Publications:
Papers under review:
(titles removed to preserve anonymity)
Papers in preparation:
Dissertation: ‘Inscribed in Our Hearts’: Spinoza on Religion and Rationality
Scholarship often focuses on how Spinoza separates philosophy and theology in his Theological-Political Treatise (TTP). My dissertation resists the scholarly trend by examining how philosophy and theology overlap in important ways. I argue that the divine law ‘inscribed’ in the human mind, for Spinoza, underlies both philosophy and theology even while divine law is represented differently on each path. This common source explains why philosophy and theology share the end of virtue and why both domains utilize the power of the natural light—broadly the power to infer one idea from another. The various points of overlap help explain long-standing difficulties in scholarship on Spinoza’s TTP, namely, the underlying epistemology, the apparent dogmatism in Biblical interpretation, how to conceive religion, the nature of faith, how the theological life provides momentum towards the rational life, and how a faithful person may grow in rationality while remaining virtuous.
- "Descartes on Certainty in Deduction," Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 105: 158-164. (2024)
- "La Peyrère's Polygenism and Human Species Hierarchy," Journal of the History of Philosophy (forthcoming)
- "Not All States are Real Individuals for Spinoza," History of Philosophy Quarterly (forthcoming)
Papers under review:
(titles removed to preserve anonymity)
- A paper on Spinoza's philosophy of religion (r & r)
- A paper on Spinoza's method
- A paper on Spinoza's naturalism
Papers in preparation:
- A paper on early modern philosophy of language
- A paper on early modern epistemology
Dissertation: ‘Inscribed in Our Hearts’: Spinoza on Religion and Rationality
Scholarship often focuses on how Spinoza separates philosophy and theology in his Theological-Political Treatise (TTP). My dissertation resists the scholarly trend by examining how philosophy and theology overlap in important ways. I argue that the divine law ‘inscribed’ in the human mind, for Spinoza, underlies both philosophy and theology even while divine law is represented differently on each path. This common source explains why philosophy and theology share the end of virtue and why both domains utilize the power of the natural light—broadly the power to infer one idea from another. The various points of overlap help explain long-standing difficulties in scholarship on Spinoza’s TTP, namely, the underlying epistemology, the apparent dogmatism in Biblical interpretation, how to conceive religion, the nature of faith, how the theological life provides momentum towards the rational life, and how a faithful person may grow in rationality while remaining virtuous.
|
|
