•  10
    The Leibniz-des Bosses Correspondence (edited book)
    Yale University Press. 2007.
    This volume is a critical edition of the ten-year correspondence between Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, one of Europe’s most influential early modern thinkers, and Bartholomew Des Bosses, a Jesuit theologian who was keen to bring together Leibniz’s philosophy and the Aristotelian philosophy and religious doctrines accepted by his order. The letters offer crucial insights into Leibniz’s final metaphysics and into the intellectual life of the eighteenth century. Brandon C. Look and Donald Rutherford p…Read more
  •  13
    Leibniz raises three main objections to the doctrine of occasionalism: (1) it is inconsistent with the supposition of finite substances; (2) it presupposes the occurrence of "perpetual miracles"; (3) it requires that God "disturb" the ordinary laws of nature. At issue in objection (1) is the proper understanding of divine omnipotence, and of the relationship between the power of God and that of created things. I argue that objections (2) and (3), on the other hand, derive from a particular conce…Read more
  •  24
    Leibniz’s “On Generosity,” With English Translation
    The Leibniz Review 12 15-21. 2002.
    The essay “On Generosity” holds a special place among Leibniz’s ethical writings. In no other text does Leibniz give such prominence to the concept of generosity, or relate it to his central doctrine of justice as the charity of the wise. The circumstances of the piece’s composition are uncertain. Watermark dating of the paper places it in the period 1686-1687. The Academy editors suggest a connection between it and a text by an unknown author, “Discours sur la generosité,” a transcription of wh…Read more
  •  65
    Leibniz's "analysis of multitude and phenomena into unities and reality"
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 28 (4): 525-552. 1990.
  •  23
    Unity, Reality and Simple Substance
    The Leibniz Review 18 207-224. 2008.
  •  178
    Freedom as a Philosophical Ideal: Nietzsche and His Antecedents
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 54 (5). 2011.
    Abstract Nietzsche defends an ideal of freedom as the achievement of a ?higher human being?, whose value judgments are a product of a rigorous scrutiny of inherited values and an expression of how the answers to ultimate questions of value are ?settled in him?. I argue that Nietzsche's view is a recognizable descendent of ideas advanced by the ancient Stoics and Spinoza, for whom there is no contradiction between the realization of freedom and the affirmation of fate, and who restrict this freed…Read more
  •  118
    Spinoza and the dictates of reason
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 51 (5). 2008.
    Spinoza presents the “dictates of reason” as the foundation of “the right way of living”. An influential reading of his position assimilates it to that of Hobbes. The dictates of reason are normative principles that prescribe necessary means to a necessary end: self-preservation. Against this reading I argue that, for Spinoza, the term “dictates of reason” does not refer to a set of prescriptive principles but simply the necessary consequences, or effects, of the mind's determination by adequate…Read more
  •  10
    Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy Volume VI (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2012.
    Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy presents a selection of the best current work in the history of early modern philosophy. It focuses on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries--the extraordinary period of intellectual flourishing that begins, very roughly, with Descartes and his contemporaries and ends with Kant.