About

Bruin meme photo

I completed a B.A. (Hons) First Class in Philosophy at Latrobe University in Melbourne, Australia. I then completed a M.A. mit Auszeichnung at the Goethe-Universität, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. I also received my Dr. Phil. (magna cum laude) from the Goethe Universität, with a dissertation on Searle’s Theory of Speech Acts supervised by Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of New South Wales, I taught at the ANU from 1993 until 2000, then at the University of Sydney until 2007. In 2008 I returned to the ANU, where I have been until August, 2019. I am now doing research at the University of New South Wales.

I work primarily on German philosophy of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with emphasis on the phenomenology of Husserl and Heidegger; and in the philosophy of technology and sustainability. But I also have a background in analytical philosophy and in Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Marx and Critical Theory, and Gadamer and hermeneutics.

A crucial part of my work is the building of interdisciplinary links to other areas of inquiry relevant to sustainability. I see these as enabling a new kind of engagement for philosophers, beyond the usual round of conferencing, paper-giving, publishing and intra-disciplinary teaching. I am actively engaged in local politics, specifically, on issues of urban consolidation, gentrification and public transport.

You may contact me under my personal email address or my email address at the University of New South Wales.

Publications

2015

‘Two Kinds of Economy, Two Kinds of Self—Toward More Manageable, Hence More Sustainable and Just Supply Chains’, in Human Ecological Review, Vol. 21, No.2 (2015), pp.3-21

2014

‘Sustainability and Sustainable Development: Philosophical Distinctions and Practical Implications’, co-authored with Donald Hector and James Petrie, in Environmental Values, Vol. 23, No.1 (2014), pp.8-28

‘Human Ecology as Philosophy’, in Human Ecological Review, Vol. 20, No.2 (2014), pp.31-50

2013

‘The Horizonal Structure of Perceptual Experience’, in Logical Analysis and History of Philosophy/Philosophiegeschichte und Logische Analyse, Vol. 16 (2013), edited by Uwe Meixner and Albert Newen, pp.109-141

2012

‘The Problem of das Man—A Simmelian Solution’, in Inquiry - An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 55, No. 3, 2012, pp.262–288

‘Human Behavior and Sustainability’, co-authored with Joern Fischer, Robert Dyball, Ioan Fazey, Stephen Dovers, Paul R. Ehrlich, Catherine Gross, Robert J. Brulle and Richard J. Borden, in Frontiers of Ecology, Vol. 10, No. 3 (2012), pp. 153-160

2011

‘The World’, in Routledge Companion to Phenomenology, edited by Sebastian Luft and Søren, Overgaard, London and New York: Routledge, 2011, pp.211-221

2009

‘A Problem Structuring Method for Complex Societal Decisions: its Philosophical and Psychological Dimensions’, co-authored with Donald Hector and James Petrie, in European Journal of Operations Research, Vol. 193, No. 3, March, 2009, pp.693-708

‘Is a radical ecopolitics secular and how might it be?’, in Politics and Religion in the New Century: Contemporary Perspectives, edited by Philip Quadrio and Carrol Besseling, Sydney University Press, 2009, pp.291-325

2008

Self and World: From Analytic Philosophy to Phenomenology, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2008

Dialogue with Will McNeill on Heidegger’s Notion of Technicity and its Relevance for the Politics of Sustainability, a discussion arising from my paper ‘What is so Sustainable about Services? The Truth in Service and Flow’, in Design Philosophy Papers, Vol. 6, Issue 1, 2008, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2752/144871308X13968666267194

‘Redirecting Affective Dispositions’, in Design Philosophy Papers, Vol. 6, Issue 2, 2008, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2752/144871308X13968666267356

2007

‘What are the Categories in Sein und Zeit? Brandom on Heidegger on Zuhandenheit’, in European Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 15, August, No. 2, 2007, pp.159-185

‘Nichts Neues unter der Sonne: Bewußtsein und Selbstbewußtsein bei Paul Natorp’, in Kant-Studien, Vol. 98, No. 3, September, 2007, pp.372-398

‘What is so Sustainable about Services? The Truth in Service and Flow’, in Design Philosophy Papers, Vol. 5, No.4, December, 2007, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2752/144871308X13968666267239

2006

‘Popping the Bubble: The Ethical Responsibility of Design’, in Design Philosophy Papers, invited contribution to a special issue on design and philosophy, Vol. 4, No.2, July, 2006, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2752/144871306X13966268131631

2005

‘Problem-Structuring of Complex Sustainability Decisions: the Case of Sydney’s Water Supply’, co-authored with Donald Hector and James Petrie, in Proceedings of the World Congress of Chemical Engineering, Glasgow, Scotland, July 10th – 14th, 2005, pp.1-10

‘The Material Basis of Everyday Rationality: Transformation by Design or Education?’, in Design Philosophy Papers, Vol. 3, No.4, December, 2005, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2752/144871305X13966254124950; print version in Design Philosophy Papers Collection Three, edited by Anne-Marie Willis, Ravensbourne, Australia: Team D/E/S Publications, 2007, pp.40-53

2001

‘Wie Man Gedanken und Anschauungen zusammenführt: Eine Rekonstruktion von Mind and World’, in Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, Vol. 48, No. 6, December, 2000, pp.891-914

‘Escape from Twin Earth – Putnam’s “Logic” of Natural Kind Terms’, in International Journal of Philosophical Studies, Vol. 9, 2001, pp.123-150

1999

‘What does (the young) Heidegger mean by the Seinsfrage?’, in Inquiry - An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 42, No.3-4, November, 1999, pp.411-438

1998

‘Getting Heidegger off the West Coast’, in Inquiry - An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 41, No.1, March, 1998, pp.65-87

1997

‘Meaning Things and Meaning Others’, in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 57, No. 3, September, 1997, pp.495-522

‘Heidegger’s Representationalism’, in Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 51, No.1, September, 1997, pp.77-103

‘Louis Dumont’s German Ideology: From France to Germany and Back’, review essay in The Australian Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 8, No. 3, December, 1997, pp.361-365

1994

‘Peirce’s Transformation of Kant’, in Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 48, No. 1, September, 1994, pp.91-120

1993

‘Sense, Subject and Horizon’, in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 53, No. 4, December, 1993, pp.749-779

1991

Intentionality and Language: A Critical Examination of Searle’s Theory of Speech Acts, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1991

1990

‘Gegen den Bedeutungsnominalismus’, in Intentionalität und Verstehen, hrsg. von Wolfgang Köhler, Forum für Philosophie, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp-Verlag, 1990, pp.55-87