•  257
    Anthropology and History in the Early Dilthey
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 100 (C): 90-98. 2023.
    Dilthey frequently recognizes anthropology as a foundational science of human nature and as a cornerstone in the system of the human sciences. While much has been written about Dilthey’s “philosophical anthropology,” relatively little attention has been paid to his views on the emerging empirical science of anthropology. This paper examines Dilthey’s relation to the new discipline by focusing on his reception of its leading German representatives. Using his book reviews, essays, and drafts for I…Read more
  •  186
    Wolff on Substance, Power, and Force
    Journal of the History of Philosophy. forthcoming.
    This paper argues that Wolff’s rejection of Leibnizian monads is rooted in a disagreement concerning the general notion of substance. Briefly, whereas Leibniz defines substance in terms of activity, Wolff retains a broadly scholastic and Cartesian conception of substance as that which per se subsists and sustains accidents. One consequence of this difference is that it leads Wolff to interpret Leibniz’s concept of a constantly striving force as denoting a feature of substance separate from its s…Read more
  •  167
    The Cartesian Physiology of Johann Jakob Waldschmidt
    In Fabrizio Baldassarri (ed.), Descartes and Medicine, Brepols. pp. 393-409. 2023.
    This essay examines Descartes’s impact on medical faculties in the German Reformed context, focusing on the case of the Marburg physician Johann Jakob Waldschmidt (1644–89). It first surveys the wider backdrop of Descartes-reception in German universities, and highlights its generally conciliatory character. Waldschmidt appears as a counterpoint to this tendency. The essay then situates Waldschmidt’s work in the context of confessional politics at the University of Marburg, and specifically of t…Read more
  •  441
    Reason in Kant's Theory of Cognition
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 52 (6): 636-653. 2022.
    This paper reconstructs and defends Kant's argument for the transcendental status of reason's principles of the systematic unity of nature in the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic. On the present account, these principles are neither mere methodological recommendations for conducting scientific inquiry nor do they have the normative force of categorical imperatives, two extant interpretations of Kant's discussion of reason in the Appendix. Instead, they are regulative yet transcendental p…Read more
  •  215
    Physicotheology in Kant's Transition from Nature to Freedom
    Kantian Review 28 (2): 201-219. 2023.
    This paper examines Kant’s treatment of the design argument for the existence of God, or physicotheology. It criticizes the interpretation that, for Kant, the assumption of intelligent design satisfies an internal demand of inquiry. It argues that Kant’s positive appraisal of physicotheology is instead better understood on account of its polemical utility for rebutting objections to practical belief in God upon which Kant’s ethicotheological argument rests, and thus as an instrument in the trans…Read more
  •  234
    On an old narrative, dating back to Leibniz and developed in nineteenth-century historiography, occasionalism was revived in the early modern period as an ad hoc response to the problems of mind-body union and interaction arising from Descartes's metaphysics. According to Leibniz, Descartes gave up the struggle, leaving his disciples to iron out this most scandalous of wrinkles in his system. A line of followers—Clauberg, Geulincx, La Forge, Le Grand, Arnauld, Cordemoy, and above all, Malebranch…Read more
  •  17
    Leibniz and Kant, by B. Look (review)
    The Leibniz Review 31 141-145. 2021.
  •  419
    Efficient Cause as Paradigm? From Suárez to Clauberg
    Journal of Modern Philosophy 3 (7): 1-22. 2021.
    This paper critiques a narrative concerning causality in later scholasticism due to, among others, Des Chene, Carraud, Schmaltz, Schmid, and Pasnau. On this account, internal developments in the scholastic tradition culminating in Suárez lead to the efficient cause being regarded as the paradigmatic kind of cause, anticipating a view explicitly held by the Cartesians. Focusing on Suárez and his scholastic reception, I defend the following claims: a) Suárez’s definition of cause does not privileg…Read more
  •  294
    This article studies the academic context in which Cartesianism was absorbed in Germany in the mid-seventeenth century. It focuses on the role of Johann Clauberg (1622-1665), first rector of the new University of Duisburg, in adjusting scholastic tradition to accommodate Descartes’ philosophy, thereby making the latter suitable for teaching in universities. It highlights contextual motivations behind Clauberg’s synthesis of Cartesianism with the existing framework such as a pedagogical interest …Read more
  •  339
    Substance, Causation, and the Mind-Body Problem in Johann Clauberg
    Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy 11 31-66. 2022.
