Justin Smith-Ruiu
Justin Smith-Ruiu
Curriculum Vitae
Professor of Philosophy
Citizenship: Canadian, U.S.
Employment History
2013-present University Professor (CNU Section 17: Philosophy), First Class (Professeur des Universités, Première classe, since 2017; Seconde classe, 2013-17); Director, Département Histoire et Philosophie des Sciences (2018-19); Member of Sphère Research Laboratory, Université de Paris (formerly Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7, official name changed September, 2019).
Spring, 2023 Visiting Professor, Department of Philosophy, Princeton University
2003-2013 Full Professor (2012-2013), Associate Professor with tenure (2006-2012), Associate Professor (2003-2006), Department of Philosophy, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada.
2000-2003 Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio.
Academic Background
1994-2000 Columbia University, Department of Philosophy, Ph.D.: 2000: Leibniz's Metaphysics of Composite Substance. M. Phil.: May, 1996; M.A.: May, 1995.
1992-94 University of California, Davis. B.A., with Honors in Philosophy and Highest Honors in Russian.
Fellowships, Additional Positions and Study
2019-20 John and Constance Birkelund Fellow, Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, New York Public Library.
Summer, 2012 Intensive Sanskrit course, South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg. Certificate of proficiency obtained. With guided work on Pāṇinian computational linguistics.
Spring, 2011 Member of the School of Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey.
2007-08 Humboldt Foundation Research Fellow, Institut für Philosophie, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Spring, 2002 Intensive Turkish course at Boğaziçi University, Istanbul.
1997-98 Leibniz Forschungsstelle, Westfälische-Wilhelms Universität Münster, Münster, Germany. Doctoral Research on a DAAD Fellowship.
1994 Language Study, Moscow State Pedagogical University, Russia.
1990 Language Study, Leningrad State University, USSR.
Languages
For lecturing, teaching, and research: English, French, Russian, German.
For research: Latin, Sanskrit, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Polish.
Basic reading comprehension: Classical Greek, Sakha, Turkish.
RESEARCH
Forthcoming Book
Justin Smith-Ruiu, The Philosopher and the Tsar: Leibniz, Russia, and the Making of a Scientific Empire, under contract with Princeton University Press.
Books
Justin Smith-Ruiu, On Drugs: Psychedelics, Philosophy, and the Nature of Reality, W. W. Norton/Liveright, September, 2025. Profiled in the New York Times, reviewed in The Guardian, The Washington Post.
Justin E. H. Smith, The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is, Princeton University Press, March, 2022. Reviewed in The New Yorker, The Nation, Financial Times, Times Literary Supplement, Die Zeit, Kirkus Reviews, and elsewhere. Spanish and Arabic translations forthcoming. Excerpt featured in WIRED Magazine.
Justin E. H. Smith, Irrationality: A History of the Dark Side of Reason, Princeton University Press, 2019. Spanish, Italian and Chinese translations. Reviewed in the New York Review of Books, Times Literary Supplement, London Review of Books, and elsewhere.
Justin E. H. Smith, The Philosopher: A History in Six Types, Princeton University Press, 2016. Winner of the 2017 PROSE Award, Philosophy category. Italian translation, Il filosofo. Una storia in sei figure, Einaudi, 2016; Chinese translation, Xinhua Publishing House, 2017. Reviewed or profiled in The Times Literary Supplement, The Nation, Corriere della Sera, Il Manifesto, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Svenska Dagbladet, The Irish Times, The Key Reporter, The Philosophers’ Magazine, The Hedgehog Review, Times Higher Education.
Justin E. H. Smith, Nature, Human Nature, and Human Difference: Race in Early Modern Philosophy, Princeton University Press, 2015. Reviewed in Journal of the History of Philosophy, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, Revues.
Justin E. H. Smith, Divine Machines: Leibniz and the Sciences of Life, Princeton University Press, 2011. Reviewed in Isis, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, HoPoS, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, The Leibniz Review, Modern Intellectual History.
