Drew M . Dalton
Drew M. Dalton is a Professor of English at Indiana University. Before joining the Department of English at Indiana University, Dalton was a Professor of Philosophy at Dominican University.
Dalton received his Ph.D. in 2006 from the University of Leuven (BE) in conjunction with the Husserl Archives and the Center for Social and Political Philosophy. Dalton’s research interests are primarily in literary theory, ethics, social and political philosophy, and aesthetics. More narrowly, his work focuses on how questions of good, evil, truth, and beauty can be addressed through the critical lenses of Phenomenology, German Idealism, Pessimism, Speculative Materialism, and Psychoanalysis.
His first book, "Longing for the Other: Levinas and Metaphysical Desire" (Duquesne University Press, 2009), integrated these interests through an analysis of the ethical, social, and political implications of Emmanuel Levinas' account of desire. His next book, "The Ethics of Resistance: Tyranny of the Absolute" (Bloomsbury, 2018), expanded this work by interrogating the role of the idea of the absolute in ethical, social, and political reasoning. In 2023, Dalton published "The Matter of Evil: From Speculative Realism to Ethical Pessimism" (Northwestern University Press, 2023) which extended his examination of the ethical and socio-political functions of the idea of the absolute into the realm of metaphysics by probing the implications of contemporary scientific research to contemporary philosophy, paying particular attention to the possible role entropy might play in metaphysical speculation and ethical and aesthetic evaluation.
Dalton is currently working on his fourth monograph which will explore the roots of our aesthetic sensibilities through the lens of pessimistic philosophy. In this work, Dalton hopes to reveal the of role escapist fantasies in the formation of our conceptions of goodness and beauty. In this way, he hopes to trace a link between our “high” artistic and literary values and our “low” pop-culture appetites.
In addition to these longer works, Dalton has published a number of shorter works in various philosophical and interdisciplinary journals including Philosophy Today, Angelaki, The Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal, The Journal of Aesthetics and Culture, Epoché, Phenomenological Inquiry, Idealistic Studies, Studia Phaenomenologica, Open Philosophy, and Janus Head.
Outside of his professional interests, Dalton is an amateur jazz guitarist and an avid middle to long distance runner who harbors an abiding love for modern architecture, vintage stereo equipment, oatmeal cookies, and the Marx Brothers.
Dalton received his Ph.D. in 2006 from the University of Leuven (BE) in conjunction with the Husserl Archives and the Center for Social and Political Philosophy. Dalton’s research interests are primarily in literary theory, ethics, social and political philosophy, and aesthetics. More narrowly, his work focuses on how questions of good, evil, truth, and beauty can be addressed through the critical lenses of Phenomenology, German Idealism, Pessimism, Speculative Materialism, and Psychoanalysis.
His first book, "Longing for the Other: Levinas and Metaphysical Desire" (Duquesne University Press, 2009), integrated these interests through an analysis of the ethical, social, and political implications of Emmanuel Levinas' account of desire. His next book, "The Ethics of Resistance: Tyranny of the Absolute" (Bloomsbury, 2018), expanded this work by interrogating the role of the idea of the absolute in ethical, social, and political reasoning. In 2023, Dalton published "The Matter of Evil: From Speculative Realism to Ethical Pessimism" (Northwestern University Press, 2023) which extended his examination of the ethical and socio-political functions of the idea of the absolute into the realm of metaphysics by probing the implications of contemporary scientific research to contemporary philosophy, paying particular attention to the possible role entropy might play in metaphysical speculation and ethical and aesthetic evaluation.
Dalton is currently working on his fourth monograph which will explore the roots of our aesthetic sensibilities through the lens of pessimistic philosophy. In this work, Dalton hopes to reveal the of role escapist fantasies in the formation of our conceptions of goodness and beauty. In this way, he hopes to trace a link between our “high” artistic and literary values and our “low” pop-culture appetites.
In addition to these longer works, Dalton has published a number of shorter works in various philosophical and interdisciplinary journals including Philosophy Today, Angelaki, The Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal, The Journal of Aesthetics and Culture, Epoché, Phenomenological Inquiry, Idealistic Studies, Studia Phaenomenologica, Open Philosophy, and Janus Head.
Outside of his professional interests, Dalton is an amateur jazz guitarist and an avid middle to long distance runner who harbors an abiding love for modern architecture, vintage stereo equipment, oatmeal cookies, and the Marx Brothers.
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Books by Drew M . Dalton
In this radical reconsideration of ethical reasoning in contemporary European philosophy, Drew M. Dalton makes the case for an absolutely grounded account of ethical normativity developed from a scientifically informed and purely materialistic metaphysics. Expanding on speculative realist arguments, Dalton argues that the limits placed on the nature of ethical judgments by Kant’s critique can be overcome through a moral evaluation of the laws of nature—specifically, the entropic principle that undergirds the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology. In order to extract a moral meaning from this simple material fact, Dalton scrutinizes the presumptions of classical accounts and traditional understandings of good and evil within the history of Western philosophy and ultimately asserts that ethical normativity can be reestablished absolutely without reverting to dogmatism.
