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Metaphysical rationalismIn Jack Stetter & Charles Ramond (eds.), Spinoza in Twenty-First-Century American and French Philosophy: Metaphysics, Philosophy of Mind, Moral and Political Philosophy, Bloomsbury Academic. 2019.
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380In this paper, I respond to criticisms of my book Being and Reason recently made by Yitzhak Melamed.
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The many faces of Spinoza's causal axiomIn Dominik Perler & Sebastian Bender (eds.), Causation and Cognition in Early Modern Philosophy, Routledge. 2020.
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Affirmation, judgment, and epistemic theodicy in Descartes and SpinozaIn Brian Andrew Ball & Christoph Schuringa (eds.), The Act and Object of Judgment: Historical and Philosophical Perspectives, Routledge. 2019.
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65Spinoza on the Metaphysics of Thought and ExtensionIn Don Garrett (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Spinoza, Cambridge University Press. pp. 113-140. 1996.
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27Review of Samual Newlands's Reconceiving Spinoza (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 1. 2019.
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1513Spinoza's PanpsychismIn William Seager (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Panpsychism, Routledge. pp. 36-43. 2019.
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895Metaphysical RationalismIn Jack Stetter & Charles Ramond (eds.), Spinoza in Twenty-First-Century American and French Philosophy: Metaphysics, Philosophy of Mind, Moral and Political Philosophy, Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 121-143. 2019.Material from this paper appears in Chap. 7 of my book Reason and Being, but there is also stuff here that isn't in the book. In particular, it discusses the claims that, for Spinoza, conceiving implies explaining and that existence is identical to or reducible to conceivability. So, if you're interested in those issues, this paper might be worth a read.
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1Leibniz's Philosophical TheologyIn Brandon Look (ed.), Continuum Companion to Leibniz, Continuum. 2011.
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616The Many Faces of Spinoza's Causal AxiomIn Sebastian Bender & Dominik Perler (eds.), Introduction, Routledge. 2020.
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796Affirmation, Judgment, and Epistemic Theodicy in Descartes and SpinozaIn Brian Andrew Ball & Christoph Schuringa (eds.), The Act and Object of Judgment: Historical and Philosophical Perspectives, Routledge. 2019.
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59Being and Reason: An Essay on Spinoza's MetaphysicsOxford University Press. 2019.In Spinoza’s metaphysics, we encounter many puzzling doctrines that appear to entangle metaphysical notions with cognitive, logical, and epistemic ones. According to him, a substance is that which can be conceived through itself and a mode is that which is conceived through another. Thus, metaphysical notions, substance and mode, are defined through a notion that is either cognitive or logical, being conceived through. He defines an attribute as that which an intellect perceives as constituting…Read more
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264Spinoza and the Mark of the MentalIn Yitzhak Y. Melamed & Hasana Sharp (eds.), Spinoza's Political Treatise: A Critical Guide, Cambridge University Press. pp. 82-101. 2017.
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184Spinoza’s Arguments for the Existence of GodPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 75 (2): 269-297. 2007.It is often thought that, although Spinoza develops a bold and distinctive conception of God (the unique substance, or Natura Naturans, in which all else inheres and which possesses infinitely many attributes, including extension), the arguments that he offers which purport to prove God’s existence contribute nothing new to natural theology. Rather, he is seen as just another participant in the seventeenth century revival of the ontological argument initiated by Descartes and taken up by Malebra…Read more
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1Spinoza's Theory of DesireDissertation, The University of Chicago. 2001.For Spinoza, human desire manifests the striving for self-preservation exhibited by all natural things. In the dissertation, I argue that Spinoza's theory of desire provides the basis for his theory of human nature, its place in the larger natural order, and its ethical possibilities. Human nature presented a particularly pressing problem for the seventeenth century on account of the ways in which modern science had reconceived the natural world. No longer were appeals to hylomorphism, substance…Read more
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1760Memory and Personal Identity in SpinozaCanadian Journal of Philosophy 35 (2): 243-268. 2005.Locke is often thought to have introduced the topic of personal identity into philosophy when, in the second edition of theEssay,he distinguished the person from both the human being and the soul. Each of these entities differs from the others with respect to their identity conditions, and so they must be ontologically distinct. In particular, Locke claimed, a person cannot survive total memory loss, although a human being or a soul can.