Critical Editions and Translations
Rodolfo Garau and Justin E. H. Smith, Pierre Gassendi’s Syntagma Philosophicum, Part I: Logic, under contract with Oxford University Press, to appear, 2024.
Stephen Menn and Justin E. H. Smith, Anton Wilhelm Amo: Philosophical Dissertations on Mind and Body, under contract with Oxford University Press, 2020.
François Duchesneau and Justin E. H. Smith, The Leibniz-Stahl Controversy, a critical bilingual edition of Georg Ernst Stahl’s Negotium Otiosum, seu Skiamachia, Halle, 1720, Yale Leibniz Series, Yale University Press, 2016.
Edited Volumes
D. Graham Burnett and Justin E. H. Smith (eds.), Scenes of Attention: Essays on Mind, Time, and the Senses, Columbia University Press, 2023.
Justin E. H. Smith (ed.), Embodiment, in the Oxford Philosophical Concepts series, Oxford University Press, 2017.
Ohad Nachtomy and Justin E. H. Smith (eds.), The Life Sciences in Early Modern Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 2013.
Mogens Lærke, Eric Schliesser, and Justin E. H. Smith (eds.), Philosophy and Its History: New Essays on the Methods and Aims of Research in the History of Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 2013.
Justin E. H. Smith and Ohad Nachtomy (eds.), Machines of Nature and Corporeal Substances in Leibniz, Dordrecht: Springer Synthese New Historical Library, 2011.
Carlos Fraenkel, Dario Perinetti, and Justin E. H. Smith (eds.), The Rationalists: Between Tradition and Innovation, Dordrecht: Springer Synthese New Historical Library, 2010.
Justin E. H. Smith (ed.), The Problem of Animal Generation in Early Modern Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Special Journal Issues
Justin E. H. Smith and James Delbourgo (eds.), In Kind: Species of Exchange in Early Modern Science, Annals of Science vol. 70, no. 3 (April, 2013).
Articles and Peer-Reviewed Book Chapters
“Le Concile d’Égypte : ses enjeux politiques et philosophiques,” in Paul Rateau and David Rabouin (eds.), Leibniz à Paris, Classiques Garnier, 2025.
“Catena aurea quadam. Quelques remarques sur l'édition du Negotium otiosum,” in Christian Leduc (ed.), Essais en l'honneur de François Duchesneau, Presses Universitaires de Montréal, 2024.
“The Amsterdam Stock Exchange and the Metaphysics of Capital: A Philosophical Reading of José de la Vega's Confusión de confusiones (1688),” in Joseph Tinguely (ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Money, 2024.
“Leibniz en Sibérie : L’Académie de Saint-Pétersbourg et les enjeux philosophiques de l'expansion de l'Empire Russe (1698-1741), in Pierre Girard (ed.), Académies et modernité, Paris: Garnier, 2022.
Justin E. H. Smith, “What Machines Cannot Do: A Leibnizian Animadversion,” in Paul Yachnin and Bronwen Wilson (eds.), Conversion Machines, 2018.
Justin E. H. Smith, “The Ibis and the Crocodile: Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign and Evolutionary Theory in France, 1801-1835,” in Republic of Letters, 2018.
Justin E. H. Smith, "The Art of Molting," RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 67/68 (2016/2017): 1-9.
Justin E. H. Smith, “Between Language, Music, and Sound: Birdsong as a Philosophical Problem from Aristotle to Kant,” in Stephanie Buchenau and Roberto Lo Presti (eds.), Human and Animal Perception in the 17th and 18th Centuries, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017.
Justin E. H. Smith, “What Is a World? Deception, Possibility, and Fiction from Cervantes to Descartes,” in Journal of Early Modern Studies 5, 2 (2017): 9-27.
