Lauren Edwards, JD is a PhD Candidate in Philosophy, a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Canada Graduate Scholar, a recipient of the York Graduate Fellowship of Distinction in Philosophy, and a Neuroscience Graduate Diploma Candidate at York University (Toronto). Lauren’s PhD dissertation centers on the philosophy of love, philosophy of emotion, cognitive science, and feminist ethics.
What excites you about philosophy?
I fell in love with philosophy in the third year of my undergraduate degree. I was a physics major at the time, but all I wanted to talk to my roommates about, much to their delight I’m sure, were the ideas I was learning about in my existentialism class. What excited me about philosophy then, and what continues to excite me about it now, is that, for me, philosophy can be about life changing things. It is an ancient, on-going conversation about ideas that can make, and has made, me look at myself, others, and the world differently. In my graduate class on love, for example, we read Elizabeth Brake’s article where she discusses her concept of ‘amatonormativity’ – a word she coined to capture the cultural myth that the best and most desired relationship for everyone is a monogamous, long-term, romantic, dyadic relationship (https://elizabethbrake.com/amatonormativity/). This idea was completely eye-opening to me! It was like in the movie Free Guy when Ryan Reynolds, a non-player character in a video game, puts on sunglasses and suddenly sees the hidden code behind his world, which affords him new opportunities for agency. I think there is an analogy there that captures why philosophy, and learning in general, is exciting to me – philosophy is like those sunglasses. Philosophy reveals the hidden structures of the world at a level of description that fascinates me – the social level. Once these hidden strings are made visible, you can make new choices about them. For example, once the social construction of amatonormativity is revealed, I am presented with a new question – if this is a desire that has been culturally imposed on me, do I still want to live this way?
What are you working on right now?
Right now I am working on finishing my dissertation. In particular, I am working on a chapter that argues that love is an emotion and, since other philosophers have argued that some emotions, namely moods, have no object, it is possible that there is a type of love that has no beloved, or no object. This idea, that there could be a type of love that doesn’t involve a beloved or an object, would run contrary to, and present a challenge to, all of the contemporary philosophical and scientific theories of the nature of love. This chapter will be another step in defending the central claim of my dissertation – that love can exist where there is no beloved or no object of that love. What I think is so fun about this idea is that while it defies every contemporary philosophical and scientific theory of love that I have come across, I don’t think it is that outlandish! Even, I argue in my dissertation, that it is an idea that exists already – take some theological understanding of God as love where the love that is God must be a love without object since God is perfect and complete on their own and so, cannot be a type of love that requires a beloved. But if this sort of love is possible, as my dissertation argues, then a profound rethinking of how love is understood is required.
What are you reading right now? Would you recommend it?
For pleasure, I have a few books on the go including Lorraine Hansbury’s play A Raisin in the Sun and the sixth book Lord of Chaos from the very long, fourteen book fantasy series The Wheel of Time. A Raisin in the Sun is excellent and I would strongly recommend it. It is especially fun right now to read a play – I can imagine I am, for once in the past few years, not sitting in my living room, but out in a crowd! The Wheel of Time series is a time commitment that I’m not sure I would recommend. The world is great – big and detailed – but the character development is non-existent. Basically, there is a stock male character, a stock female character, and none of the characters seem to do much growing from there, despite the thousands of pages of story experiences. And, on top of all that, both the character tropes are grouchy, irritable sorts!
When did you last sing to yourself, or to someone else?
I am currently 40 weeks pregnant (due today!) and sing to my baby often. I love to sing, even though I am not a good singer. My partner, who is a wonderful singer, even included me in a Christmas show he played once. I was incredibly nervous to be singing in front of people for the first time and nerves did not make my singing voice any better. But what I love about art – I also make very amateur visual art – is that so much of what art brings to the maker/artist is the same whether that art is brilliant or absolutely terrible – the joy and freedom of creation, the rush that comes after you do something scary, opening yourself to and sharing yourself with others, and so on. This of course, as my Christmas show audience well knows, is not necessarily true for the audience of that art.
Who is your favorite philosopher and why?
I love feminist philosophy and think that, in general, feminist philosophers are extremely underrated – especially Black feminist philosophers and feminist philosophers of color. I wanted to focus here on bell hooks, who passed away this December. bell hooks articulates incredibly profound, brilliant ideas in a poetic, but clear way. I think this is much harder to do than to write in a way that is convoluted and hard to understand. When I was given the incredibly privilege of teaching an Introduction to Feminist Philosophy undergraduate class, I assigned a bell hooks article entitled Sisterhood: Political Solidarity Between Women. One of the arguments of the article is that sexism is a barrier to relationships between women because women are taught to believe they are ‘natural’ enemies of one another and that there is value only in their relationships with men. After we read this article, many students, more than for any other class reading, reached out to tell me that this article had shown them something about themselves – that they did these things. This increased student engagement reflected bell hooks’ genius – articulating deep social truths in an understandable way – which is no easy task!
This section of the APA Blog is designed to get to know our fellow philosophers a little better. We’re including profiles of APA members that spotlight what captures their interest not only inside the office, but also outside of it. We’d love for you to be a part of it, so please contact us via the interview nomination form here to nominate yours
Dr. Sabrina D. MisirHiralall is an editor at the Blog of the APA who currently teaches philosophy, religion, and education courses solely online for Montclair State University, Three Rivers Community College, and St. John’s University.