By overturning our assumptions about the nature and value of reality, The Matter of Evil: From Speculative Realism to Ethical Pessimism presents a provocative new model of ethical responsibility that is both logically justifiable and scientifically sound. Dalton argues for “ethical pessimism,” a position previously marginalized in the West, as a means to cultivate an account of ethical responsibility and political activism that takes seriously the unbecoming of being and the moral horror of existence.
Dalton brings some of the most influential contemporary philosophical traditions into dialogue with each other: speculative realists like Badiou and Meillassoux; phenomenologists, including Husserl, Heidegger, and Levinas; German Idealists, especially Kant and Schelling; psychoanalysts Freud and Lacan; and finally, post-structuralists, specifically Foucault, Deleuze, and Ranciere. The relevance of these thinkers to concrete socio-political problems is shown through reflections on the Holocaust, suicide bombings, the rise of neo-liberalism and neo-nationalism, as well as rampant consumerism and racism.
This book re-defines ethical reasoning as that which refuses absolutes and resists what Milton's devil called in Paradise Lost the “tyranny of heaven.” Against traditional ethical reasoning, Dalton sees evil not as a moral failure, but as the result of an all too easy assent to the absolute; an assent which can only be countered through active resistance. For Dalton, resistance to the absolute is the sole channel through which the good can be defined.
Metaphysical desire, according to Levinas, does not stem from any determinate lack within us, nor does it aim at a particular object beyond us, much less promise any eventual satisfaction. Rather, it functions in the realm of the infinite where such distinctions as inside and outside or one and the other are indistinguishable, perhaps even eliminated. As Levinas conceives such longing, it becomes a mediator in our relation to the other—both the human other and the divine Other.
Dalton follows the meandering trail of Levinas’s thought along a series of dialogues with some of the philosophers within the history of the Western tradition who have most influenced his corpus. By tracing the genealogy of Levinas’s notion of metaphysical desire—namely in the works of Plato, Heidegger, Fichte, Schelling, and Otto—the nature of this Levinasian theme is elucidated to reveal that it is not simply an idealism, a “hagiography of desire” detached from actual experience and resulting in a disconnect between his phenomenological account and our own lives. Rather, Levinas’s account of metaphysical desire points to a phenomenology of human longing that is both an ethical and religious phenomenon. In the end, human longing is revealed to be one of the most profound ways in which a subject becomes a subject, arising to its “true self,” and hearing the call to responsibility placed upon it by the Other.
Throughout, Dalton explicates the nuance of a number of key Levinasian terms, many of which have been taken from the Western philosophical tradition and reinscribed with a new meaning. Eros, the “Good beyond being,” shame, responsibility, creation, the trace, the il y a, and the holy are discovered to be deeply tied to Levinas’s account of metaphysical desire, resulting in a conclusion regarding longing’s role in the relationship between the finite and the Infinite.
Peer Reviewed Journal Articles by Drew M . Dalton
Contributions to Edited Volumes by Drew M . Dalton
The problem revolves around how to account for and address appropriately the Other. The heart of the problem is this: the apparent difference between phenomenology’s ability, on the one hand, to differentiate the nature of the Other from other phenomena and to describe the ethical power of the Other; and, its apparent inability, on the other hand, to recognize the potential dangers of this power and to prescribe possible appropriate responses to it.
Far too many see the problem of the Other in phenomenology as a problem which only exists in as much as the Other is overlooked by Husserl and Heidegger, a not altogether accurate appraisal of their work. For these readers this apparent problem is solved then, or at least addressed, by Levinas. As this chapter will show, however, this is not the real problem of the Other in phenomenology. The real problem is not the way in which the Other does not appear in phenomenology; but precisely the way it does, particularly in Levinas. As this chapter will argue, the true task of phenomenology in the 21st century must be to understand and address this problem appropriately.
In order to do so, this chapter will first outline the “problem of the Other” in phenomenology by tracing its genesis through the history of phenomenology, treating along the way the works of Husserl, Heidegger, and Levinas. Through this analysis the true nature of the problem of the Other in phenomenology will become apparent. The chapter will then show how this new understanding of the “problem of the Other,” proves the continued relevance of phenomenology in the 21st century by showing how this problem illuminates the hidden core of a few of the most pressing social and political problems of our day, including the rise of various neo-nationalisms and the increasingly apparent lure of terroristic fundamentalisms. Through this analysis, this chapter will show, at the same time and perhaps paradoxically, the limitation of phenomenology to respond to these problems appropriately. As such, the chapter will suggest that it is only by moving beyond phenomenology through this problem that appropriate ethical and political responses to can be forged. The chapter concludes by showing how the ethical theories of Jacques Lacan address precisely this “problem of the Other in phenomenology,” helping it to overcome its limitations and move forwards relevantly into the 21st century.
