Karim Nader

Assistant Professor
Aesthetics, Technology Ethics, Social and Moral Philosophy 
748 Mathematics and Science Center
Phone: 248-370-3392
[email protected]
https://karimnaderphilosophy.com/

I study games and technology. I think about video games and virtual reality, the gamification of technological and social systems, and how we might hack (or "game") those systems. I am interested in seeing how we can be more playful with technologies: to use them as opportunities to explore and push (moral, social, or epistemic) norms that would be more rigid outside of those technological systems. I use both philosophical and empirical methods in my research. My work is in aesthetics, social and moral philosophy, and the ethics of technology. 

Before coming to Oakland, I was a postdoc at MIT in the Schwarzman College of Computing and the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. Before that, I completed my Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin. My dissertation argues that virtual reality is fictional, meaning that we merely imagine virtual objects and events. From there, I develop an ethics of virtual actions: virtual actions are first and foremost the creation of fictional representations in virtual reality and should be morally evaluated as such. Before that, I studied math and philosophy at Columbia. I grew up in Beirut, Lebanon. 

Degrees
PhD, Philosophy, the University of Texas at Austin, 2023
BA, Philosophy and Mathematics, Columbia University, 2017

Selected Publications

"The gamification of dating online," Theoria, 2024.

"Virtual fictional actions," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 2024.

"Folk theories and user strategies on dating apps: How users understand and manage their experience with algorithmic matchmaking" (with Min Kyung Lee), Information for a Better World, iConference, 2022.

"Dating through the filters," Social Philosophy and Policy, 2021.