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Prefacing the TheodicyIn Larry M. Jorgensen & Samuel Newlands (eds.), New Essays on Leibniz’s Theodicy, Oxford University Press. 2014.
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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.
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114The 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
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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382Leibniz and Spinoza on Substance and ModeIn Derk Pereboom (ed.), Rationalists, Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 273-300. 1999.
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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.
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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
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10694Descartes’ 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
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2224Knowledge 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.
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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.
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29Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature (review)Journal of the History of Philosophy 36 (1): 139-141. 1998.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature by Donald RutherfordChristia MercerDonald Rutherford. Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Pp. xiii + 301. Cloth, $54.95. Paper, $18.95.During the twentieth century, scholars of Leibniz have mostly ignored his theology. The tide has recently turned, however, and a few brave souls have begun to disentangle the subtle complications of …Read more
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835The Platonism at the Core of Leibniz's Metaphysics: God and KnowledgeIn Douglas Hedley & Sarah Hutton (eds.), Platonism and the Origins of Modernity: The Platonic Tradition and the Rise of Modern Philosophy, Springer. 2008.
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3Leibniz and the German Tradition of the Power of LanguageIn D. Berlioz F. Nef (ed.), Leibniz et les puissances du langage, Vrin. 2005.
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906The methodology of the Meditations: tradition and innovationIn David Cunning (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Descartes’ Meditations, Cambridge University Press. pp. 23-47. 2014.Descartes intended to revolutionize seventeenth-century philosophy and science. But first he had to persuade his contemporaries of the truth of his ideas. Of all his publications, Meditations on First Philosophy is methodologically the most ingenuous. Its goal is to provoke readers, even recalcitrant ones, to discover the principles of “first philosophy.” The means to its goal is a reconfiguration of traditional methodological strategies. The aim of this chapter is to display the methodological …Read more
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1597Leibniz on Knowledge and GodAmerican Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 76 (4): 531-550. 2002.Scholars have long noted that, for Leibniz, the attributes or Ideas of God are the ultimate objects of human knowledge. In this paper, I go beyond these discussions to analyze Leibniz’s views about the nature and limitations of such knowledge. As with so many other aspects of his thought, Leibniz’s position on this issue—what I will call his divine epistemology—is both radical and conservative. It is also not what we might expect, given other tenets of his system. For Leibniz, “God is the easies…Read more
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6De Summa Rerum: Metaphysical Papers, 1675-76 (review) (review)Journal of the History of Philosophy 33 (4): 689-691. 1995.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:nook REVIEWS 689 if everyone behaves as if everyone is saved the result is a world in which God could appear and not be crucified. To be sure, there is a chance of an infinite life. Pascal believed human beings are potentially infinite--as is shown by our capacity for extending our knowledge to the infinite--but we are also potentially nothing, as is shown by the fact that the person never really appears in our scientific accounts. I…Read more
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534Platonism and Philosophical Humanism on the ContinentIn Steven M. Nadler (ed.), A Companion to Early Modern Philosophy, Wiley-blackwell. 2002.This chapter contains section titled: Historical Background Early Modern Eclecticism and Philosophical Humanism Early Modern Platonism Conclusion.
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504Leibniz and His Master: The Correspondence with ThomasiusIn Paul Lodge (ed.), Leibniz and His Correspondents, Cambridge University Press. 2004.
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23Reply 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
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40Leibniz and the KabbalahThe Leibniz Review 5 27-28. 1995.Anyone interested in Leibniz, the Kabbalah, the Cambridge Platonists, Gnosticism, Platonism, or seventeenth-century metaphysics will want to read Allison P. Coudert’s Leibniz and the Kabbalah. Coudert argues that core features of Leibniz’s mature philosophy were directly influenced by the Kabbalah in general and Francis Mercury van Helmont’s Lurianic Kabbalah in particular. This is a provocative thesis to which Coudert brings an impressive amount of scholarly detective work. Her argument in brie…Read more
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529The Platonism of Leibniz's 'New System of Nature'In R. S. Woolhouse (ed.), Leibniz's new system (1695), L.s. Olschki. 1996.
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478Leibniz's Teachers: Their Eclecticism and PlatonismIn Mark Kulstad, Mogens Laerke & David Snyder (eds.), The philosophy of the young Leibniz, Steiner. 2009.
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4534Humanist Platonism in Seventeenth-Century GermanyLondon Studies in the History of Philosophy 1 238-58. 1999.
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307Material 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
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17th/18th Century Philosophy |