My research focuses on the metaphysics of existence and modality in Descartes, Baumgarten, and Kant. I have further interests in Cartesian scepticism, post-Kantian philosophy, and Critical Theory.
My main project is to develop the thought that Kant’s pre-critical and critical philosophy systematically relies on an ontology of non-existent objects. Among other things, Kant uses this ontology to explain the objectivity of modal facts, the syntheticity of existential judgments, and cognition. I’m also working on papers Cartesian scepticism and Baumgarten’s metaphysics of existence and modality. For further information, see my work in progress below.
In my dissertation, I defend metaphysical responses to Cartesian external world scepticism and the ontological argument.
Publications
Journal Articles
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Forthcoming from Ergo.
Abstract. Recent scholarship challenges the once-prevailing view that Kant’s view of existence is incompatible with an ontology of non-existent objects. This raises the question: What does the nature of, and difference between, existent and non-existent objects consist in? In this article, I expound Kant’s first response to this question, formulated in the pre-critical Only Possible Argument, in three steps. First, I show that, for Kant, being in general consists in qualitative determinacy. Second, I argue that Kant countenances only one type of non-existent object, merely possible ones, which are clusters of states of affairs that do not obtain and which are tied together by grounding relations. Third, I establish that the nature of existent objects consists in their exemplification of internal predicates.
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forthcoming from History of Philosophy Quartlerly.
Abstract: This paper expounds A. G. Baumgarten’s innovative account of contingent existents. It will be shown that Baumgarten’s contribution consists in accounting for the difference between merely possible and actual beings in terms of determinacy. The resulting account is attractive: it does not require a distinct property that sets actual beings apart, and it provides a promising metaphysical backdrop for explaining thought about possibilia.
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[Eternal Anticipation. Future in Objective and Absolute Spirit]
forthcoming in Hegel-Jahrbuch 12/1.
Abstract: Hegel famously characterises philosophy as an intellectual enterprise that looks backward in time. This has led the Hegelian Left to charge Hegel with a neglect of future. In this essay, I argue that this charge is not justified by expounding the temporal structure of Spirit, called ‘eternity’ by Hegel. I show that eternity is not atemporal for Hegel, and that futurity is an essential part of it. I further argue that futurity takes different shapes in objective spirit and absolute Spirit because it is differently related to the present. In objective spirit (world-history), the future bears no essential connection to the present. In absolute Spirit (art, religion, and philosophy), the future arises out of a self-conscious process of examination of critique of the present, and is thus constitutively connected, even anticipated by the present state of these fields.
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Dialectica 74/1: 163–169, https://doi.org/10.48106/dial.v74.i1.09
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Abstract: Review of Graham Oppy (ed.), Ontological Arguments, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. I particularly engage with the contributions of Lawrence Nolan on Descartes, Lawrence Pasternack on Kant, and Graham Oddie on Tichy.
Book Chapters
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to appear in Proceedings of the XIV International Kant Congress.
Abstract: This paper addresses the question of why existence judgments are synthetic. It argues that the 100 thalers passage of the Critique of Pure Reason provides an answer rooted in a distinction between two ways for a judgment to be about an object: synthetic addition and analytic inclusion. Existence judgments are cases of synthetic addition, claiming that their objects’ being does not depend on acts of judgment. Thus, they cannot be true by virtue of the content of the judgment. A consequence of this reading is that Kant employs an ontology of non-existent objects.
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In Reading the Book of Nature Across Sciences, History and Philosophy. Proceedings of the Conference to celebrate 400th anniversary of Galilei’s Il Saggiatore, ed. Davide Pietrini, Firenze: Società Editrice Fiorentina, 2026, 93-117.
Abstract: Galilei holds that sensible qualities exist only as properties of experiencing subjects. This paper examines whether Galilei's subjectivism can be based on an austere metaphysics of the material world together with phenomenological considerations. I argue these are insufficient and conjecture Galilei missed this because he adhered to an Aristotelian view of mental representation as likeness.
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[From Phenomenology to Noumenology and Back. Troxler’s Anthropological Approach in its Contemporary Context]
forthcoming in: Ignaz Paul Vital Troxler. Philosophische Kontexte und Perspektiven (= problemata, Bd. 159). Ed. B. Hilmer & B. Orland. Stuttgard-Bad Canstatt, fromann-holzboog.
Abstract: I interpret and contextualise the general approach of I. P. V. Troxler’s Logic, a virtually unknown work by a not much better known figure of the post-Kantian tradition. I argue that Troxler’s project consists in bridging the gap between anthropology and metaphysics. Troxler hopes to do so by casting all knowledge as self-knowledge, and arguing that the laws that govern human thought are at the same time metaphysical laws. These assumptions serve him to avoid relativism as well as (what he takes to be) Hegel’s view, namely that human minds think divine thoughts when they do metaphysics.
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[Every Philosophy Revolves Around the Ontological Argument? The Trace of Natural Theology in Adorno’s Negative Dialectics]
In: Das Ärgernis der Philosophie. Metaphysik in Adornos Negativer Dialektik. Ed. M.N. Sommer & M. Schärli. Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2019, 237-278.
