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The Kingdom of Darkness: Bayle, Newton, and the Emancipation of the European Mind From PhilosophyCambridge University Press. 2022.In 1500, speculative philosophy lay at the heart of European intellectual life; by 1700, its role was drastically diminished. The Kingdom of Darkness tells the story of this momentous transformation. Dmitri Levitin explores the structural factors behind this change: the emancipation of natural philosophy from metaphysics; theologians' growing preference for philology over philosophy; and a new conception of the limits of the human mind derived from historical and oriental scholarship, not least …Read more
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Duces caecorum: On Two Recent Translations of WyclifVivarium 58 (4): 357-383. 2020.
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Susanna Newcome and the Origins of UtilitarianismUtilitas 1-15. forthcoming.This paper provides the first systematic interpretation of the moral theory developed in Newcome’s Enquiry Into the Evidence of the Christian Religion (1728, revised 1732). More importantly, it shows that Newcome’s views constitute a valuable but overlooked contribution to the development of utilitarianism. Indeed, she is arguably the first utilitarian. Her ethical views are considered in two stages. The paper first explores her hedonist approach to the good and then turns to her consequenti…Read more
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Why ethics and aesthetics are practically the samePhilosophical Quarterly. forthcoming.Discussion of the relations between ethics and aesthetics has tended to focus on issues concerning judgement: for example, philosophers have often asked whether, or to what extent, ethical considerations of one sort or another should inform aesthetic verdicts. Much less discussed, however, have been the relations between these two domains in their practical aspects. In this paper, I try to defuse a cluster of reasons for believing that practical competence in the ethical domain and practical com…Read more
Areas of Specialization
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
History of Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
1 more
Metaphysics |
Meta-Ethics |
Applied Ethics |
19th Century Philosophy |
Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy |
Chinese Philosophy |