Academic Publications
“Does Fichte’s Argument from the Summons Succeed?” in Fichte’s Practical Philosophy ed. Benjamin Crowe and Gabriel Gottlieb. Forthcoming December 2026.
- Abstract: Fichte’s argument from the summons is typically considered a watershed moment in the history of social and political philosophy. In a single stroke, Fichte tries to (1) demonstrate that we can have certain a priori knowledge of the independent existence of other minds; (2) found the science of right as the terrain of intersubjective relationships; and (3) decisively refute his opponents’ accusations of solipsism. The problem, however, is that Fichte’s argument from the summons does not and cannot succeed. In his haste to produce a certain a priori argument for the existence of other minds, Fichte actually produces an argument that more closely resembles the ontological argument in that he infers the actual existence of other minds from the concept of the I. This paper offers a systematic reconstruction and diagnosis of Fichte’s argument from the summons, spanning from Fichte’s early reflections on the problem of other minds in the “Lectures on the Scholar’s Vocation” to the Foundations of Natural Right. My argument in short is that Fichte proves too much: by showing that finite self-consciousness depends on the existence of a prior self-conscious agent, Fichte is forced to admit the existence of infinite rational agents (such as God) as the origin point of finite rational agency as such. This inference strongly undermines Fichte’s claim to have decisively refuted solipsism and suggests deep methodological problems in Fichte’s Jena philosophy.
“Perry Zurn: How We Make Each Other: Trans Life at the Edge of the University.“ Book review for Puncta special issue on trans phenomenology. Forthcoming.
“J.G. Fichte: The Doctrine of the State” Book Review for Fichteana 25. June 2026
“H.B. Nisbet: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: His Life, Works, and Thought,” Book Review for Idealistic Studies 54.3. December 2024
“Gender Dysphoria for Critical Theory” in Feminist Philosophy Quarterly 10 (1/2). May 2024
- Abstract: Gender dysphoria is typically construed as a medical concept. This understanding of gender dysphoria reflects how cisgender people interpret trans experience. This essay proposes an alternative concept of gender dysphoria for critical theory: on this account, gender dysphoria is alienation from cisgender forms of life. If the medicalized concept of gender dysphoria tacitly takes for granted, identifies with, and thereby reinforces cisgender patriarchal society, a critical theory of gender dysphoria instead approaches the issue from the perspective of trans people, their lived experiences and social situation, to offer a critique of society. While the medicalized concept of gender dysphoria refers to a “distress” caused by living in the “wrong-body,” the critical concept of gender dysphoria refers to an alienation as a result of living in the “wrong (cisgender patriarchal) society.” The critical concept of gender dysphoria may become a tool capable of describing the necessary facets of trans experience necessary to form a political coalition. The paper concludes by claiming that trans subjects are the gendered analogue of Marx’s concept of the proletariat.
“Program for a Transgender Existentialism” in TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly volume 10.1. February 2023
- Abstract :Trans theory is characterized in part by the apparent tension between discursive analyses of cisgender society and phenomenological descriptions of trans experiences. While traditional inquiry into the history of philosophy proposes an interminable opposition between phenomenology and discourse analysis, Henry Rubin’s alternative suggestion is that within the domain of trans studies these methods are complementary. Discourse analysis and phenomenology converge in trans studies because they are submitted to the same ethical and political imperative: the systematic development of the trans archive. Both discourse analysis and phenomenology as methods in trans studies are directed toward the development of a genuinely trans history, perspective, and theory, with special methodological consideration of the way that this perspective is misunderstood or obscured by dominant frameworks within cisgender society. In what follows, the author provides a brief reconstruction of two major interventions in trans phenomenology, demonstrating that each is carefully concerned with distinctly archival considerations. The author further argues that each project remains unfinished because of an incomplete bracketing of medicalized cisgender concepts. The article then proposes a brief alternative program aimed at the full suspension of cisgender categories that the author calls transgender existentialism.
Works in Progress
“Hegel on Fichte in the Differenzschrift Reconsidered.” R&R.
