‘A philosopher worthy of the name has never said more than a single thing:
and even then it is something he has tried to say, rather than actually said’
— Henri Bergson
For the past decade, my research has focused on one big idea: what we typically think of as “political” ideas can and do inspire rich and rewarding ways of life. This is especially true for places in the world where religion is in retreat. Something must and will fill that gap and provide a value system, a coherent narrative of self and world, and practices to make it real and lasting.
I believe that political ideas and institutions often do that work and I have written three books on the topic: Human Rights as a Way of Life: on Bergson’s Political Philosophy (Stanford, 2013), Human Rights and the Care of the Self (Duke, 2018), and Liberalism as a Way of Life (Princeton, 2024).
My next project, Politics and Soulcraft, takes this idea global by investigating how different regimes today (including China, Islamic states, and populist and authoritarian countries) cultivate character and a sense of self.
The philosopher Henri Bergson (1859 - 1941) writing in his office. Photograph by DORNAC, extracted from the Larousse Archives, Paris.
I am also a specialist on the work of the early twentieth-century philosopher, Henri Bergson (1859-1941). In his day, he was an academic star and cultural sensation – the French called it Bergsonmania and his lectures in Paris were must-see events. He even caused the first-ever traffic jam on Broadway when New Yorkers rushed to hear him speak! Bergson is a deep thinker and a beautiful writer and, with fantastic colleagues, I’ve done my best to introduce him to an Anglophone audience with edited volumes on his work, English editions of his lectures at The Collège de France, and original research. If you’re looking for a nice introduction, I suggest the talk he gave at Oxford in 1920, The Possible and the Real. Most recently, with Nils F. Schott I am co-editing three volumes of Bergson’s lectures at the Collège de France (2024, 2026, 2027) for Bloomsbury.
I have received fellowships from Princeton University (Center for Human Values), Cornell University (The School of Criticism and Theory), The University of Connecticut (Program on Humanitarianism), The Australia National University (Humanities Centre), The WZB Berlin Social Science Center, and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
PDFs of my journal articles and chapters are found on my Academia.edu site.