Publications

On this page you can find a list of my publications, with links to open-access versions where possible.

In progress

[Journal Article] “Coming to Know What We Desire: a role for phenomenological reflection” (draft available on request)

Book

Connaissance de soi et réflexion pratique. Critique des réappropriations analytiques de Sartre, Paris: Editions Mimésis, coll. « L’esprit des signes », 2022.

Based on my dissertation, this book critically interrogates the theories of self-knowledge and first-person authority developed by Sartre and by American philosophers R. Moran and C. Larmore. I show how their selective appropriations of Sartrean ideas concerning agency and selfhood shed light on what is special about self-knowledge (as opposed to knowledge of other people or things). I argue, however, that the phenomenological dimension of Sartre’s thought, which these authors deliberately leave aside, is actually necessary to overcome some difficulties their theories encounter. This is particularly true in accounting for our ability to avow our own desires and feelings. Coming to recognize such attitudes as one’s own not only involves exercising one’s rational agency, but also paying attention to how one experiences the world. This is a contribution to dialogue between philosophical traditions in view of solving problems concerning human subjectivity.

Read the introduction here.

Peer-reviewed journal articles

“Anscombe and Sartre on Knowing What I’m Doing. Towards a Comparative Study.” (« Savoir ce que je fais : Anscombe et Sartre. Vers une étude comparative »), Klēsis, 35, coordinated by V. Aucouturier, 2016, pp. 12-30.

It seems that an agent can generally say what she is doing without having to stop and observe herself. G.E.M Anscombe famously and controversially interpreted this capacity as involving knowledge that is “practical,” rather than “contemplative.” I investigate the surprising parallels between Anscombe’s analytic approach and Sartre’s phenomenology of action. Their convergence, I argue, comes from a shared critique of a certain picture of self-consciousness as inner observation. This leads both philosophers to recognize something specific about the awareness agents have of their own action, namely, that such awareness is achieved in and through that action itself. I defend the idea that, despite their many differences, these two approaches are complementary, and that what Anscombe calls “practical knowledge” is indissociable from a certain experience of practical engagement in the world, described by Sartre.

Contributions to collective volumes

“Choosing to Misknow Oneself. Self-Knowledge, Bad Faith, and Others in Sartre’s Baudelaire,” (« Choisir de se méconnaître. Connaissance de soi, mauvaise foi et autrui dans le Baudelaire de Sartre »), Les biographies existentielles de Sartre. Thèmes, méthodes, enjeux, coordinated by Vincent de Coorebyter, Paris: Vrin, « Annales de l’Institut de Philosophie de l’Université de Bruxelles », 2022. (Pre-print version)

“Is There a ‘Practical’ Self-Knowledge?” (« Y a-t-il une connaissance de soi ‘pratique’ ? »), in C. Romano (ed.), Du moi à l’authenticité : La philosophie de Charles Larmore, Éditions Mimésis, « L’esprit des signes », 2017, pp. 93-114.

In this article, I consider whether our capacity to avow what we believe and want without observing ourselves constitutes a form of “practical” self-knowledge, akin to E. Anscombe’s notion of an agent’s practical knowledge of her own intentional action. For example, can I come to know I believe that p by reflecting on the reasons to believe, rather than on the reasons to ascribe that belief to myself? I examine the disagreement between Charles Larmore and Richard Moran on this question by focusing on the requisites for intelligible application of the concept of knowledge. I argue, pace Larmore, that one of the requisites he identifies – the possibility of error – does apply to avowals of attitudes, although it is a specifically practical form of error, error of performance of what that attitude requires.

“Self-Knowledge and Commitment. Richard Moran analytic reader of Sartre” (« Connaissance de soi et engagement : Richard Moran lecteur analytique de Sartre »), in P. Jesus, G. Marcelo and J. Michel (eds.), Du moi au soi. Variations phénoménologiques et herméneutiques, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2016, pp. 121-134.

This article aims to elucidate and defend Richard Moran’s Sartre-inspired claim that we must sometimes commit ourselves, rather than observe ourselves, in order to both know and take responsibility for our attitudes. This claim can seem problematic. After all, people sometimes prove unable to live up to the commitments they make. It may seem, as Ferdinand Alquié originally objected to Sartre, that responsible commitment must rest on prior self-knowledge, and not the reverse. I argue that this objection fails to take into account the complex nature of one’s relation to one’s own attitudes and character. If one takes knowledge of one’s own character as a given when deliberating about what to do (as one would knowledge of another person’s), one changes the meaning of those traits and implicitly elides one’s role in what they will be in the future.

“Observation and Immediacy: How Consciousness Knows Itself” (« Observation et immédiateté : comment la conscience se connaît »), REPHA, Special Issue coordinated by É. Thalabard, Fall 2014.

The knowledge we have of our own consciousness appears to be immediate, i.e., not based on observation or inference. Following Richard Moran’s lead, I propose a way of understanding this phenomenon that combines analytic and phenomenological elements. I argue that Sartre’s concept of non-thetic self-consciousness can help explain how the immediacy of first-person awareness is not any direct access, nor the absence of observation, but rather something that involves our observing the world. Consciousness knows itself first-personally by thematizing its relationship to the world. (This is a very early and still exploratory formulation of some ideas that would later be developed in my dissertation.)

“Sartre, Existence Embarked” (« Sartre. L’existence embarquée »), in C. Halpern (ed.), La philosophie, un art de vivre, Auxerre: Éditions Sciences Humaines, 2017, p. 187-194.

“Camus, Living the Absurd” (« Camus. Vivre l’absurde »), in C. Halpern (ed.), La philosophie, un art de vivre, Auxerre: Éditions Sciences Humaines, 2017, p. 199-204.