Jonathan Lewis
I am a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Institute of Ethics at Dublin City University. I previously taught at the University of Cambridge and Royal Holloway, University of London, having gained degrees from Royal Holloway, King's College London and the University of Cambridge.
Subjects: Health Psychology, Health and Social Care, Law, Philosophy
Biography
Jonathan is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Institute of Ethics at Dublin City University. His primary research interests are applied ethics, bioethics, medical law, health policy, philosophy of medicine, experimental philosophy and philosophy of science. In the past, he explored issues in phenomenology, aesthetics and the history of philosophy.He engages with empirically-grounded, practically-normative questions at the intersections of ethics, law and policy. In addition, he seeks to understand the ways in which dialogues between bioethics, medical law, practical philosophy and empirical research can inform the ways in which we deal with health policy issues concerning autonomy, capacity, vulnerability, responsibility and human rights. He also explores the nature of experimental methods in the medical, behavioural and social sciences at the intersections of experimental philosophy, philosophy of science and moral psychology.
​His first monograph, Reification and the Aesthetics of Music (Routledge, 2016), assesses contrasting philosophical approaches to aesthetic ontology, meaning and truth in order to characterise the limits and limitations of different approaches to ethics, philosophy of language and metaphysics.
Education
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Ph.D. Royal Holloway, University of London 2014
M.A. King's College, London 2009
B.A. University of Cambridge 2006
Areas of Research / Professional Expertise
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Applied Ethics
Bioethics
Medical Law
Health Policy
Philosophy of Medicine
Experimental Philosophy
Philosophy of Science
Websites
Books
News
Available Now: Reification and the Aesthetics of Music
By: Jonathan Lewis
Subjects: Applied Arts & Music, Music, Philosophy
This innovative study re-evaluates the philosophical significance of aesthetics in the context of contemporary debates on the nature of philosophy. Lewis's main argument is that contemporary conceptions of meaning and truth have been reified, and that aesthetics is able to articulate why this is the case, with important consequences for understanding the horizons and nature of philosophical inquiry. Reification and the Aesthetics of Musicchallenges the most emphatic and problematic conceptions of meaning and truth in both analytic philosophy and postmodern thought by acknowledging the ontological and logical primacy of our concrete, practice-based experiences with aesthetic phenomena. By engaging with a variety of aesthetic practices, including Beethoven's symphonies and string quartets, Wagner's music dramas, Richard Strauss's Elektra, the twentieth-century avant-garde, Jamaican soundsystem culture, punk and contemporary noise, this book demonstrates the aesthetic relevance of reification as well as the concept's applicability to contemporary debates within philosophy.