Dr
Joseph
Rivera
Academic biography
I lecture and conduct research on a variety of topics. Trained in the fluid disciplines of phenomenology and philosophy of religion, I focus on themes such as the self, love, empathy, temporal experience, the body, and spiritual experience. In phenomenology I work on figures such as Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger and their French heirs: Jean-Luc Marion, Michel Henry, Jean-Yves Lacoste, Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida. I also research in a secondary area, political philosophy and the mechanics of dialogue. Here I draw principally on the work of John Rawls.
I am currently working on a fourth book project that explores the concept of the world in light of the debate between realism and anti-realism with an emphasis on the cosmology of St. Augustine. While I continue to work within post-Husserlian phenomenology, I also include in this project other philosophical voices from the anglophone world, such as Hilary Putnam and Richard Rorty.
Research interests
Philosophy and philosophy of religion
Themes: secularity, political theory, democracy, concepts of the world, theories of the self, time, the philosophical nature of the body, empathy, love, and happiness.