- Abstract: Hegel’s first major philosophical work, The Difference Between Fichte and Schelling’s Systems of Philosophy (hereafter ‘Differenzschrift’), is devoted to developing a rigorous interpretation of the merits and demerits of Hegel’s nearest German Idealist fellow travelers, Fichte and Schelling. The Differenzschrift is conventionally taken to be an ‘anti-Fichte book,’ wherein Hegel is primarily interested in developing systematic criticisms of Fichte’s philosophical system, the Wissenschaftslehre. This essay provides a reexamination of the Differenzschrift, arguing that Hegel’s interpretation of Fichte’s philosophy is far more positive than it is usually taken to be. More specifically, the author identifies the ‘speculative side’ of Fichte’s philosophy to reside in his theory of self-positing, and especially, the characteristic of Gesetztseyn, which can be summarized as the thesis that the I is only its self-positing. This reading challenges a conventional interpretation of the Differenzschrift according to which the speculative aspects of Fichte’s philosophy are in essence already contained within Kant’s theory of transcendental apperception. The essay concludes with a reflection on the Fichtean legacy of Hegel’s “speculative identity proposition,” that the absolute must be conceived of as an identity of identity and difference.
“Lessing’s Esoteric Leibnizianism.” Under Review.
- Abstract: In this paper I present the metaphysical and theological views of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, an extremely important but unfortunately largely forgotten philosopher of the German 18th century. Lessing is unique within the esoteric Leibnizian tradition for arguing that the traditional Wolffian view, according to which God transcends the world, is philosophically dissatisfying for reasons drawing on Leibniz’s own metaphysical principles. Lessing pressures the conventional interpretation of Leibniz by arguing that the thesis of the transcendence of God violates the principle of the identity of indiscernibles. Either God’s ideas are distinct from their ideata, in which case God’s ideas are no longer perfect and we ought to abandon Leibniz’s conception of God as defined by his infinite understanding, or, as in Lessing’s preferred solution, God’s ideas are not distinct from their ideata, in which case God is the material cause of the world, and all apparently external objects are nothing but God’s ideas. While Lessing’s argument for pantheism has sometimes motivated interpreters to follow Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi’s claim that Lessing is a Spinozist, I maintain that this interpretation underestimates the novelty and uniqueness of Lessing’s Leibnizian argument.
“Why Trans Philosophy? A Broadly Epicurean Account.” Under review.
- Abstract: What is the point of trans philosophy? Philosophy concerns itself with the ultimate nature of things, and from its point of view the concerns of trans theory seem at best like highly provincial cultural criticism. Trans theory in turn is suspicious of philosophy because philosophy has been up until the present has remained almost entirely cisgender and worked to support cisgender society almost unbeknownst to itself. Given the apparently irreconcilable conflict between philosophy and trans theory, how is trans philosophy even possible? In this essay, the author proposes a broadly Epicurean answer to this question, wherein the central purpose of philosophical inquiry is spiritual healing. Only philosophy can provide a definitive response to the structuring anxiety of trans life, gender dysphoria, through the Epicurean revelation that there is no such thing as being sexed or gendered ‘correctly.’ Trans philosophy points the way towards trans liberation because the anxiety of gender dysphoria can only finally be eliminated through the full realization of a society organized around gender and sex self-determination.
“The Idea of Trans Phenomenology: Transition as a Way to Phenomenology.” Under review.
“Knowing Trans, Being Trans: On Self-Knowledge and Gender Identity.” Under Review.
- ABSTRACT: One prominent way of framing the debate about trans acceptance is as a disagreement about the nature of self-knowledge. Most people, both cis and t rans, claim to know their gender, and this principle of first person authority over one’s own gender is called the principle of self-identification. This paper offers a novel contribution to this discussion by developing an unexplored but nevertheless salient position within these debates: a trans-affirming perspective that has a generally negative view about the prospects of self-knowledge. This view, called trans existentialism, is developed using the resources of Jean-Paul Sartre’s existential phenomenology, drawing especially on his analysis of the relationship between consciousness and the ego. The central contention of this paper is that this trans existentialist position is actually more trans affirming than the traditional views put forward by trans-affirming philosophers today because it provides a substantive rather than merely formal defense of trans self-identifications.
Popular Publications
Contribution to “Being Trans in Philosophy” Issue #0 Zine. 2025.
“LETTER: UNM must fulfill its promise to New Mexicans: Bargain with the graduate union now” in The Daily Lobo. April 2022.