-
Prefacing the TheodicyIn Larry M. Jorgensen & Samuel Newlands (eds.), New Essays on Leibniz’s Theodicy, Oxford University Press. 2014.
-
Anne Conway's response to CartesianismIn Steven Nadler, Tad M. Schmaltz & Delphine Antoine-Mahut (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Descartes and Cartesianism, Oxford University Press. 2019.
-
113The Philosophical Roots of Western MisogynyPhilosophical Topics 46 (2): 183-208. 2018.In this paper, I examine the arguments offered by prominent ancient philosophers and medical theorists to justify the view that female bodies are imperfect or “mutilated” compared to male bodies from which it is supposed to follow that women are morally inferior to men. These arguments rendered men superior to women and justified the need for women to subjugate themselves to their procreative powers and to the wisdom of their superiors. Western sexism and misogyny has its roots here. It is unset…Read more
-
46Anne Conway’s Metaphysics of SympathyIn Eileen O’Neill & Marcy P. Lascano (eds.), Feminist History of Philosophy: The Recovery and Evaluation of Women’s Philosophical Thought, Springer. pp. 49-73. 2019.The main goal of this chapter is to present the basic components of Anne Conway’s metaphysics of sympathy. To that end, I will explicate her concepts of God or first substance and second substance or Christ with special emphasis on the key role that the second substance plays in her philosophy. I argue that one of the keys to Conway’s system lies in her reinterpretation of the Christian narrative about suffering. She combines Christian imagery with ancient and modern ideas in an attempt to creat…Read more
-
256The Contextualist Revolution in Early Modern PhilosophyJournal of the History of Philosophy 57 (3): 529-548. 2019.while no one was looking, contextualism replaced rational reconstructionism as the dominant methodology among English-speaking early modern historians of philosophy. In this paper, I expose the contours of this silent revolution, show that rational reconstructionism is a thing of the past among early modern historians, and examine the current state of early modern scholarship.1 As the contextualist revolution has increasingly widened our perspective and revealed the period’s philosophical divers…Read more
-
1Mechanizing Aristotle: Leibniz and reformed philosophyIn Michael Alexander Stewart (ed.), Studies in seventeenth-century European philosophy, Oxford University Press. pp. 117-153. 1997.This paper describes the young Leibniz's strategy for combining aspects of Aristotelian metaphysics with the new mechanical account of nature, presents the main steps he took to that synthesis, and claims that he never wavered from its basic elements.
-
35Early Modern Philosophy: Mind, Matter, and Metaphysics (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2005.This volume showcases the best current work now being written on a wide range of issues in early modern philosophy, when some of the most influential current philosophical problems were first identified by figures like Locke, Berkeley, Kant, Spinoza, and Descartes. Collectively the articles exemplify the wide range of methodological perspectives currently being employed by top figures in the field. Indeed the selling point of the volume is the very high level of the fourteen contributors, each o…Read more
-
476Leibniz's Teachers: Their Eclecticism and PlatonismIn Mark Kulstad, Mogens Laerke & David Snyder (eds.), The philosophy of the young Leibniz, Steiner. 2009.
-
4532Humanist Platonism in Seventeenth-Century GermanyLondon Studies in the History of Philosophy 1 238-58. 1999.
-
306Material DifficultiesGraduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 26 (2): 123-135. 2005.When Bruno was burned at the stake in 1600, philosophers were still inclined to offer natural explanations in Aristotelian terms. Neither the physical proposals of Bruno himself, nor those of other prominent non-Aristotelians like Paracelsus had diminished the power of the explanatory model offered by the scholastics. For those philosophers watching the demise of Bruno in the Campo dei Fiori in Rome, the burning of the wood and its subsequent effects would have been explained adequately in terms…Read more
-
16Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Sämtliche Schriften und BriefeThe Leibniz Review 10 61-72. 2000.Working on Leibniz’s vast essays and texts can seem overwhelming. As exciting as it is to study the details of the Monadology and Discourse on Metaphysics, the Theodicy and the letters to Arnauld, it can be terrifying to sit back and think that there are thousands of other pages of equally sublime and often more difficult philosophical material. The personal notes are particularly daunting. Because Leibniz wrote these for himself, it is often difficult to grasp his reasoning and decipher his und…Read more
-
2044Platonism in Early Modern Natural Philosophy: The Case of Leibniz and ConwayIn Christoph Horn James Wilberding (ed.), Neoplatonic Natural Philosophy, Oxford University Press. 2012.
