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49Infinity in Early Modern Philosophy (edited book)Springer Verlag. 2018.This volume contains essays that examine infinity in early modern philosophy. The essays not only consider the ways that key figures viewed the concept. They also detail how these different beliefs about infinity influenced major philosophical systems throughout the era. These domains include mathematics, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, science, and theology. Coverage begins with an introduction that outlines the overall importance of infinity to early modern philosophy. It then moves from a …Read more
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IntroductionIn The Language of Nature: Reassessing the Mathematization of Natural Philosophy in the Seventeenth Century, University of Minnesota Press. 2016.
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10The Stoic Roots of Hobbes's Natural Philosophy and First PhilosophyIn Marcus P. Adams (ed.), A Companion to Hobbes, Wiley-blackwell. 2021.This chapter identifies three main sources of the Stoic elements in Hobbes's philosophy: the early Christian‐Stoic Tertullian, the modern “Neo‐Stoic” school of Justus Lipsius, and the natural philosophers of the Cavendish Circle he frequented. Perhaps the most direct Stoical impact on Hobbes was the second/third century Church Father Tertullian. Hobbes and Cavendish are at bottom kindred Stoic spirits, though their systems diverge on the precise nature of material activity. The chapter explores …Read more
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5Early Modern Philosophical Theology in Great BritainIn Charles Taliaferro, Paul Draper & Philip L. Quinn (eds.), A Companion to Philosophy of Religion, Wiley‐blackwell. 2010.This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Religious Knowledge: Skepticism, Fideism, Reasonableness Atheism and Deism Science and Religion Biblical Criticism and the History of Religion Materialism and Immaterialism God, Space, and Time Creation, Freedom, and Laws of Nature Works cited.
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49Early American Immaterialism: Samuel Johnson's Emendations of BerkeleyTransactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 54 (4): 441. 2018.Richard Popkin opened an early paper with the observation "No figure in the history of European philosophy has had a more direct and enduring influence on American thought than George Berkeley."2 Popkin's case for Berkeley's "enduring" influence well into classical pragmatism is compelling.3 But in what follows I will be concerned with his more "direct" influence on the Connecticut philosopher and theologian Samuel Johnson —not to be confused with the English stone-kicking confuter of Berkeley—d…Read more
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26Norman Kemp Smith on the experience of durationBritish Journal for the History of Philosophy 31 (2): 295-313. 2022.The Scottish philosopher Norman Kemp Smith (1872–1958) is best known for his 1929 English translation of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, and for his incisive commentaries on Descartes, Hume, and Kant. These achievements have overshadowed his original philosophical work in several areas, including the experience of time. A realist with idealist sympathies, Kemp Smith developed a non-transcendental version of Kant’s conception of time as a ‘pure intuition’ (though he insisted that temporal percept…Read more
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13Andrew Janiak, ed. Space: A History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. 368. $105.00 (cloth); $26.95 (paper). ISBN 978-0-19-991410-4 (review)Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 12 (1): 322-325. 2022.
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24Review of Andrew Janiak: Space: a history (review)Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 12 (1): 322-325. 2022.
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68Locke on Space, Time, and GodErgo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 7. 2020.Locke is famed for his caution in speculative matters: “Men, extending their enquiries beyond their capacities and letting their thoughts wander into those depths where they can find no sure footing; ‘tis no wonder that they raise questions and multiply disputes”. And he is skeptical about the pretensions of natural philosophy, which he says is “not capable of being made a science”. And yet Locke is confident that “Our reason leads us to the knowledge of this certain and evident truth, that ther…Read more
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Locke and Newton on Space and Time and Their Sensible MeasuresIn Zvi Biener & Eric Schliesser (eds.), Newton and Empiricism, . pp. 119-137. 2014.It is well-known that Isaac Newton’s conception of space and time as absolute -- “without reference to anything external” (Principia, 408) -- was anticipated, and probably influenced, by a number of figures among the earlier generation of seventeenth century natural philosophers, including Pierre Gassendi, Henry More, and Newton’s own teacher Isaac Barrow. The absolutism of Newton’s contemporary and friend, John Locke, has received much less attention, which is unfortunate for several reasons. …Read more
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564Hobbes and EvilIn Chad Meister & Charles Taliaferro (eds.), Evil in Early Modern Philosophy, Routledge. 2018.
