Associate Professor of Philosophy
Email: ja30[at]aub.edu.lb
Ext. 3148

Conducts research in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Continental Philosophy,  especially Nietzsche and Deconstruction. 

Research Interests:
My current research is focused on two main areas: Nietzsche’s metaphysics and epistemology, and Derrida’s social and political philosophy. What brings these two areas of focus together in my work is their anti-foundationalism. While Nietzsche pursues his anti-foundationalism by developing a variety of naturalism, Derrida’s anti-foundationalism produces a critical analysis of normativity that leads him to examine the specific kind of normativity at work in advocating one or another social or political philosophy. For all their differences, each ends up concluding that our theoretical and practical commitments must arise out of a rationally underdetermined context. My work develops the consequences of rational underdetermination for the specific pursuits of epistemology, metaphysics, and social and political philosophy, as well as for the more general understanding of philosophical practice itself. 
 

Publications
Articles
“Nietzsche contra Dennett,” forthcoming in The Journal of Nietzsche Studies. 

“Nietzsche, Naturalism, and Falsification,” forthcoming in International Studies in Philosophy.

“Politics Beyond Brotherhood: Experiencing the Self as Other in Politics of Friendship,” forthcoming in Expérience et réflexivité, eds. G. Bertram, R. Celikates, C. Laudou, and D. Lauer (Paris: Editions L'Harmattan, 2011): 207-220.

“Truth and Illusion Beyond Falsification: Re-Reading ‘Truth and Lie.’” Nietzsche-Studien 39 (2010): 255-281.

“Deconstruction, Normativity, and Democracy to Come,” in Philosophy Today 54.2 (2010): 103-120. 

“Nietzsche’s Conception of Value: A Story of Three Errors.” Nietzsche-Studien 38 (2009): 207-228.           

“Revenge, Return, and The Great Flood: Rereading ‘On Redemption.’” International Studies in Philosophy 39.3 (2007): 27-42.

Comments
 “Critical Remarks on ‘Tolerance in the Search for Justice and Peace,’ by Alex Boraine,” in Proceedings of the Lebanese National Commission for UNESCO World Philosophy Day 2005 international seminar: “Philosophy and Tolerance” (Beirut: UNESCO, 2006): 36-7, 61-5.

Works in Progress
“Democracy, Secularism, and Islam” (under review at Philoshophy Today)

“What Will to Power Can Be”

“Nietzsche, Naturalism, and Perspectivsm”

Nietzsche’s Teaching of Eternal Return

CV