Abstract: I interpret Adorno's bold claim that all philosophy revolves around the ontological argument. On my reading, Adorno’s bon mot expresses the claim that all philosophy revolves around the question whether reality can be completely captured by thought. I then examine Adorno’s stance on the ontological argument in the Negative Dialectics. I argue that Adorno does not give up what the ontological argument’s aspires to, but gives it a Marxist spin: whether reality can be fully captured in thought depends on its historical development, and is therefore also up to humans and their actions.
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[The Spontaneity of the Understanding]
In Natur und Freiheit. Akten des XII. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses. Ed.s Violetta Waibel et al. Berlin – Boston: de Gruyter, 2018, 1385–1393.
Abstract: I investigate to what extent the understanding is spontaneous, as Kant claims. I criticise the view that the understanding is spontaneous when synthesising what is given by sensibility on the grounds of the dependence of this activity on the intuitively given. Instead, I argue that the understanding is only spontaneous in its purely logical use. This leads me to further suggest that Kant’s proof of the completeness of the functions of judgments is at the same time a proof of the spontaneity of the understanding.
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[Future-Consciousness. Outline of a Phenomenology of Expectation]
In: Erwartung. Zukunft zwischen Furcht und Hoffnung. Ed.s Emil Angehrn & Joachim Küchenhoff. Weilerswist: Velbrück, 2018, 35–64.
Abstract: I investigate Husserl's thesis that consciousness of futurity (protention) is constitutive of time-consciousness. I argue that consciousness of future states of presently perceived objects—what I call ‘objective’ protentions—are not constitutive of time-consciousness. Rather, Husserl's thesis only holds for ‘empty’ protentions—the expectation that some future state will succeed the present state of my consciousness.
Edited Volume
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[The Nuisance of Philosophy. Metaphysics in Adorno’s Negative Dialectics]
Ed. with M.N. Sommer. Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2019.
Abstract: The essays in this volume are devoted to different facets of Adorno's examination of metaphysics. They do, however, not only concern themselves with Adorno's metaphysical reflections in a narrow sense, but also extend to other themes Adorno relates to metaphysics: critique of concepts, history, truth, and materialism. Thereby, they render a hardly investigated topic of the Negative Dialectics accessible.
Reviews:
Paul Schroffner, SJ in Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 142 (2020): 434–438.
Andreas Arndt in Theologische Literaturzeitung 145 (2020): 987–989.
Till Seidemann in Zeitschrift für philosophische Literatur 9/2 (2021): 10–20.
Translation
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Trans. of: ‘The Idea of Global Democracy. A Critique’
In: Die Idee der Demokratie. Ed. B. Hilmer. Basel, 63-81.
Work in Progress
Kant
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Under review.
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I argue that Kant subscribes to an ontology of non-existent possibilia and criticise prevalent arguments to the contrary.
Scepticism
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Under review.
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I argue that the dream argument successfully shows that perceptual knowledge is irreflexive, but that this does not pose a sceptical threat because the premises of the dream sceptic are incoherent with the KK-principle.
Rationalist Metaphysics
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Baumgarten’s metaphysics seems to entail that God cannot know all the properties merely possible objects would have if they were actual. Thus, God paradoxically does not fully know what he creates before he so does. I argue that Baumgarten innovatively uses middle knowledge to solve this problem.
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Under review.
Dissertation
In my dissertation ‘Weltverhältnis und Weltverlust [Relation to the World and its Loss],’ I defend metaphysical responses to Cartesian external world scepticism and the ontological argument.
I focus on two domains where our cognitive relation to objects appears problematic: perception and metaphysical necessity. I argue that a substantive metaphysics of the objects accessed by thoughts of these domains explains our cognitive relation to them and alleviates their problematic nature.
I integrate systematic and historical research to develop my own philosophical views, taking my lead from Descartes’ discussion of scepticism, perceptual content, and eternal truths, Baumgarten’s metaphysics of grounding and modality, and Kant’s account of existence, predication, and criticism of the ontological argument.
I: Scepticism
Chapter I argues that Descartes’ dream argument is not an argument for external world scepticism because it relies on substantial presupposition regarding the nature of dreams. Chapter II shows that Descartes defends an externalist view of perceptual content that avoids dream scepticism. Chapter III argues that the divine deception argument establishes external world scepticism based on the view that metaphysical possibilities are independent of actuality. Chapter IV shows that Descartes’ modal metaphysics undermines this view of possibilities and, thereby, external world scepticism.
II: Necessary Existence
Chapter V argues that Descartes ontological argument fails to establish an implication between God’s essence and existence because it relies on a descriptively empty existence property. Chapter VI shows that Baumgarten’s metaphysics of ontological status avoids the Cartesian problem by conceiving of existence in terms of determinacy. Chapter VII mobilises Kant’s argument against the analyticity of existential judgments against Baumgarten, and shows that Kant analyses existence as a relational property. On this view, the ontological argument fails because it views a relational property as sufficiently grounded in the essence of an entity, which is, however, ruled out by its relationality.