Texas A&M Early Modern Philosophy Initiative
In the Summer of 2011 the College of Liberal Arts at Texas A&M University selected the program in early modern philosophy for special support as an area of developing excellence in the College. This multi-year initiative is aimed to enhance opportunities for faculty and graduate students working in 17th and 18th century philosophy and to promote the program nationally by sponsoring conferences and hosting visits by eminent scholars.

Home to the South Central Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy and the International Berkeley Society, the Department of Philosophy at Texas A&M provides M.A. and Ph.D. students a challenging environment in which to study with award-winning researchers and teachers in a wide range of areas in philosophic research.

The Early Modern Philosophy Initiative is coordinated by Stephen H. Daniel and Michael LeBuffe.






2011 - 2012 Events
Early Modern Philosophy

at

Texas A&M University

Sept. 30 - Oct. 1, 2011: Conference: The Ethics of Spinoza’s Ethics

Friday, Sept. 30
3:00    Matt Kisner (South Carolina): “Spinoza’s Theory of the Good: Rare and Difficult”
3:50    John Carriero (UCLA): “The Ethics in Spinoza’s Ethics”
5:00    Tamra Frei (Michigan State): “Knowledge of Good and Evil and True Knowledge of Good and Evil”
5:50    Charles Jarrett (Rutgers, Camden): “Spinozistic Constructivism”
Saturday, Oct. 1
9:00    Olli Koistinen (Turku): “Spinoza on Motivation and Goodness”
9:50    Valtteri Viljanen (Academy of Finland): “Spinoza on Virtue and Eternity”
11:00  Eugene Marshall (Wellesley): “It Does a Body Good: The Affects, Extension, and Freedom in Spinoza”
1:40    Jon Miller (Queen’s, Ontario): “Spinoza on the Life According to Nature”
2:30    Karolina Huebner (Toronto): “Spinoza’s Ideal of Human Nature”
3:40    Michael Rosenthal (U of Washington): “Politics and Ethics in Spinoza: The Problem of Normativity”
4:30    Justin Steinberg (Brooklyn College/CUNY): “Spinoza on Practical Reason”
5:40    Michael LeBuffe (Texas A&M): “Necessity and Prescriptions in the Ethics”

Nov. 3, 2011: Early Modern Philosophy Colloquium Series

3:45    Jeffrey McDonough (Harvard): “The Heyday of Teleology and Early Modern Philosophy”

Nov. 4 - 5, 2011: South Central Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy
Friday, Nov. 4
3:00    Andreea Mihali (Wilfrid Laurier): “Toward a Cartesian Epistemic Rule Consequentialism”
4:05    Colin Chamberlain (Harvard): “You’ve Changed: Descartes on the Mind-Body Union”
5:00    Andrew Platt (Central Michigan): “Malebranche’s Compatibilism”
Saturday, Nov. 5
9:00    Jeffrey McDonough (Harvard): “Leibniz on Monadic Teleology and Optimal Form"
10:10  Jeremy Dunham (U West of England): “Leibniz, Nominalism and Plato’s Beard”
11:15  Gregory Brown (Houston): “Leibniz on the Possibility of a Spatial Vacuum”
2:15    Ruth Boeker (St Andrews/Rutgers): “The Role of Appropriation in Locke’s Account of Persons and Personal Identity”
3:20    Lewis Powell (Wayne State): “Locke’s Problem with Privations”
4:25    Shelley Weinberg (Illinois, Urbana-Champaign): “Locke’s Reply to the Skeptic”
5:30    Remy Debes (Memphis): “The Peculiar Ethics of David Hume”

Jan. 19, 2012: Early Modern Philosophy Colloquium Series

3:45    Dan Garber (Princeton): “Divine Laws and the Laws of Nature: Descartes, Hobbes, and Spinoza”

March 8, 2012: Early Modern Philosophy Colloquium Series

3:45    Michael Della Rocca (Yale): “Hume, Spinoza, and the Principle of Sufficient Reason” [tentative title]

