Having recently completed my PhD in Philosophy at the University of North Texas, in the fall I will begin teaching at the University of Colorado Boulder, in both the Philosophy department and the Herbst Program for Engineering, Ethics, & Society. My research has focused mainly on the intersection of Metaphysics (esp. Process Philosophy), Continental Philosophy, Philosophy of Physical Science, and Latin American Philosophy. Currently, the two main topics I am interested in are 1) expanding the concept of energy to account for the presence of subjectivity in nature, and 2) non-representational theories of the past that attempt to explain how the past, rather than being consigned to oblivion, remains operative in the present as a principle of creative repetition. You can read more about my publications in the "Research" section above.
For my doctoral dissertation, I have developed a genealogy of the concept of 'energy' in western philosophy and science, focusing on how energy concepts (e.g., energeia, vis viva, kinetic/potential energy) have been theorized in relation to time. Looking especially to the ideas of Gilles Deleuze, Henri Bergson, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Martin Heidegger, I argue that the thread that connects energy concepts through time is the epistemological tendency to derive conceptual accounts of change from a prior ontological sameness or essence. I then begin to develop a process metaphysics of energy that harmonizes with contemporary findings in the physical sciences, while also taking seriously the consideration that any adequate theory of energy must be able to account for the development of consciousness in the universe. My hope in doing this work is that it might help us conceptualize mental processes, such as memory and thought, as energetic processes in their own right, thus avoiding a reductive materialist approach to understanding the nature of consciousness.
Contact: brea.pedro@outlook.com