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669Descartes on the Infinity of Space vs. TimeIn Ohad Nachtomy & Reed Winegar (eds.), Infinity in Early Modern Philosophy, Brill. pp. 45-61. 2018.In two rarely discussed passages – from unpublished notes on the Principles of Philosophy and a 1647 letter to Chanut – Descartes argues that the question of the infinite extension of space is importantly different from the infinity of time. In both passages, he is anxious to block the application of his well-known argument for the indefinite extension of space to time, in order to avoid the theologically problematic implication that the world has no beginning. Descartes concedes that we always …Read more
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The Structure of Theoretical ProgressDissertation, University of Minnesota. 1994.I develop a new theory of theoretical progress or 'truthlikeness'. Unlike previous theories, my approach focuses on the sets of models of scientific theories, rather than their linguistic formulations. Such an approach, I argue, avoids several long-standing problems in the philosophy of theoretical progress. I find in Chapter One that the most prominent schools of twentieth century philosophy of science have all failed to account for theoretical progress. I further argue that such an account is …Read more
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8The Language of Nature: Reassessing the Mathematization of Natural Philosophy in the Seventeenth Century (edited book)University of Minnesota Press. 2016.Although the mathematization of nature is a distinctive and crucial feature of the emergence of modern science in the seventeenth century, this volume shows that it was a far more complex, contested, and context-dependent phenomenon than the received historiography has indicated.0.
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118Newton on God's Relation to Space and Time: The Cartesian FrameworkArchiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 93 (3): 281-320. 2011.Beginning with Berkeley and Leibniz, philosophers have been puzzled by the close yet ambivalent association in Newton's ontology between God and absolute space and time. The 1962 publication of Newton's highly philosophical manuscript De Gravitatione has enriched our understanding of his subtle, sometimes cryptic, remarks on the divine underpinnings of space and time in better-known published works. But it has certainly not produced a scholarly consensus about Newton's exact position. In fact, t…Read more
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53Does Scientific Realism Beg the Question?Informal Logic 18 (2). 1996.In a series of influential articles, the anti-realist Arthur Fine has repeatedly charged that a certain very popular argument for scientific realism, that only realism can explain the instrumental success of science, begs the question. I argue that on no plausible reading ofthe fallacy does the realist argument beg the question. In fact, Fine is himself guilty of what DeMorgan called the "opponent fallacy.".
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26Walter Ott. Causation & Laws in Early Modern Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Pp. xii+260. $75.00 (review)Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 1 (2): 371-375. 2011.
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52Similarity as an Intertheory RelationPhilosophy of Science 63 (5). 1996.In line with the semantic conception of scientific theories, I develop an account of the intertheory relation of comparative structural similarity. I argue that this relation is useful in explaining the concept of verisimilitude and I support this contention with a concrete historical example. Finally, I defend this relation against the familiar charge that the concept of similarity is insufficiently objective.
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31Descartes on persistence and temporal partsIn Joseph Keim Campbell, Michael O'Rourke & Harry Silverstein (eds.), Time and Identity, Mit Press. 2010.This chapter discusses the “real distinction” between the mind and the body and a demonstration of the immortality of the soul as demonstrated in Descartes’s Meditations. Early readers of Descartes’s work like Arnauld and Mersenne rejected the idea on the grounds that “it does not seem to follow from the fact that the mind is distinct from the body that it is incorruptible or immortal.” In light of this, Descartes devised a more detailed proof of immortality based on two assumptions not made exp…Read more
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52Cartesian temporal atomism: A new defence, a new refutationBritish Journal for the History of Philosophy 16 (3). 2008.
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75The metaphysical roots of cartesian physics: The law of rectilinear motionPerspectives on Science 13 (4): 431-451. 2005.: This paper presents a detailed account of Descartes' derivation of his second law of nature—the law of rectilinear motion—from a priori metaphysical principles. Unlike the other laws the proof of the second depends essentially on a metaphysical assumption about the temporal immediacy of God's operation. Recent commentators (e.g., Des Chene and Garber) have not adequately explained the precise role of this assumption in the proof and Descartes' reasoning has continued to seem somewhat arbitrary…Read more
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49From form to mechanism: Helen Hattab: Descartes on forms and mechanisms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, x+236 pp, US$ 90.00 HBMetascience 20 (2): 287-290. 2010.From form to mechanism Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9455-7 Authors Geoffrey Gorham, Department of Philosophy, Macalester College, St. Paul, MN 55105, USA Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.
Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics |
General Philosophy of Science |