Jeremy Page

I work in aesthetics, value theory, moral psychology, and the history of philosophy (19th century, esp. Nietzsche). I was awarded the BSA essay prize in 2024 and the ESA essay prize in 2020.

The two main projects I am pursuing at the moment fall in aesthetics (value theory and normativity) and the philosophy of honesty (virtue theory and epistemology). 

Aesthetics

My current project in aesthetics formulates the following claims into a comprehensive account of aesthetic value and aesthetic normativity: 

(1) Aesthetic value is a primitive form of value that demands of us that we curiously engage with objects possessing it on their own terms and for their own sake. 

(2) Intelligible beauty is the highest form of aesthetic value. 

(3) Intelligible beauty is a form of aesthetic value that objects possess in virtue of the perspectives they bear to their subject matters. 

(4) Objects of intelligible beauty demand of us that we curiously explore the world on its own terms and for its own sake through the rich perspectives these objects bear to the world.

To heed the call of aesthetic value (in general), and intelligible beauty (in particular), is to furnish something other than ourselves with careful attention and involves transcending our habitual patterns of cognitive and affective attention and the interests that guide these habitual patterns. 

Honesty

I argue that being honest is most fundamentally a matter of living in harmony with the truth. Honest people strive to live in harmony with the truth and succeed (at least to some extent) in doing this. My view contrasts with orthodox "privativist" accounts of honesty on which an agent is honest when she possesses a (properly motivated) disposition to not distort the truth (as she understands it). 

(See the 'Publications' & 'Future Research' tabs for a more detailed breakdown of my work.)

Philpapers page: https://philpeople.org/profiles/jeremy-page-1 

Contact: jeremypage1989 [at] gmail dot com