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13Spinoza on UniversalsIn Yitzhak Y. Melamed (ed.), A Companion to Spinoza, Wiley. 2021.The problem of universals is one of the oldest problems in philosophy. One of the oddities of Spinoza's view of universals is that he endorses both Realism and Nominalism. An analogous Realist account can be given for all thinking things: all ideas, really do have something in common, intrinsically, constitutively, and mind‐independently: namely, thought as a determinable, qualitative, essential substantial nature. Spinoza's accounts of the nature of the human mind and of human emotions both can…Read more
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33Representation and Mind-Body Identity in Spinoza’s PhilosophyJournal of the History of Philosophy 60 (1): 47-77. 2022.ARRAY
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23Reconceiving Spinoza, by Samuel Newlands (review)Mind 129 (513): 307-314. 2020.Reconceiving Spinoza, by Samuel Newlands. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. x + 283.
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412Spinoza on Essences, Universals, and Beings of ReasonPacific Philosophical Quarterly 96 (2): 58-88. 2015.The article proposes a new solution to the long-standing problem of the universality of essences in Spinoza's ontology. It argues that, according to Spinoza, particular things in nature possess unique essences, but that these essences coexist with more general, mind-dependent species-essences, constructed by finite minds on the basis of similarities that obtain among the properties of formally-real particulars. This account provides the best fit both with the textual evidence and with Spinoza's…Read more
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17Spinoza on the Limits of ExplanationPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 103 (2): 341-358. 2020.Commentators standardly ascribe to Spinoza a belief in an exceptionless conceptual closure of mental and physical realms: no intention can allow us to understand a bodily movement, no bodily injury can make intelligible a sensation of pain. This counterintuitive doctrine, most often now referred to as Spinoza's 'attribute barrier', has weighty repercussions for his views on intelligibility, nature of the mind, identity, and causality. I argue against the standard reading of the doctrine, by show…Read more
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96Spinoza's unorthodox metaphysics of the willIn Michael Della Rocca (ed.), The Oxford Handbook to Spinoza, Oxford University Press. 2013.
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6Spinoza's Thinking Substance and the Necessity of ModesPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 92 (1): 3-34. 2016.
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182Spinoza on negation, mind-dependence and the reality of the finiteIn Yitzhak Y. Melamed (ed.), The Young Spinoza: A Metaphysician in the Making, Oxford University Press. pp. 221-37. 2015.The article explores the idea that according to Spinoza finite thought and substantial thought represent reality in different ways. It challenges “acosmic” readings of Spinoza's metaphysics, put forth by readers like Hegel, according to which only an infinite, undifferentiated substance genuinely exists, and all representations of finite things are illusory. Such representations essentially involve negation with respect to a more general kind. The article shows that several common responses to t…Read more
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2Spinoza and the Case for Philosophy by Elhanan YakiraJournal of the History of Philosophy 54 (1): 170-171. 2016.Despite its generic title, Yakira’s Spinoza and the Case for Philosophy has a specific and idiosyncratic focus: Spinoza’s mind-body doctrine, in the context of both an ontology of thought and a search for what Spinoza calls “salvation.” The book will be of value to those interested in Spinoza’s philosophy of mind and epistemology, especially in the context of his moral theory.Yakira’s discussion of Spinoza’s mind-body doctrine is thought-provoking, confronting head-on not just well-known puzzles…Read more
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28Spinoza on Intentionality, Materialism, and Mind-Body RelationsPhilosophers' Imprint 19. 2019.The paper examines a relatively neglected element of Spinoza's theory of mind-body relations: the intentional relation between human minds and bodies, which for Spinoza constitutes their “union”. Prima facie textual evidence suggests, and many readers agree, that because for Spinoza human minds are essentially ideas of bodies, Spinoza is also committed to an ontological and explanatory dependence of certain properties of human minds on properties of bodies, and thus to a version of materialism. …Read more
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143Spinoza's parallelism doctrine and metaphysical sympathyIn Eric Schliesser Christa Mercer (ed.), Sympathy: Oxford Philosophical Concepts, . 2015.This paper offers a new interpretation of Spinoza's doctrine of parallelism. It argues Spinoza reinterprets the ancient doctrine of metaphysical sympathy among ostensibly disconnected and distant beings in terms of fully intelligible relations of 1) identity between formal and objective reality, and in terms of 2) "real identity," grounded in Spinoza's substance-monism. Finally, the paper argues against the standard reading of mind-body pairs as "numerically identical".
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12The Trouble with Feelings, or Spinoza on the Identity of Power and EssenceJournal of the History of Philosophy 55 (1): 35-53. 2017.Spinoza claims both that a thing’s essence is identical to power, and that emotions are fundamentally variations in this power. The conjunction of these two theses creates difficulties for his metaphysics and ethics alike. The three main worries concern the coherence of Spinoza’s accounts of essence, diachronic identity, and emotional “bondage,” and put in question his ability to derive ethical and psychological doctrines from his metaphysical claims. In response to these difficulties, this pape…Read more
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11Spinoza on Essences, Universals, and Beings of ReasonPacific Philosophical Quarterly 97 (1): 58-88. 2015.The article proposes a new solution to the long-standing problem of the universality of essences in Spinoza's ontology. It argues that, according to Spinoza, particular things in nature possess unique essences, but that these essences coexist with more general, mind-dependent species-essences, constructed by finite minds on the basis of similarities that obtain among the properties of formally-real particulars. This account provides the best fit both with the textual evidence and with Spinoza's …Read more
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119Spinoza on Being Human and Human PerfectionIn Andrew Youpa Matthew Kisner (ed.), Essays on Spinoza's Ethical Theory, . 2014.
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11The Explainability of Experience: Realism and Subjectivity in Spinoza’s Theory of the Human Mind: Renz, Ursula, New York: Oxford University Press, 2018, pp. xiv + 328, £47.99 (hardback) (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 98 (2): 413-416. 2020.Volume 98, Issue 2, June 2020, Page 413-416.
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329Spinoza's Thinking Substance and the Necessity of ModesPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 89 (3): 3-34. 2014.The paper offers a new account of Spinoza's conception of “substance”, the fundamental building block of reality. It shows that it can be demonstrated apriori within Spinoza's metaphysical framework that (i) contrary to Idealist readings, for Spinoza there can be no substance that is not determined or modified by some other entity produced by substance; and that (ii) there can be no substance (and hence no being) that is not a thinking substance.
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12On the Significance of Formal Causes in Spinoza’s MetaphysicsArchiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 97 (2). 2015.Name der Zeitschrift: Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie Jahrgang: 97 Heft: 2 Seiten: 196-233
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26Spinoza on Expression and Grounds of IntelligibilityPhilosophical Quarterly 72 (3): 628-651. 2022.Recent literature on Spinoza has emphasized his commitment to universal intelligibility, understood as the claim that there are no brute facts. We draw attention to an important but overlooked element of Spinoza's commitment to intelligibility, and thereby question its most prominent interpretation, on which this commitment results in the priority of conceptual relations. We argue that such readings are both incomplete in their account of Spinozistic intelligibility and mistaken in their identif…Read more
APA Eastern Division
Areas of Specialization
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
PhilPapers Editorships
Baruch Spinoza |