    This essay proposes a new interpretation of Clauberg’s account of the mind-body problem, against both occasionalist and interactionist readings. It examines his treatment of the mind-body relation through the lens of his theories of substance and cause. It argues that, whereas Clauberg embraces Descartes’s substance dualism, he retains a broadly scholastic theory of causation as the action of essential powers. On this account, mind and body are distinct, power-bearing substances, and each is a g…Read more
  •  55
    Law and structure in Dilthey’s philosophy of history
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy 29 (4): 633-651. 2021.
    This paper interprets Dilthey’s treatment of history and historical science through his engagement with Kantian and post-Kantian philosophy. It focuses on Dilthey’s account of the possibility of objectivity in the Geisteswissenschaften. It finds in Dilthey a view of history as a law-governed, dynamical structure expressing the totality of human life, cast in a reworked Hegelian notion of objective spirit. The aim of historical thought is to understand the unity of this structure to the greatest …Read more
  •  175
    Volume 28, Issue 4, July 2020, Page 853-855.
  •  525
    This paper argues for an interpretation of Leibniz’s claim that physics requires both mechanical and teleological principles as a view regarding the interpretation of physical theories. Granting that Leibniz’s fundamental ontology remains non-physical, or mentalistic, it argues that teleological principles nevertheless ground a realist commitment about mechanical descriptions of phenomena. The empirical results of the new sciences, according to Leibniz, have genuine truth conditions: there is a …Read more
  •  83
    Wolff’s Science of Teleology and Kant’s Critique
    Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 6. 2019.
    This essay examines Wolff’s science of teleology, which has historically been dismissed as a crude physico-theology resting on a simple confusion between uses and purposes. Focusing especially on his two German volumes (German Teleology, 1723, and German Physiology, 1725), I argue that, first, Wolff never intended teleology to be a self-standing theology; and second, that teleology, as a part of physics, is primarily an applied or practical discipline. In its theological function, teleology pres…Read more
  •  608
    Kant’s Antinomy of Teleology: In Defense of a Traditional Interpretation
    In Waibel Violetta & Ruffing Margit (eds.), Proceedings of the 12th Kant Congress, De Gruyter. pp. 1641-1648. 2018.
    Kant’s Antinomy of Teleological Judgment is unique in offering two pairs of oppositions, one of regulative maxims, and the other of constitutive principles. Here I defend a traditional interpretation of the antinomy— as proposed, for example, by Stadler (1874), Adickes (1925), and Cassirer (1921)—that the antinomy consists in an opposition between constitutive principles, and is resolved by pointing out their legitimate status as merely regulative maxims. I argue against recent interpretations—f…Read more
  •  534
    Hume's (Berkeleyan) Language of Representation
    Hume Studies 41 (2): 171-200. 2015.
    Although Hume appeals to the representational features of perceptions in many arguments in the Treatise, his theory of representation has traditionally been regarded as a weak link in his epistemology. In particular, it has proven difficult to reconcile Hume's use of representation as causal derivation and resemblance (the Copy Principle) with his use of representation in the context of impressions and abstract ideas. This paper offers a unified interpretation of representation in Hume that draw…Read more
  •  76
    Dilthey on the unity of science
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy 24 (4): 635-656. 2016.
    ABSTRACTThis paper elaborates a conception of the unity of science that emerges in the context of Dilthey’s well-known treatment of the distinction between the Naturwissenschaften and the Geisteswissenschaften. Dilthey’s account of the epistemological foundations of the Geisteswissenschaften presupposes, this paper argues, their continuity with the natural sciences. The unity of the two domains has both a psychological and a biological basis. Whereas the psychological functions at work in scient…Read more