Bradley Murray grew up in BC and completed his undergraduate degree in philosophy and English literature at the University of British Columbia. He completed his graduate studies in philosophy at Oxford, completing the BPhil and DPhil degrees. There, his research included Kant’s philosophy, philosophy of mind, aesthetics, and metaphysics. He completed a master’s degree in counselling psychology followed by psychoanalytic training at the Toronto Institute of Psychoanalysis.
Writing
His current writing focuses on human well-being and meaning in the context of emerging digital technologies, including AI and virtual reality. He coined the term “algomodernism” to describe the period of human history, following on from the postmodern era, in which we face new ways of life and a distinct set of challenges as our lives become integrated with complex algorithms.He is a blogger for Psychology Today.
His book on Kant’s philosophy, The Possibility of Culture: Pleasure and Moral Development in Kant’s Aesthetics, focuses on Kant’s aesthetics and theory of moral development. In that book, he offers a reading of Kant’s aesthetics which emphasizes the relevance of his anthropology and moral psychology to his account of aesthetic experience, arguing that these aspects have been neglected in prominent readings in recent Anglo-American philosophy. Writers have not typically acknowledged that Kant’s account of aesthetic experience must be understood alongside an understanding of the ways in which we as human beings experience pleasures in life and develop our capacities for feeling and emotion.
Clinical Practice and Teaching
In his clinical practice, Bradley Murray specializes in providing psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. He has been a visiting Assistant Professor in the philosophy department at UBC and has taught in the psychology program at the University of Guelph Humber.