Necessarily Eternal

The Early Modern Philosophy Calendar

About the site:

This website is maintained by Stephen H. Daniel at Texas A&M University as a service to scholars working in the history of early modern philosophy. It brings together information about calls for papers, event schedules, and contacts about presentations, conferences, and seminars dealing with research in late 16th, 17th, and 18th century philosophy.

Do check the site to find out about upcoming Spinoza conferences. A link to the site has also been added under Other Online Sources section on the left column.

Spinoza's Foci

A description taken from this wonderful Spinoza-related site:

This portion of the site is a collection of research sources, theories and analyses surrounding the question of the likely optical instruments and optical knowledge that Spinoza had, with a view to understanding how his practices and experiences informed his metaphysics, an understanding which may in turn provide valuable insight into the heritage of mechanization and instrumentation we have received since the first bold attempts to marry instrument, geometry and vision by Descartes.

Do check it out!

A Portrait of Spinoza

Previously catalogued as anonymous, this copy of a familiar pose of Spinoza is now believed to have been the work of Spanish painter Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida.

Borges and Spinoza

Unrequited Sublimations: Borges Reads Spinoza by Prof. Efraín Kristal (Comparative Literature, UCLA).

New Article: "Spinoza's Political Philosophy"

Another entry on Spinoza in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, written by Prof. Justin Steinberg (Colby College, but moving to Brooklyn College, CUNY). Also, an essay by the same author: Spinoza and the Problem of Freedom.

Early and Recent Spinozana

They are available at the Antiquariaat Spinoza Amsterdam.

Allen Wood on Our Domestic "Ultimi Barbarorum"

From the preface of Kantian Ethics by Prof. Allen Wood (Stanford, but moving to Indiana), found in the second to last paragraph:

This book was written mainly in the United States, between 2004 and 2006. The history of this period is a disgraceful one. It feels as if we have been living under a malignant alien occupation. An unelected political regime, representing everything that is worst about American culture, compiled a record of injustice, corruption, and gross incompetence at home, and of numerous and aggravated war crimes abroad. Then it was confirmed in office by another election of dubious legitimacy so that it might continue unrelentingly its monstrous wrongfulness and stupidity. Those with the power to oppose its crimes instead acquiesced in them, or else resisted too late, and too feebly. The very ideas of democracy, community, and human rights are in the process of dying in our civilization - or they are being willfully murdered by those in power and by that segment of the population which supports this regime. All they give us in place of these ideas is the empty words (and plenty of those). People have now perhaps begun to awaken to the situation, but the historical roots of what has happened are sunk deep in political trends of the previous century, and I fear these trends will not be reversed soon or easily. There are references here and there in the book to this dismal history, usually to illustrate arrogance, lying, and egregious violations of right. A few readers of my earlier work have told me they think this sort of thing is inappropriate in a scholarly book. But my worries about appearing "unscholarly" pale next to my shame, which all Americans should feel at having failed to prevent the disastrous course of events.

Spinoza Materials in Germany

The link to Spinoza Gesellschaft on the left column has been updated. Also, check out this extensive Spinoza Bibliography site and this German National Library's catalogue on Spinoza related books.

A Review on "Spinoza's Radical Cartesian Mind"

Prof. Matthew Kisner (South Carolina) writes the review article on the book in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.

A Rough Sketch of "Ethics" I

Prof. Ron Bombardi (Middle Tennessee State) - and his alter ego - maintains a wonderful website which has, among numerous other things, A Sketch of Spinoza's Argument for Substance Monism.

New Article: "Was Spinoza a Liberal?"

Thanks to the author Prof. Grant Havers (Philosophy and Political Studies, Trinity Western) who informed me about the article which can be found in The Political Science Reviewer vol. 36 (2007), 143-174.

"Admiration of China and Classical Chinese Thought in the Radical Enlightenment (1685-1740)"

A paper by Prof. Jonathan Israel (Modern European History, IAS) in the Taiwan Journal of East Asian Studies June last year.

