My work explores the question of how to live, guided by the hunch that the ideal figure emerging from the literature on this question is often too serious to be an ideal—or at least to be the only ideal.
In my dissertation and recent work, I conduct two lines of research:
the nature of play and its role in a good life
interpretation of Zhuangzi 莊子, an ancient Daoist philosopher often described as playful.
These two lines of research converge on the idea that the secret of a lighter vision of life lies—not in taking things lightly—but in taking oneself lightly.
To Love Surprise Like a Butterfly : A Zhuangzian Life of Playing
Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy (2025)
This essay argues for a Zhuangzian life of playing. I argue that Zhuangzi intends
to inspire his readers to live a life of playing through a combination of arguments and images. First, Zhuangzi, as an epistemologist and arguer, uses the completion/ deficiency argument to guide us to reflect upon our epistemic deficiency and thus realize the world’s potential to surprise us. Next, Zhuangzi, as an ethicist, intends for us to embrace this world of surprise with joy. Therefore, Zhuangzi, as a poet, creates appealing images of playfulness (such as his image of the butterfly/Zhou 周) as an invitation to be playful—that is, to see the world of surprise as a playground full of things to play with. By feeling the appeal of these images of playfulness, we feel the appeal of playfulness, and thus are invited to be playful, like a butterfly fluttering
from one idea to another.
Chuckling While Stumbling: Play and the Good Life
This essay explores the role of play in a good life. I begin by examining the known view that treats play as one basic good among many, but end up arguing for play’s significance in addressing a broader ethical question: how to live in a world that is generally not on our side. I argue that play’s candidacy as a basic good rests on the experience of having fun in play, which prompts inquiry into that fun. I distinguish two kinds of fun: the satisfying fun of meeting the world halfway (as in a well-matched soccer game) and the amusing fun of being overwhelmed by the world (as in games such as Octodad, where players fumble in trying to control Octodad’s designed-to-be unruly limbs). While the satisfying fun fits within familiar ideas about value, the amusing fun does not. But it is precisely this misfit that points to an alternative way of living in a world generally not on our side—one that differs from the two ways of living Nussbaum has explored in The Fragility of Goodness: ambition toward self-sufficiency and embrace of fragility.
The Weight of Meaning and The Lightness of Playfulness
Zhuangzi’s Anti-Anthropocentrism Through Play