Research

I work on questions in ethics, epistemology, action theory, and the philosophy of imagination, often by engaging historical perspectives. My primary interests in the history of philosophy are the medieval Arabic and Persian tradition, as well as Kant. These days, I am working on a large project on the philosophy of imagination and its relationship to action theory and moral epistemology.

Publications

Journal articles

• “Imagination and Its Object: Recovering Suhrawardī’s Suspended Images,” Philosophers’ Imprint, 2026.
  abstract

  In this paper, I offer a modern adaptation of a theory of imagination that we can find in the writings of Shihāb al-Dīn Suhrawardī (1154–1191) and his followers in the Ishrāqī tradition (‘illuminationism’). I turn to this philosophical tradition because it offers a rare historical example of a type of theory that treats imagination as a primary source of knowledge. That is, on the Ishrāqī account, even an ideal human knower must know certain things via imagination. What I offer is a ‘modern adaptation’ of the theory in that I try to extract the theory of imagination from the cosmological and theological framework of the Ishrāqī thought. The resulting theory is still Ishrāqī in that it relies on a unique form of Platonism about knowledge that, I suggest, we can find in Suhrawardī's writings. Finally, I discuss how the reconstructed Ishrāqī conception of imaginative knowledge is especially appealing as a theory of moral knowledge.

  • A blog entry unpacking one aspect of the paper: The world of image — The Junkyard
• “Tusian Perfectionism,” The Journal of Ethics, 2025.
  abstract

  I offer a reconstructive reading of Ṭūsī’s (1201–1274) account of natural goodness in the Naserian Ethics. I show that Ṭūsī’s version of Aristotelian ethics is especially well-suited to accommodate an intuition that is hard to integrate into a theory of natural goodness: Human good is nobler or more elevated than animal and vegetative goods. To do this, I analyze Ṭūsī’s discussion of the relationship between different kinds of perfection from non-living material compounds to vegetative, animal, human, and divine beings. I close by noting that, depending on our reading of Ṭūsī’s conception of divine beings and their perfection, his proposal might come at a cost to his Aristotelian naturalist ambitions for ethics.

• “Autonomy as Practical Understanding,” Ergo, 2024.
  abstract

  In this paper, I offer a theory of autonomous agency that relies on the re-sources of a strongly cognitivist theory of intention and intentional action. On the proposed account, intentional action is a graded notion that is ex-plained via the agent’s degree of practical knowledge. In turn, autonomous agency is also a graded notion that is explained via the agent’s degree of practical understanding. The resulting theory can synthesize insights from both the hierarchical and the cognitivist theories of autonomy with at least some aspects of the reason-responsiveness theories. Moreover, by treating practical knowledge and practical understanding as gradable no-tions, the paper offers a strategy to respond to enduring objections against cognitivism about intention, control, and autonomy.

• “Kant’s Account of Epistemic Normativity,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 2022.
  abstract

  According to a common interpretation, most explicitly defended by Onora O’Neill and Patricia Kitcher, Kant held that epistemic obligations normatively depend on moral obligations. That is, were a rational agent not bound by any moral obligation, then she would not be bound by any epistemic obligation either. By contrast, in this paper, I argue that, according to Kant, some epistemic obligations are normatively independent from moral obligations, and are indeed normatively absolute. This view, which I call epistemicism, has two parts. First, it claims that in the absence of other kinds of obligations, rational agents would still be bound by these epistemic obligations, i. e., that the latter are normatively independent. Second, it claims that, no matter what other obligations are at stake, rational agents are bound by these epistemic obligations, i. e., the normativity of these epistemic obligations is absolute in that it cannot be undercut by any moral or other sort of obligation. The argument turns on an exploratory reading of Kant’s remarks in “What Is Orientation in Thinking?” (1786) about the maxim of “thinking for oneself” as the “supreme touchstone of truth”. In contrast to O’Neill and Kitcher, I argue that if we interpret this maxim as stating the unifying principle of theoretical and practical reason, then we must interpret it as stating an epistemic, and not merely practical imperative. This result, I argue, vindicates epistemicism and illuminates interesting lessons about Kant’s conception of the category of “epistemic” norms. Further, it helps us make headway with Kant’s enigmatic remarks about the unity of practical and theoretical reason in the Groundwork, the first and second Critiques, and the Lectures on Logic. On my proposal, principles of the practical and theoretical uses of reason are unified through a formal epistemic principle.

• “Ghazālī’s Transformative Answer to Skepticism,” Theoria, 2021.
  abstract

  In this paper, I offer a reconstruction of Ghazālī's encounter with scepticism in the Deliverance from Error. For Ghazālī, I argue, radical scepticism about the possibility of knowledge ensues from intellectualist assumptions about the nature of justification. On the reading that I will propose, Ghazālī holds that foundational knowledge can only be justified via actions that lead to transformative experiences.

• “Creative Imagining as Practical Knowing,” Res Philosophica, 2021.
  abstract

  I argue that practical knowledge can be understood as constituted by a kind of imagining. In particular, it is the knowledge of what I am doing when that knowledge is represented via extramental imagination. Two results follow. First, on this account, we can do justice both to the cognitive character and the practical character of practical knowledge. And second, we can identify a condition under which imagination becomes factive, and thus a source of ob-jective evidence. I develop this view by extracting an account of self-knowledge via extramental imagination from the writings of Ibn ‘Arabi (1165-1240).

  • A blog entry where I summarize the idea from this paper: Practical Knowledge and Extramental Imagination — The Junkyard
• with Sara Aronowitz, “Iqbal’s Fractured Vision: History as a Science and the Moral Weight of the Past,” Philosophy East and West, 2020.
  abstract

  This paper aims to understand how we reason from historical premises to normative conclusions, tracing this question through the work of Muhammad Iqbal. On our reading, he wavers between two views of history, one a kind of natural science, and the other akin to religious interpretation. These tell different stories about the lessons we draw from history.

Chapters and encyclopedia entries

• “Ṭūsī’s Ethics,” Oxford Handbook of Islamic Ethics, forthcoming.
• with Jing Iris Hu, “Non-Western Treatments of Imagination,” in Amy Kind and Julia Langkau (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Imagination and Creativity, Oxford University Press, 2024.
• “Ghazālī’s Epistemology,” Blackwell Companion to Epistemology (3rd ed.), forthcoming.
• “Suhrawardī’s Ishraqi Epistemology,” Blackwell Companion to Epistemology (3rd ed.), forthcoming.

Book reviews

• Review of Al-Ghazālī and the Ideal of Godlikeness by Sophia Vasalou, Mind, forthcoming.
• Review of A Sourcebook in Global Philosophy, edited by Mohammed Rustom, Islamic Intellectual Traditions, 2026.
• Review of Morality and Revelation in Islamic Thought and Beyond: A New Problem of Evil, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 2025.
• Review of Kant on Freedom and Spontaneity, ed. Kate Moran, Kantian Review, 2019.

In preparation

• Manuscript on moral imagination and virtue ethics with themes from Ṭūsī’s Akhlāq Nāṣeri and Suhrawardī’s Ḥikmat al-Ishrāq.
• “Ṭūsī, Naṣīr al-Dīn,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [in preparation].
• “Ṭūsī’s Hylomorphic Account of Perfection and the Value of Friendship [tawallā],” Avicenna, Avicennism(s), and the Later Philosophical Traditions [under review].
• A paper on practical syllogism and imagination [in progress].