Spinoza Scholar Wins NEH Fellowship

The Leiter Reports has a list of winners of the NEH Fellowships who are philosophers, and a Spinoza scholar is among the eight on the list. Congratulations to Prof. Samuel Newlands (Notre Dame) with his winning project "Reconceiving Benedict Spinoza's Metaphysics and Ethics"!

Spinoza Podcast

Prof. Nigel Warburton (Open University) of Virtual Philosopher has a couple of Spinoza items on podcast: the first one contains a reading from his own work Philosophy: The Classics ,and the second one contains a discussion by Prof. Susan James (University of London - Birkbeck) on Spinoza's views on the passions.

Non-Spinoza Novella

My friend and former co-worker James Slater, who is now a graduate student at the UNC Chapel Hill's Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures has just published his first novella Like Phosphorescent Desert Buttons. I thought I would help him spread the word here.

Spinoza Articles on Multitudes

The Multitudes online has quite a handful articles related to Spinoza (in French), among those: an interview with Alexandre Matheron (by Laurent Bove and Pierre François Moreau), a very short interview with Jonathan Israel, Antonio Negri's preface to The Savage Anomaly, and forewords to The Savage Anomaly by Deleuze, Macherey, and Matheron.

A Play About Spinoza

The New York Times has the article about a new play by David Ives called New Jerusalem with this subtitle: The Interrogation of Baruch de Spinoza at Talmud Torah Congregation: Amsterdam, July 27, 1656. One of the cast members is Fyvush Finkel, who plays public defender Douglas Wambaugh in my all-time favorite tv show Picket Fences. Thanks to Prof. David Leverenz (English, Florida) who alerted me to this play.

A Review on the New TTP Translation

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews has the article by Prof. Francesca di Poppa (Texas Tech) on the new TTP Translation.

Theo Verbeek on "Spinoza and the Stoics"

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews has the article about the book.

New Article and TTP Translation

Prof. Samuel Newlands's Spinoza's Modal Metaphysics is now part of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Also, Prof. Jonathan Bennett's translation of Treatise on Theology and Politics is now up on his Early Modern Philosophy site.

Of the Good and the Romantic

Prof. Kieran Setiya (Pittsburgh) has a thing or two to say in defense of Hume as portrayed in Rousseau's Dog: Two Great Thinkers at War in the Age of Enlightenment, a book by the same authors who in 2002 gave us a rather entertaining Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of a Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers. Also, Prof. Brandon Watson has a reply.

New Section: "Secondary Sources Online"

I have added a section called "Secondary Sources Online" on the left column, and it consists of full text of books related to Spinoza from mid 19th to early 20th century that are available directly through Google Book Search. I am hoping that Google is not the only place to find them and that many more can be added in the future so that the list will include works from a much broader time period. If anyone knows about any full work related to Spinoza that are available online like this, please feel free to let me know. Thanks.

A Review on "The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Philosophy"

Written by Prof. Angela Coventry (Portland State), it can be found in the Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Philosophy is edited by Prof. Donald Rutherford (UCSD).

New Address of Rudolph Meijer Site

Thanks to Prof. Samuel Newlands (Notre Dame) who alerted me to the Rudolf Meijer Site broken link, it has now been fixed and the Latin works are accessible once again.

Conference: "Spinoza as Social and Political Thinker"

This sixth conference by the Jerusalem Spinoza Institute was held last week from May 30th to June 1st. Among the participants were Idit Dobbs-Weinstein, Aaron Garrett, Warren Zeev Harvey, Nancy Levene, Ze'ev Levy, Menachem Lorberbaum, Antonio Negri, Charles Ramond, Gideon Segal, Steven Smith, Piet Steenbakkers, Theo Verbeek, Manfred Walther, Elhanan Yakira, and Yirmiyahu Yovel.

Many thanks to Joseph Dana of Tel Aviv who last week alerted me about this conference.