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Past and Upcoming Conferences
06-08 Sep 2024 - “The Beauty of Grimacing Xishi (with Dominic McIver Lopes)“ - British Society of Aesthetics, Annual Meeting - Oxford
This paper shows that early Chinese philosophers widely subscribed to the rather distinctive claim that ideal agents need to be ideal aesthetic agents and analyses the articulation of such a view in the Zhuangzi in relation to its metaphysical commitments.
01-08 Aug 2024 - “The Beauty of Grimacing Xishi (with Dominic McIver Lopes)“ - World Congress of Philosophy - Rome
This paper shows that early Chinese philosophers widely subscribed to the rather distinctive claim that ideal agents need to be ideal aesthetic agents and analyses the articulation of such a view in the Zhuangzi in relation to its metaphysical commitments.
27-28 Apr 2025 - “The Metaphysics of Creation in the Daodejing“ - Asian Philosophy Workshop: Chinese Metaphysics - Simon Fraser University, Vancouver
In this paper, I offer an original interpretation of the Daodejing 道德經 as containing a distinctive account of creation.
08-09 Mar 2024 - “The Beauty of Grimacing Xishi (with Dominic McIver Lopes)“ - American Society for Aesthetics, Pacific Meeting - Berkeley
This paper shows that early Chinese philosophers widely subscribed to the rather distinctive claim that ideal agents need to be ideal aesthetic agents and analyses the articulation of such a view in the Zhuangzi in relation to its metaphysical commitments.
24 Feb 2024 - “The Root of Truth Words“ - American Philosophical Association, Central Division, 121st meeting - New Orleans
Many strands of Buddhist philosophy share a skeptical attitude toward language, which is thought to be at best capable of representing conventional, but not ultimate reality. In this paper, I interpret Kūkai 空海’s shō ji jissō gi 聲字實相義 as containing a positive view towards language. According to my interpretation, Kūkai thinks that our language is capable of correctly describing reality in itself by virtue of being grounded in the universal language of the Buddha Dainichi Nyorai 大日如来.
15 Sep 2023 - “Two Kinds of Transformational Creativity in Daoist Philosophy“ - International Society of East-Asian Philosophy - University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh
The aim of this paper is to draw on Daoist sources—primarily the Daodejing and Zhuangzi—to identify and provide a metaphysics for two distinct notions of transformational creativity.
07 Sep 2023 - “The Root of Truth Words“ - European Network of Japanese Philosophy, 7th Annual Conference - University College Cork, Cork
Many strands of Buddhist philosophy share a skeptical attitude toward language, which is thought to be at best capable of representing conventional, but not ultimate reality. In this paper, I interpret Kūkai 空海’s shō ji jissō gi 聲字實相義 as containing a positive view towards language. According to my interpretation, Kūkai thinks that our language is capable of correctly describing reality in itself by virtue of being grounded in the universal language of the Buddha Dainichi Nyorai 大日如来.
05 Aug 2023 - “Beyond Free Will: Wuwei and Creative Freedom in Daoist Philosophy“ - Free Will in the Philosophy of Religion and Philosophical Theology - Ohio Norden University, Online
Scholars of Chinese philosophy have been developing models of human agency that place great value on our capacity to adapt to external conditions and to act spontaneously, that is, in a way that precedes rational calculus and deliberation. If these models are correct, they seem to threaten our freedom if we see it in terms of free will, which is understood as the capacity to autonomously decide to take a certain course of action as opposed to another. I argue, however, that we can find in the Daoist notion of wuwei an alternative model of freedom that relies not on free will but on creativity.
17 Jun 2023 - “Dancing with the Dao: Wuwei and Divine Creativity“ - Fifth International Conference on Philosophy and Meaning in Life - Tohoku University, Online
I propose a model of union with the divine based on the notion of wuwei (lit. “no-action“), a state of perfectly efficacious albeit effortless acting that is achieved by means of attaining a particular harmony with the cosmic order. I start by providing a theistic interpretation of Wang Bi’s commentary on the Daodejing and then use it to build an interpretation of wuwei as the form of action that participates in the flow of divine creativity.
21 Apr 2023 - “A God That Enjoys our Suffering? The Problem of Evil in Pratyabhijñā Theism“ - The Problem of Evil and Suffering - Waseda University, Tokyo
The form of theism advocated in the Pratyabhijñā tradition faces a very peculiar version of the problem of evil: given what their doctrine says about the relation between God and creation, it seems that God creates evil and suffering because he enjoys it. I argue that the Pratyabhijñā theist can answer this concern by appealing to the nonduality of God and creation.
31 Mar 2023 - “Unlimited Nature: A Śaivist Model of Divine Greatness“ - Philosophy of Religion in Asia - Yonsei University, Seoul
The notion of maximal greatness is arguably part of the very concept of God. If something greater than God was even merely possible, then it seems that that would be God. But how should we understand the idea of maximal greatness? This paper provides a Śaivist answer to this question by analyzing and discussing the form of theism advocated in the Pratyabhijñā tradition.
10 Mar 2023 - “Nothingness in Consciousness: A Metaphysics of Radical Creativity“ - 17th Annual Midwest Conference on Chinese Thought - York University, Toronto
In this paper, I utilize the metaphysical view expounded by Wang Bi (王弼) in his commentary on the Daodejing (道徳經) to propose a metaphysics of consciousness capable of explaining the phenomenon of radical creativity, which, drawing from the work of Margaret Boden, I define as creativity that changes the imaginable space of possibilities.
25 May 2022 - “Can We Move to a Cross-Cultural Perfect Being Theology?“ - Philosophy of Religion Incubator II - Princeton University, Online
Perfect being theology is a research program that has traditionally been conceived within the Western philosophy of religion. In the talk, I address the question of whether non-Western traditions also elaborate the same research program and answer affirmatively.
11 Feb 2022 - “Can We Move to a Cross-Cultural Perfect Being Theology?“ - New Ways of Doing Philosophy of Religion - University of Birmingham, Birmingham
Same content as above.
22 Jun 2021 - “Kūkai’s View of the Deity as Language“ - The Existence and Nature of God and Other Deities - University of Birmingham, Online
I give an interpretation of the philosophy of one of the main figures in the history of Japanese thought, Kūkai, with a special reference to his view of reality as language.
Talks
12/2022 - “Metaphysical Continuism“ - Graduate Colloquium - University of British Columbia, Vancouver.
11/2022 - “The Hard Problem of Consciousness“ - Green College Members’ Series - Green College, Vancouver.
07/2022 - “Towards a Buddhist Theism“ - Demystifying Chan Buddhism (Summer School) - University of Ghent, Ghent.
02/2022 - “Rethinking God’s Greatness“ - Graduate Colloquium - University of British Columbia, Vancouver.
02/2022 - “Rethinking God’s Greatness“ - Green College Members’ Series - Green College, Vancouver.