About Me
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 Oscar Reutersvärd, from the impossible window series
I am Professor of Philosophy at Bucknell University.
From 2019–2021 I was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at The Centre for Philosophical Psychology, University of Antwerp. I work in four areas: (1) philosophy of perception; (2) aesthetics & philosophy of art; (3) philosophy of emotion; and (4) normative ethics. In philosophy of perception, I am interested in (a) the nature of perceptual experience and its relationship to knowledge, and (b) hearing and sounds. In aesthetics and philosophy of art, I focus on (a) what I call "arts of impossibility"—that is, arts whose aesthetic effect depends critically on the representation of impossibility (magic, impossible figures), and (b) issues related to the philosophy of sounds and hearing, such as the nature of audio recordings and the role of sound in film. In the philosophy of emotion, I am interested primarily in so-called "epistemic emotions"—that is, emotions related to the pursuit of knowledge and understanding, such as curiosity, confusion, and wonder. Finally, I have a longstanding interest in normative ethics, but I've only just begun my first research project in this area: a theory of human well-being that integrates contemporary biology and psychology with ancient Epicurean ideas about the good. |