-
457Leibniz and Sleigh on Substantial UnityIn Donald Rutherford & J. A. Cover (eds.), Leibniz: nature and freedom, Oxford University Press. 2005.
-
13Reply to Cees Leijenhorst’s Review of Leibniz’s MetaphysicsThe Leibniz Review 12 81-87. 2002.In his thoughtful and generous review of my book, Leibniz’s Metaphysics: Its Origins and Development, Cees Leijenhorst accepts many of its most radical conclusions: that Leibniz’s metaphysics evolved out of an attempt to combine ideas gathered from the great philosophers of the past and to do so in a manner that would solve the theological, legal, and philosophical questions that most concerned him; that although Leibniz’s notion of substance developed out of his interpretation of the philosophy…Read more
-
1Leibniz’s Metaphysics: Its Origins and DevelopmentPhilosophical Quarterly 54 (214): 177-180. 2004.
-
1121The Vitality and Importance of Early Modern AristotelianismIn Tom Sorell (ed.), The Rise of modern philosophy: the tension between the new and traditional philosophies from Machiavelli to Leibniz, Oxford University Press. 1993.
-
556Mechanizing Aristotle: Leibniz and Reformed PhilosophyOxford Studies in the History of Philosophy 117-152. 1999.
-
368Johannes Clauberg, Corporeal Substance, and the German ResponseIn T. Verbeek (ed.), The Philosophy of Johann Clauberg, Kluwer Academic Publishers. 1999.
-
428Prefacing the TheodicyIn Larry M. Jorgensen & Samuel Newlands (eds.), New Essays on Leibniz’s Theodicy, Oxford University Press. pp. 13-42. 2014.The Preface to Leibniz's famous Theodicy offers a perspective on the work that has been insufficiently studied. In this paper, I ask that we step back from the main text of the Theodicy and attend to its Preface. I show that the latter performs two crucial preparatory tasks that have not been properly appreciated. The first is to offer a public declaration of what I call Leibniz’s radical rationalism. The Preface assumes that any attentive rational being is capable of divine knowledge. The basic…Read more
-
Leibniz and SleighIn Donald Rutherford & J. A. Cover (eds.), Leibniz: nature and freedom, Oxford University Press. pp. 44. 2005.
-
400The Aristotelianism at the Core of Leibniz's PhilosophyIn C. H. Leijenhorst J. M. M. H. Thijssen & C. H. Lüthy (eds.), The Dynamics of Aristotelian Natural Philosophy from Antiquity to the Seventeenth Century, Brill Academic Publisher. 2002.
-
378Leibniz and Spinoza on Substance and ModeIn Derk Pereboom (ed.), Rationalists, Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 273-300. 1999.
-
21Susanna Akerman, "Queen Christina of Sweden and Her Circle: The Transformation of a Seventeenth-Century Philosophical Libertine" (review)Journal of the History of Philosophy 31 (2): 289. 1993.
-
27Leibniz's Metaphysics: Its Origins and DevelopmentCambridge University Press. 2001.This book offers a major reassessment of Leibniz's metaphysics. Christia Mercer has exposed the underlying doctrines of Leibniz's philosophy. By analysing Leibniz's early works she demonstrates that the metaphysics of pre-established harmony developed many years earlier than previously believed and for reasons which have not been understood. As a result of this analysis she has unearthed a philosophical school that Leibniz scholars have not recognized. A much deeper understanding of some of Leib…Read more
-
10689Descartes’ debt to Teresa of Ávila, or why we should work on women in the history of philosophyPhilosophical Studies 174 (10): 2539-2555. 2017.Despite what you have heard over the years, the famous evil deceiver argument in Meditation One is not original to Descartes. Early modern meditators often struggle with deceptive demons. The author of the Meditations is merely giving a new spin to a common rhetorical device. Equally surprising is the fact that Descartes’ epistemological rendering of the demon trope is probably inspired by a Spanish nun, Teresa of Ávila, whose works have been ignored by historians of philosophy, although they we…Read more
-
2221Knowledge and Suffering in Early Modern Philosophy: G.W. Leibniz and Anne ConwayIn Sabrina Ebbersmeyer (ed.), Emotional Minds: The Passions and the Limits of Pure Inquiry in Early Modern Philosophy, De Gruyter. pp. 179. 2012.
-
49Queen Christina of sweden and her circle: The transformation of a seventeenth-century philosophical libertineJournal of the History of Philosophy 31 (2): 289-291. 1993.
New York City, New York, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
17th/18th Century Philosophy |