•  35
    My aim in this chapter is to survey some of the most important developments in thinking about essence in the early modern period, highlighting ways in which thinkers in the period gradually depart from the medieval Aristotelian tradition. In this tradition, essence is thought of as selective, explanatory, and kind-determining. Whereas in the beginning of the early modern period some figures (such as René Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, Margaret Cavendish, and Anne Conway) still adhere to this traditio…Read more
  •  13
    Modality and Essence in Early Modern Philosophy
    In Yitzhak Melamed & Samuel Newlands (eds.), Modality: A History, . pp. 61-84. 2024.
    This essay defends two theses regarding the explanation, or ground, of modality in the early modern period. First, for philosophers in the period, essences ground a range of important modal facts. Second, as the period progresses, we witness increased skepticism about certain modal facts, due to a growing skepticism about the scope or existence of essences. These theses are supported by examination of three case studies: Descartes’ treatment of substance and mode (which forms the core of his ont…Read more
  •  50
    Locke's Aristotelian theory of quantity
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 107 (2): 337-356. 2023.
    John Locke’s treatment of quantity in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding is not nearly as extensive or as well-known as his treatment of quality and his distinction between primary and secondary qualities. Yet I contend that a close examination of Locke’s comments on quantity in the Essay reveals that he endorses a general theory of quantity that not only distinguishes quantities from qualities, but also plays several other important roles in his overall philosophy—particularly in his trea…Read more
  •  23
    The Ontic and the Iterative: Descartes on the Infinite and the Indefinite
    In Igor Agostini, Richard T. W. Arthur, Geoffrey Gorham, Paul Guyer, Mogens Lærke, Yitzhak Y. Melamed, Ohad Nachtomy, Sanja Särman, Anat Schechtman, Noa Shein & Reed Winegar (eds.), Infinity in Early Modern Philosophy, Springer Verlag. pp. 27-44. 2018.
    Descartes’s metaphysics posits a sharp distinction between two types of non-finitude, or unlimitedness: whereas God alone is infinite, numbers, space, and time are indefinite. The distinction has proven difficult to interpret in a way that abides by the textual evidence and conserves the theoretical roles that the distinction plays in Descartes’s philosophy—in particular, the important role it plays in the causal proof for God’s existence in the Meditations. After formulating the interpretive ta…Read more
  •  76
    There is a familiar story about Spinoza on which his substance monism arises straightforwardly from Descartes’ own conception of substance, which the latter combines—not entirely consistently—with substance pluralism. I argue that this story is mistaken: substance pluralism is fully consistent with Descartes’ conception of substance; it is also consistent with his claim that the term ‘substance’ is non-univocal. In defense of these claims, I argue that Descartes denies, whereas Spinoza accepts, …Read more
  •  189
    Three Infinities in Early Modern Philosophy
    Mind 128 (512): 1117-1147. 2019.
    Many historical and philosophical studies treat infinity as an exclusively quantitative notion, whose proper domain of application is mathematics and physics. The main aim of this paper is to disentangle, by critically examining, three notions of infinity in the early modern period, and to argue that one—but only one—of them is quantitative. One of these non-quantitative notions concerns being or reality, while the other concerns a particular iterative property of an aggregate. These three notio…Read more
  •  265
    Descartes’s Argument for the Existence of the Idea of an Infinite Being
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 52 (3): 487-517. 2014.
    the meditations on first philosophy presents us with an alleged proof for the existence of God that proceeds from the existence of an idea of an infinite being in the human mind—an idea of God—to the existence of God himself. Insofar as we have an idea of an infinite being, an idea with “infinite objective reality,” we can legitimately ask whence it came to us. The only possible cause of this idea, claims Descartes, is an infinite being, namely, God. The occurrence of just this idea in the proof…Read more
  •  146
    Substance and Independence in Descartes
    Philosophical Review 125 (2): 155-204. 2016.
    Descartes notoriously characterizes substance in two ways: first, as an ultimate subject of properties ; second, as an independent entity. The characterizations have appeared to many to diverge on the definition as well as the scope of the notion of substance. For it is often thought that the ultimate subject of properties need not—and, in some cases, cannot—be independent. Drawing on a suite of historical, textual, and philosophical considerations, this essay argues for an interpretation that r…Read more