Last Updated: May 2024
Welcome to my personal website. Here you’ll find information about me, my work, and my interests.
As of Fall 2022 I am pursuing a second PhD in Information at the University of Arizona’s School of Information, after my first PhD in Philosophy from the University of Miami in Fall 2014. Before this I was an assistant then associate professor of philosophy at the Lebanese American University. I decided to leave the position because of my increasing interest in learning to work hands-on with virtual reality (VR), but also the degrading political situation in Lebanon (see the social engagement tab for more).
In philosophy I have three main research areas: the philosophy of mind, the early 20th century phenomenological movement, and the philosophy of technology.
In the philosophy of mind my primary focus is perception. I accept naive realism, and much of my work focuses on misperception, which seems in tension with the view. Rather than adopt disjunctivism, I argue for a non-disjunctive form of naive realism, which takes hallucinations to be a type of perception. I’ve defended this view in my dissertation, published, and forthcoming work. I’m also completing a monograph with new details, arguments, and empirical support for this version of naive realism.
I’m also interested in the phenomenological movement. I’ve taught phenomenology regularly, from Husserl to Levinas, and occasionally contemporary phenomenology. I have a particular research interest in Emmanuel Levinas, whose work remains largely unknown in analytic philosophy. I find his work insightful and plan to write a book on Totality & Infinity one day.
As part of the generation that saw the introduction of home computers, video games, and the internet, I spent a lot of time in the virtual world and with computer technology. Many technological developments interest me, but I am particularly fascinated by VR and other extended reality (XR) technologies. At the Lebanese American University I helped prepare an XR lab as part of a USAID fund, and after some years of dabbling with VR design informally, I’m now able to design virtual environments and video games professionally.
My work on XR technology divides into the philosophical and technical. I’ve written on the ethics and aesthetics of virtual reality and video games, as well as the perception and metaphysics of virtual items. At a technical level, I am particularly interested in world-building and design in VR, and computer graphics, particularly shaders. Tentatively, my dissertation at the University of Arizona will focus on the sense of presence in VR. As a first step, I am now building an interactive VR illusions database. An early version is available to try on my itch.io page.
When I’m not doing philosophy or tinkering with VR, I spend most of my time engaged in either art or activism. Between 2015 and 2019 I was part of Beirut Madinati, a grass-roots political group in Beirut that ran for municipal then parliamentary elections. Its priorities included environmentally sustainable development, equality for women and other marginalized groups, religious coexistence, political transparency, accountability, and a policy of non-involvement in regional conflicts. Having left Beirut l now spend a lot more time with art. I particularly love the visual and performance arts, particularly painting, movies, videogames, ballroom dancing, theatre, and karate. For more, please check out the different pages on my website.