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2750The power of reason in SpinozaIn Olli Koistinen (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza's Ethics, Cambridge University Press. 2009.
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280Substance, attribute, and mode in SpinozaPhilosophy Compass 1 (2). 2006.Some of Spinoza's most well‐known doctrines concern what kinds of beings there are and how they are related to each other. For example, he claims that: (1) there is only one substance; (2) this substance has infinitely many attributes; (3) this substance is God or nature; (4) each of these attributes express the divine essence; and (5) all else is a mode of the one substance. These claims have so astonished many of his readers that some of them have surely concluded that they must not know what …Read more
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352Descartes and Spinoza on JudgmentIn Martin Lin (ed.), Il Seicento e Descartes: Dibattiti cartesiani, . pp. 269-291. 2004.
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33Spinoza’s Metaphysics: Substance and Thought, by Yitzhak Melamed (review)The Leibniz Review 23 187-194. 2013.
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1050Philosophy and Its HistoryIn Stewart Duncan & Antonia LoLordo (eds.), Debates in Modern Philosophy: Essential Readings and Contemporary Responses, Routledge. pp. 363. 2012.
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292Principle of Sufficient ReasonStanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyThe Principle of Sufficient Reason is a powerful and controversial philosophical principle stipulating that everything must have a reason or cause. This simple demand for thoroughgoing intelligibility yields some of the boldest and most challenging theses in the history of metaphysics and epistemology. In this entry we begin with explaining the Principle, and then turn to the history of the debates around it. A section on recent discussions of the Principle will be added in the near future.
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994Spinoza's account of akrasiaJournal of the History of Philosophy 44 (3): 395-414. 2006.: Perhaps the central problem which preoccupies Spinoza as a moral philosopher is the conflict between reason and passion. He belongs to a long tradition that sees the key to happiness and virtue as mastery and control by reason over the passions. This mastery, however, is hard won, as the passions often overwhelm its power and subvert its rule. When reason succumbs to passion, we act against our better judgment. Such action is often termed 'akratic'. Many commentators have complained that the p…Read more
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45Everything in Its Right Place: Spinoza and Life by the Light of NaturePhilosophical Review 126 (1): 123-126. 2017.
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56Spinoza: Metaphysical ThemesPhilosophical Review 113 (1): 139-143. 2004.The editors of this volume, in their introduction, take Jonathan Bennett’s A Study of Spinoza’s Ethics as the exemplar for the eleven essays collected here, hailing Bennett’s book as setting “new standards for philosophical research on Spinoza”. Bennett’s work is indeed a worthy model. Aside from its more generic virtues, such as learnedness and conceptual rigor, perhaps what is most distinctive about Bennett’s treatment of Spinoza is his method, which he calls the “collegial approach.” This met…Read more
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4493Rationalism and NecessitarianismNoûs 46 (3): 418-448. 2012.Metaphysical rationalism, the doctrine which affirms the Principle of Sufficient Reason (the PSR), is out of favor today. The best argument against it is that it appears to lead to necessitarianism, the claim that all truths are necessarily true. Whatever the intuitive appeal of the PSR, the intuitive appeal of the claim that things could have been otherwise is greater. This problem did not go unnoticed by the great metaphysical rationalists Spinoza and Leibniz. Spinoza’s response was to embrace…Read more
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388Efficient Causation in Spinoza and LeibnizIn Tad M. Schmaltz (ed.), Efficient Causation: A History, Oup Usa. pp. 165-191. 2014.