In this radical reconsideration of ethical reasoning in contemporary European philosophy, Drew M. Dalton makes the case for an absolutely grounded account of ethical normativity developed from a scientifically informed and purely materialistic metaphysics. Expanding on speculative realist arguments, Dalton argues that the limits placed on the nature of ethical judgments by Kant’s critique can be overcome through a moral evaluation of the laws of nature—specifically, the entropic principle that undergirds the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology. In order to extract a moral meaning from this simple material fact, Dalton scrutinizes the presumptions of classical accounts and traditional understandings of good and evil within the history of Western philosophy and ultimately asserts that ethical normativity can be reestablished absolutely without reverting to dogmatism.
By overturning our assumptions about the nature and value of reality, The Matter of Evil: From Speculative Realism to Ethical Pessimism presents a provocative new model of ethical responsibility that is both logically justifiable and scientifically sound. Dalton argues for “ethical pessimism,” a position previously marginalized in the West, as a means to cultivate an account of ethical responsibility and political activism that takes seriously the unbecoming of being and the moral horror of existence.
Dalton brings some of the most influential contemporary philosophical traditions into dialogue with each other: speculative realists like Badiou and Meillassoux; phenomenologists, including Husserl, Heidegger, and Levinas; German Idealists, especially Kant and Schelling; psychoanalysts Freud and Lacan; and finally, post-structuralists, specifically Foucault, Deleuze, and Ranciere. The relevance of these thinkers to concrete socio-political problems is shown through reflections on the Holocaust, suicide bombings, the rise of neo-liberalism and neo-nationalism, as well as rampant consumerism and racism.
This book re-defines ethical reasoning as that which refuses absolutes and resists what Milton's devil called in Paradise Lost the “tyranny of heaven.” Against traditional ethical reasoning, Dalton sees evil not as a moral failure, but as the result of an all too easy assent to the absolute; an assent which can only be countered through active resistance. For Dalton, resistance to the absolute is the sole channel through which the good can be defined.
Metaphysical desire, according to Levinas, does not stem from any determinate lack within us, nor does it aim at a particular object beyond us, much less promise any eventual satisfaction. Rather, it functions in the realm of the infinite where such distinctions as inside and outside or one and the other are indistinguishable, perhaps even eliminated. As Levinas conceives such longing, it becomes a mediator in our relation to the other—both the human other and the divine Other.
Dalton follows the meandering trail of Levinas’s thought along a series of dialogues with some of the philosophers within the history of the Western tradition who have most influenced his corpus. By tracing the genealogy of Levinas’s notion of metaphysical desire—namely in the works of Plato, Heidegger, Fichte, Schelling, and Otto—the nature of this Levinasian theme is elucidated to reveal that it is not simply an idealism, a “hagiography of desire” detached from actual experience and resulting in a disconnect between his phenomenological account and our own lives. Rather, Levinas’s account of metaphysical desire points to a phenomenology of human longing that is both an ethical and religious phenomenon. In the end, human longing is revealed to be one of the most profound ways in which a subject becomes a subject, arising to its “true self,” and hearing the call to responsibility placed upon it by the Other.
Throughout, Dalton explicates the nuance of a number of key Levinasian terms, many of which have been taken from the Western philosophical tradition and reinscribed with a new meaning. Eros, the “Good beyond being,” shame, responsibility, creation, the trace, the il y a, and the holy are discovered to be deeply tied to Levinas’s account of metaphysical desire, resulting in a conclusion regarding longing’s role in the relationship between the finite and the Infinite.
The problem revolves around how to account for and address appropriately the Other. The heart of the problem is this: the apparent difference between phenomenology’s ability, on the one hand, to differentiate the nature of the Other from other phenomena and to describe the ethical power of the Other; and, its apparent inability, on the other hand, to recognize the potential dangers of this power and to prescribe possible appropriate responses to it.
Far too many see the problem of the Other in phenomenology as a problem which only exists in as much as the Other is overlooked by Husserl and Heidegger, a not altogether accurate appraisal of their work. For these readers this apparent problem is solved then, or at least addressed, by Levinas. As this chapter will show, however, this is not the real problem of the Other in phenomenology. The real problem is not the way in which the Other does not appear in phenomenology; but precisely the way it does, particularly in Levinas. As this chapter will argue, the true task of phenomenology in the 21st century must be to understand and address this problem appropriately.
In order to do so, this chapter will first outline the “problem of the Other” in phenomenology by tracing its genesis through the history of phenomenology, treating along the way the works of Husserl, Heidegger, and Levinas. Through this analysis the true nature of the problem of the Other in phenomenology will become apparent. The chapter will then show how this new understanding of the “problem of the Other,” proves the continued relevance of phenomenology in the 21st century by showing how this problem illuminates the hidden core of a few of the most pressing social and political problems of our day, including the rise of various neo-nationalisms and the increasingly apparent lure of terroristic fundamentalisms. Through this analysis, this chapter will show, at the same time and perhaps paradoxically, the limitation of phenomenology to respond to these problems appropriately. As such, the chapter will suggest that it is only by moving beyond phenomenology through this problem that appropriate ethical and political responses to can be forged. The chapter concludes by showing how the ethical theories of Jacques Lacan address precisely this “problem of the Other in phenomenology,” helping it to overcome its limitations and move forwards relevantly into the 21st century.