently working on turning my dissertation, Aristotle’s Theory of Dynamics: Examining the Ancient Greek Roots of Process Philosophy, into a monograph: Integrals of Experience: On Aristotle and Bergson. The goal of my thesis was to untangle the threads of Aristotelian ideas in Bergson’s philosophy and shows the commonalities and differences in their respective methods. This is a difficult task because Bergson was inconsistent in his treatment of Aristotle. At times he presents him as almost a proto-“Bergsonian,” and other times, as a prime example of the preoccupation with badly posed metaphysical problems—just the kind of wrong thinking that Bergson attempted to replace. Briefly put, Bergson’s goal is to lead us back to an immediate grasp of reality-in-flux, inexpressible by language, concepts, or quantities. Bergson named this ineffable reality “qualitative multiplicity.” Bergson suggests that Aristotle’s philosophical method consisted of an analysis of language aimed at precise formulas which translate reality into static and abstract concepts or general types. I refute this interpretation and show that Aristotle had described life in a way that is consonant with qualitative multiplicity—an integral view of life, as Bergson called it. Aristotle, like Bergson after him, treated the material world not as an inert substratum, but as dynamic forces analogous to lived experience. It is in this sense that Aristotle is similar to 19th and 20th century process philosophy. My conclusion indicates the only major difference I find between Aristotle and Bergson's philosophical methodology—morality. Bergson connected Aristotle’s dynamics with the evolutionary conception of open systems as described in thermodynamics. He used this combination of ideas in order to describe morality as a movement propelling society forward by promoting sympathy and an opening of the heart. Aristotle accepts “closed morality” and defends slavery, natural hierarchy, and idealized forms of masculinity. Bergson on the other hand is emancipatory, dismissive of grand teleology, and demands a moral progression. Open morality involves changing the meaning of humanity itself and caring for animals and the environment. My future research on Bergson will focus on his morality and its relation to environmentalism and philosophy of life sciences.

Bergson, Phenomenology, and Nature

My approaches to studying consciousness and nature are transdisciplinary and integrative. True philosophy is an empiricism of both the outer and inner world. It's not only an intellectual exercise, it requires passion and compassion: a form of self-care, leading to self-improveemnt and careful observation.

In my article “Reconstructing Bergson’s Critique of Intensive Magnitude,” (Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 2020) which explores Bergson’s critique of quantifying feelings of intensity, I defend his project against charges of inconsistency and his naiveté of mathematics as claimed in contemporary scholarship. I am happy to say that Florian Vermeiren has since responded to my article in ‘The Ordinality of Duration: A Reply to John Bagby’ (2021).

The historical method of my dissertation necessitated that I extend my research further into Kant, German idealism, and several French spiritualist philosophers who influenced Bergson: Pierre Maine de Biran, Félix Ravaisson, and Jules Lachelier. According to my work, it would be better call them the French Aristotelians. Many of their texts have yet to be translated into English, a task I undertook. I have worked extensively on Bergson’s recently published lectures at the Collège de France. I have since translated the 1903-04 course on The History of the Idea of Time, which is being published by Bloomsbury Press (2023). These lectures include Bergson’s most sustained treatment of Aristotle and others, such as Plato, Plotinus, Descartes, Leibniz, Newton, and Kant. Moving forward, I plan on keeping a broad historical approach to my scholarship on problems in process philosophy and phenomenology - always with a view to the current and evolving ecological crisis.

My thinking has been profoundly shaped by process philosophy (Whitehead, Deleuze) and phenomenology (Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty). I see my work on Bergson as a good nexus point for connecting themes in continental philosophy with American and analytic philosophy, and the philosophy of science. In April 2016, I presented my paper “Metaphysics of Complexity” at the Deserts and Oceans: Transdisciplinary Approaches to the Environment conference, held at the University of Arizona. It gave an overview of the transdisciplinary methods found in Bergson, Whitehead, and Deleuze, and showed the insights they offer to environmental thought. My doctoral qualifying paper explored the role of irreversibility in Bergson’s phenomenology of memory and Ilya Prigogine’s “dissipative structures”—a foundational concept in contemporary systems science and environment.

Philosophy of Music and Musicology

I am a musician and composer and, like Socrates and Paul Valery, I think that philosophy is a type of music and music is often more insightful into life and the nature of consciousness than anything conveyed by words.

My article 'The Nature of Music in Peripatetic phenomenological Musicology' (Epoché) draws on Aristotle’s psychology, aesthetics, and phenomenological descriptions to explain the musicology of Theophrastus and Aristoxenus, who ask “what is the source and nature of music?” I show that their answer is that music is something akin to the soul itself and that musicology can help us better understand the soul. Peripatetic musicology holds that music is not reducible to the harmonic ratios or the vibrations of sound. Its ‘nature’ is the cause that produces it, and this is the human soul, which loves concord, order, rhythm, and contrast, and, in an expressive act, articulates precise patterns of sound with a view to alleviating sorrow and inducing joy.

I am currently working on several projects at the intersection of musicology and phenomenology. One involves the affective values of different historical temperaments. Another on the phenomenology of composition and its relation to creative invention - particularly in connection to Schoenberg's notion of "developing variation."

I have also put a lot of work into reconstructing the sounds of Ancient Greek Modes and will soon be coming out with samples of different ancient tunings.