Contact

My CV is here. I can be reached by email at nickriggle at gmail dot com

The Latest

• My paper “Aesthetic Value and the Practice of Aesthetic Valuing,” was selected for the Philosopher’s Annual “10 Best Philosophy Articles of 2024” [here]

• My paper “Can’t Kill the Vibe: Against Hope in Aesthetic Discourse” is forthcoming in Mind [draft here]

• My paper “Aesthetic Acquaintance in Practice” is forthcoming in Philosophical Quarterly

Overview

I am a philosopher, and I teach in the Department of Philosophy at the University of San Diego, where I am Associate Professor. I have a PhD in philosophy from New York University and a BA in philosophy from UC Berkeley. I specialize in aesthetics, while drawing on and contributing to value theory, philosophy of language, social philosophy, and the history of philosophy.

I write for both academic and general audiences.

My academic writing has been published by Oxford University Press, The Philosophical Review, Mind, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Philosophers' Imprint, The Philosophical Quarterly, and other outlets.

My public-facing writing has been published with Penguin Books, Basic Books, The New York Times, McSweeney’s, LitHub, Aeon, Psyche, and others. My third book This Beauty: A Philosophy of Being Alive came out with Basic Books in 2022. It explores and affirms the thought that loving beauty can make your unchosen existence worth embracing. See some adapted essays in The New York Times and Psyche, and see reviews in The Times Literary Supplement and Shelf Awareness. If you want to know about the nature of awesomeness and suckiness, read my first book On Being Awesome: A Unified Theory of How Not to Suck (Penguin, 2017), read this essay in Aeon, or listen to me on the radio show Philosophy Talk. I wrote my second book with Dominic McIver Lopes and Bence Nanay: it’s about Aesthetic Life and Why It Matters. And read about my past as a professional rollerblader in Scientific American.