Thierry Côté

Thierry Côté, 300w

Position:

Postdoctoral Fellow

Campus:

St. George,

Biography:

  • BA (Philosophy), Lycée Henri IV / Université Paris I
  • MA (Philosophy), Université Paris I
  • PhD (Philosophy), Université de Montréal

Thierry Côté is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the department, working with Donald Ainslie. His research concentrates on aesthetics and ethics in the 18th century, especially in France and Britain.

Thierry’s doctoral dissertation (2022) focused on the philosophical foundations for musical experience in France, from Descartes to Rousseau. It argued that, departing from speculative conceptions of music, 18th-century musical thought took the novel form of a musical anthropology, that is, a set of doctrines on perception, passions, imagination, signs, the voice and the origins of language, providing new foundations for music’s sense effects.

From 2022 to 2024, Thierry worked with Daniel Dauvois on a critical edition of Jean-Baptiste Dubos’ seminal work in aesthetics, Réflexions critiques sur la poésie et la peinture (1719 ; to be published in 2025).

He is currently working Hume’s moral philosophy, which he considers in the broader context of 18th-century theories of moral feelings.

Research Interests:

18th-Century Philosophy, Hume, Rousseau, Aesthetics, Philosophy of Music