University of California, San Diego
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 2000
Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand
PhilPapers Editorships
Spinoza: Ethical Theory
  •  59
    Spinoza's summum bonum
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 86 (2). 2005.
    : As Spinoza presents it, the knowledge of God is knowledge, primarily, of oneself and, secondarily, of other things. Without this know‐ledge, a mind may not consciously desire to persevere in being. That is why Spinoza claims that the knowledge of God is the most useful thing to the mind at IVP28. He claims that the knowledge of God is the highest good, however, not because it is instrumental to perseverance, but because it is also the best among those goods that we seek for their own sakes. It…Read more
  •  48
    Reply to Yitzhak Melamed
    The Leibniz Review 21 161-164. 2011.
  •  85
    Change and the eternal part of the mind in Spinoza
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 91 (3): 369-384. 2010.
    Spinoza insists that we can during the course of our lives increase that part of the mind that is constituted by knowledge, but he also calls that part of the mind its eternal part. How can what is eternal increase? I defend an interpretation on which there is a sense in which the eternal part of the mind can become greater without changing intrinsically at all
  •  73
    Spinoza on Human Freedom: Reason, Autonomy, and the Good Life
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy 20 (1). 2012.
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Volume 20, Issue 1, Page 195-198, January 2012
  •  346
    Paul-Henri thiry (baron) d'holbach
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2014.
    Paul Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach was a philosopher, translator, and prominent social figure of the French Enlightenment. In his philosophical writings Holbach developed a deterministic and materialistic metaphysics which grounded his polemics against organized religion and his utilitarian ethical and political theory. As a translator, Holbach made significant contributions to the European Enlightenment in science and religion. He translated German works on chemistry and geology into French, sum…Read more
  •  205
    Theories About Consciousness in Spinoza's Ethics
    Philosophical Review 119 (4): 531-563. 2010.
    Spinoza's remarks about consciousness in the Ethics constitute two theories about conscious experience and knowledge. Several remarks, including 3p9 and 4p8, make the point that self knowledge—an especially valuable good for Spinoza—is not available to introspection. We are, as a matter of course, conscious of ourselves, but we do not, as a matter of course, know ourselves. A second group of remarks, all of which occur in part 5 of the Ethics, emphasizes a different point about consciousness and…Read more
  •  14
    Reply to Yitzhak Melamed (review)
    The Leibniz Review 21 161-164. 2011.
  •  42
    Virtue as Power
    Midwest Studies in Philosophy 35 (1): 164-178. 2011.
  •  59
  •  1
    The anatomy of the passions
    In Olli Koistinen (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza's Ethics, Cambridge University Press. pp. 188--222. 2009.
  •  88
    Spinoza’s Normative Ethics
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 37 (3): 371-391. 2007.
    Spinoza presents his ethics using a variety of terminologies. Propositions that are, or at least might be taken for, normative include only very few explicit guidelines for action. I will take this claim from Vp10s to be one such guideline:Vp10s: So that we may always have this rule of reason ready when it is needed, we should think and meditate often about common human wrongs and how and in what way they may best be driven away by nobility.
  •  98
    Hobbes on the origin of obligation
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy 11 (1). 2003.
    This Article does not have an abstract