This page contains the key information about conference, seminar and invited papers that Matthew has given. To see academic publications, please go to the Publications page.
2026
Heidegger’s Conception of Freedom Book Discussion
March 2026 (Forthcoming) - University of Galway
Heidegger’s Categorial Imperative
February 2026 (Forthcoming) - Newcastle University PGR Seminar
Abstract
This session will look at one of Martin Heidegger’s rare discussions of Kant’s practical philosophy, found in the lecture course translated as The Essence of Human Freedom. In it, Heidegger offers a deconstruction of the autonomy demanded by the categorical imperative as a self-willing will, something that presages his own later conception of nihilism. This interpretation of autonomy will then be compared with Heidegger’s own conception of authenticity.
2025
Heidegger’s Conception of Freedom Book Discussion
August 2025 - University College Dublin / BSP Annual Conference
2021
‘That’s right, clap the things you agree with.’: Stewart Lee’s Content Provider and the Socratic Method
February 2021 - A conference contribution for Philosophy of Humour: New Perspectives
I think the relationship between the ‘Stewart Lee the Comedian’ and ‘Stewart Lee the Author’ is similar to that of Socrates and Plato. Unlike the common presupposition that Socrates always acts as an exemplar, and always gets things right, and wins all the arguments, Plato has Socrates stumble at several points, make bad arguments, and avoid his responsibilities. Socrates is a character that is part of the spectacle that Plato is providing so that we learn philosophy. The Comedian, similarly, is part of the spectacle the Author is providing us, including when the Comedian pretends to be the author. The Comedian makes mistakes, and his narrative of what is happening in the show is not to be trusted.
2019
The Phenomenon of Ancestrality and the Foundation of Phenomenology
September 2019 - A conference contribution for The Theory and Practice of Phenomenology
Now, no phenomenologist has ever claimed that thinking and thought always “correlate”, i.e. are always found side-by-side and never without. The principle of intentionality does not say that subject and object occur together, it says that consciousness is always of something, that each experience or perception is always tied to being.
Keywords: Phenomenology, Speculative Realism, Quentin Meillassoux, special relativity, Philosophy of Science
Heidegger’s Conception of Freedom and the Empowerment of Being
May 2019 - An invited conference contribution for On the History of Being: After the Black Notebooks
I wish to (provisionally) argue that the critique of Being and Time in Ponderings 2 uses a conception of power very different to the one found in the late 1930s, although it can found as late as the 1935 lecture course, Introduction to Metaphysics. Furthermore, I think this concept can be best clarified by turning back to Heidegger’s conception of freedom between 1927 and 1930.
Keywords: Heidegger, Black Notebooks, freedom, power
Dread and Dialectic: Heidegger and Sartre on the Interface of Freedom and History
January 2019 - An invited paper for the Human Sciences Seminar
The fact of “dialectic”, in the broadest possible sense of non-necessary, non-contingent patterns and principles of human affairs, gives us a strong sense of history. The fact of dread, of the possibilities manifest to the human condition, gives us freedom. These two basic phenomena are difficult to reconcile. A strong sense of history, i.e. destiny, tends towards a weak sense of freedom. A strong sense of freedom tends towards a weak sense of history. The existential philosophical tradition, however, defends strong senses of both. This is a problem: how can we think the interface of a strong sense of history and a strong sense of freedom? How can dread and dialectic be reconciled?
Keywords: Heidegger, Sartre, Freedom, History, Dialectic
2017
Two Concepts of Anxiety: Heidegger and Sartre on Freedom
September 2017 - A conference contribution for Phenomenology: Theory and Practice
We have Sartre on the other side, saying there’s no essence, but what we make ourselves. We are always able to negate what we are. But, what Heidegger is trying to do, in a sort of mediated idea of freedom, is say that we do have something like an essence, it’s there as a possibility. And, anxiety is our reaction to realising that there is no concrete transcendental answer to who we’re supposed to be.
Keywords: Heidegger, Sartre, freedom, anxiety
The Silent Call: Heidegger and McCarthy on Talking to Yourself
July 2017- An invited paper for the workshop, Cormac McCarthy and Philosophy
Heidegger says the reason why the self can only speak to itself in silence is that language is about talking to other people. It is an outward projecting function of us. And so, in order to cut through the hubub of the public world, it speaks to us in silence. It conveys a discursive meaning without words.
Keywords: Heidegger, Cormac McCarthy, Philosophy of Language
2016
Heidegger and Science
April 2016 - An invited public talk for PubHD Manchester
Heidegger argues that science is a human way of being. At first, this seems wrong, and then it seems obvious. Against the idea that science is some sort of disembodied source of knowledge, science is one way that humans have to interpret the world. Science is just one way of looking at things that we choose to adopt, but the richest account of who we are will start from that fact of experience, rather than from an MRI scanner.
Keywords: Heidegger, freedom, science and philosophy
2015
Freedom Beyond the Will: Heidegger on Finite Liberty
January 2015 - An invited paper for Nottingham Trent University philosophy seminar
Taking up one possibility precludes us taking up others. Opening one door closes another. The reason only certain possibilities are available to human is not because of some sort of lack, but is an intrinsic characteristic of the sort of being humans are: they are necessarily finite and necessarily only have access to certain possibilities at certain times. For this reason, freedom is out of our control, from the Heideggerian perspective
Keywords: Heidegger, Freedom, Voluntarism