‘The unexamined life is not worth living’ (Socrates)
‘Philosophy begins in wonder’ (Plato)
‘Be the change you want to see in the world’ (Mahatma Ghandi)
What is philosophy?
For me, it starts by becoming deeply curious about experience and revealing the world in new and unexpected ways. In its most idealistic form it is a way of encountering the experience of a thing as it is, and revealing its essence.
My work has been deeply influenced by phenomenology and post-structuralism, and while I know that my embodied and very particular cultural experience already throws me into a particular way encountering the world, it is still possible to peel back experience and reveal the wonder of its layers.
I have been drawn to what disrupts and irrupts our ways seeing, being and belonging; often being drawn to the extremes of embodied difference, connection and disconnection to attempt understanding.
Here is a more formal list of most of my contributions, a few of which are still works in progress. See my short academic CV for further details.
- The Sublime and the Ridiculous (MA Thesis)
- Heritage and a sense of place (Ph.D.)
- Experiences of amputees with phantom limb and self-demand amputees (Research Report)
- Ethical justification for self-demand amputees (book chapter and article)
- A stoic defence of physician assisted suicide (Research and article)
- Imagining human enhancement: whose future, which rationality (Article)
- Bar-coded children – Inclusion of children on National DNA database (Research and article)
- Reflections on sectioning and anorexia (Two separate discussion articles)
- The case for reasonableness and fairness in mental health provision (Joint article)
- Trust in healthcare (Co-authored book)
- What is bioethics – notes towards a new approach (Research and article)
- Vulnerable bodies: new perspectives on disability (Monograph)
- Embodying loss and the puzzle of existence (Book chapter)
- Research on the recently dead (Research and article)
- Is posthumous harm possible (Research and article)
- Remembering and disremembering the dead: posthumous harm and redemption over time (Research and monograph)
- Solidarity during the time of COVID-19 (Article)
- Writing to my future self with dementia (Research and invited website page)
- Adaptive flourishing and dementia in the context of the Mental Capacity Act (Research and article – in progress)
- Spinoza, biocentric solidarity and the overview effect (Article – in progress)
- True forgiveness and reconciliation – analysis and practice (Article – in progress)
My philosophical research and formal outputs have been an attempt to re-imagine how we might also live better lives at the extremes. In that sense I would describe myself as quiet activist as well as an applied philosopher.