
- Professor, Philosophy
- Professor, Global Early Modern Studies
Research Interests
- Modern Philosophy, Moral Psychology, Political Philosophy, Ethics, Renaissance Philosophy
Education
- Ph.D. Boston University
Courses Taught
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Spinoza and Hobbes (2020)
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Spinoza (Spring 2017)
Representative Publications
- The Cambridge Spinoza Lexicon, Co-Edited with Karolina Hübner, Cambridge University Press (Forthcoming)
- “The Affirmative Mind: Spinoza on Striving under the Attribute of Thought,” Ergo (Forthcoming).
- “Enthusiasm, Superstition, and the Anticlerical Enlightenment from Hobbes to Hume” in The History and Philosophy of Fanaticism, ed. Paul Katsafanas, Routledge (Forthcoming).
- “Striving, Happiness, and the Good: Spinoza as Follower and Critic of Hobbes,” in A Blackwell Companion to Hobbes, ed. Marcus Adams (Wiley-Blackwell Press, 2021), 431 – 447.
- “ ‘Stop Being So Judgmental!’: A Spinozist Model of Personal Tolerance,” in The Palgrave Handbook of Toleration, ed. Mitja Sardoc (Palgrave Press, 2021), 1 – 17.
- Spinoza (Classic Thinkers Series), Polity Press. Co-Authored with Valtteri Viljanen, 2020.
- “Spinoza’s Political Philosophy,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta (substantial revision, 2019)
- Spinoza’s Political Psychology: The Taming of Fortune and Fear, Cambridge University Press, 2018.
- “Two Puzzles Concerning Spinoza’s Conception of Belief,” European Journal of Philosophy, 26.1 (2018), 261 – 282.
- “Affect, Desire, and Judgement in Spinoza’s Account of Motivation,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 24.1 (2016), 67 – 87. Selected as runner up for the Rogers Prize for the best article published in the BJHP in 2016.
- “An Epistemic Case for Empathy,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 95 (2014), 47 – 71.
- “Imitation, Representation, and Humanity in Spinoza’s Ethics,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 51.3 (2013), 383 – 407.
- “Benedict Spinoza: Epistemic Democrat,” History of Philosophy Quarterly, 27.2 (2010), 145 –164.
- “Spinoza on Civil Liberation,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 47.1 (2009), 35-58. Winner of JHP award for best article of 2009.