April 19, 2012: Early Modern Philosophy Colloquium Series
3:45    Alison Simmons (Harvard): “Descartes’ Account of the Human Being” [tentative title]


Steve Daniel photoStephen H. Daniel, professor, president International Berkeley Society, senior editor Berkeley Studies; four books, fifty articles, three edited books. Recent publications: “Berkeley’s Rejection of Divine Analogy” (Science et Esprit, 2011); “Stoicism in Berkeley’s Philosophy” (Berkeley’s Lasting Legacy, ed. Airaksinen & Belfrage, 2011); “Berkeley and Spinoza” (Revue Philosophique de la France et de l'etranger, 2010); “Ramist Dialectic in Leibniz’s Early Thought” (The Philosophy of the Young Leibniz, ed. Kulstad et al., 2009); “Berkeley’s Semantic Treatment of Representation” (History of Philosophy Quarterly, 2008); New Interpretations of Berkeley’s Thought, editor (Humanity Books, 2008); Reexamining Berkeley’s Philosophy, editor (U Toronto Pr, 2007); “The Harmony of the Leibniz-Berkeley Juxtaposition” (Leibniz and the English-Speaking World, ed. Brown & Phemister, 2007); “Edwards as Philosopher” (The Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Edwards, ed. Stein, 2006). Michael LeBuffeMichael LeBuffe, associate professor. Recent publications: From Bondage to Freedom: Spinoza on Human Excellence (Oxford UP, 2010), “Theories about Consciousness in Spinoza’s Ethics” (Philosophical Review, 2010); “Change and the Eternal Part of the Mind in Spinoza” (Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 2010); “Spinozistic Perfectionism” (History of Philosophy Quarterly, 2010); “The Anatomy of the Passions” (Cambridge Companion to Spinoza’s Ethics, ed. Koistinen, 2009); “Spinoza’s Normative Ethics” (Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 2007); and “Hobbes’s Reply to the Fool” (Philosophy Compass, 2007).


Early Modern Philosophy Reading Group
Wednesday, January 18, 3:00-4:30 p.m.
Philosophy Department Seminar Room YMCA 301
Contact: Michael LeBuffe
  • Descartes, Principles of Philosophy, II. 36-44.
  • Hobbes, De Corpore, ch. 8-9, 15
  • Spinoza, Ethics, short physical digression following IIp13.



Texas A&M University Philosophy Department Faculty
Scott Austin: ancient Greek philosophy, metaphysics
José Luis Bermúdez: philosophy of psychology, mind
Robert Burch: logic, history of logic, American philosophy
Daniel Conway: 19th century European philosophy
Tommy Curry: critical race theory, Africana philosophy
Stephen Daniel: early modern philosophy
Robert Garcia: metaphysics, philosophy of religion
Theodore George: post-Kantian philosophy, hermeneutics
Michael Hand: philosophy of logic/language, metaphysics
 C. E. (Ed) Harris: applied ethics, engineering ethics, ethical theory
Claire Katz: contemporary French, Jewish, and feminist theory
Michael LeBuffe: early modern philosophy, moral philosophy
Hugh McCann: philosophy of mind, action theory, phil of religion
John McDermott: American philosophy, philosophy of culture
Benjamin McMyler: epistemology, philosophy of mind
Christopher Menzel: metaphysics, logic, phil of logic/mathematics
Clare Palmer: environmental philosophy, applied philosophy, ethics
 Gregory Pappas: Pragmatism, Latin American philosophy
Linda Radzik: ethical theory, applied ethics, social-political
Dwayne Raymond: Aristotle, ancient logic, history of logic
Roger Sansom: philosophy of science, philosophy of biology
Robin Smith: ancient Greek philosophy, history of logic
Richard Stadelmann: comparative religions, process theology
Kristi Sweet: Kant, ethics, 18th-19th Century philosophy
Gary Varner: Harean utilitarianism, animal and environmental ethics
Joshua Wood: Hume, British Empiricism, action theory


The Early Modern Philosophy Calendar

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