Justin E. H. Smith, “Hegel, China, and the 19th-Century Europeanization of Philosophy,” in Eric S. Nelson (ed.), Special Issue of the Journal of Chinese Philosophy on Hegel and China, 2016.
Justin E. H. Smith, “Steno’s Palaeontology: Thinking from Traces,” in Mogens Laerke and Troels Kardel (eds.), Steno and Philosophy, Brill Studies in Intellectual History, Leiden: Brill, 2016.
Justin E. H. Smith, “Thinking with Animals in Early Modern Philosophy: Anatomy and Analogy in Lower, Tyson and Leibniz,” in Arnaud Pelletier (ed.), Leibniz's Experimental Philosophy. Studia Leibnitiana Sonderhefte 46, Franz Steiner Verlag, 2016, 181-196.
Justin E. H. Smith, “Stahl and Leibniz on the Role of the Soul in the Body,” in Arnaud Pelletier (ed.), Leibniz and the Aspects of Reality. Studia Leibnitiana Sonderhefte 45, Franz Steiner Verlag, 2015, 111-122.
Justin E. H. Smith, “Tradition, Culture, and the Problem of Inclusion in Philosophy,” Comparative Philosophy, vol. 6, no. 2 (July, 2015).
Justin E. H. Smith, “The Criminal Trial and Punishment of Animals: A Case Study in Shame and Necessity,” in Andreas Blank (ed.), Animals: New Essays, Munich, Philosophia Verlag, 2015.
Justin E. H. Smith, “Medical Eudaimonism in Early Modern Philosophy,” in Peter Distelzweig (Ed.), Early Modern Medicine and Natural Philosophy, Springer, 2015.
Justin E. H. Smith, “Leibniz and Diderot on the Unity of the Human Species,” in Leibniz and Diderot, ed. Mitia Rioux-Beaulne and Christian Leduc, Paris: Vrin, 2014.
Justin E. H. Smith, “Natives, Nature, and Natural Slavery,” in Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 35, 1-2 (2014): 81-100.
Justin E. H. Smith, “‘A Series of Generations': Leibniz on Race,” in Annals of Science 70, 3 (April, 2013): 319-335.
Justin E. H. Smith, “Heat, Action, Perception: Models of Living Beings in German Medical Cartesianism,” in Mihnea Dobre and Tammy Nyden (eds.), Cartesian Empiricisms, Springer, 2013.
Justin E. H. Smith, “‘A Form of War’: Humans, Animals, and the Shifting Boundaries of Community,” in Klaus Petrus and Markus Wild (eds.), Animal Minds and Animal Morals: Connecting Two Separate Fields, Transcript Verlag: Bielefeld, 2013, 59-82.
Justin E. H. Smith, “‘Spirit is a Stomach’: The Iatrochemical Background to Leibniz’s Theory of Corporeal Substance,” in Mordechai Feingold and Gideon Manning (eds.), Hylomorphism, Brill, 2012.
Justin E. H. Smith, “The History of Philosophy as Past and as Process,” in Mogens Lærke, Eric Schliesser, and Justin E. H. Smith (eds.), Philosophy and Its History: New Essays on the Methods and Aims of Research in the History of Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 2012.
Justin E. H. Smith, “Leibniz on Natural History and National History,” in History of Science 50, 4 (December, 2012): 377-401.
Justin E. H. Smith, “‘Curious Kinks of the Human Mind’: Natural History, Cognition, and the Concept of Race,” in Perspectives on Science 20, 4 (2012): 504-529.
Justin E. H. Smith, “The Pre-Adamite Controversy and the Problem of Racial Difference in 17th-Century Natural Philosophy,” in Marcelo Dascal, Adelino Cattani, and Victor Boantza (eds.), Controversies within the Scientific Revolution, John Benjamins Publishing, 2011.
Justin E. H. Smith, “Diet, Embodiment, and Virtue in the Mechanical Philosophy,” in Emma C. Spary and Barbara Orland (eds.), Assimilating Knowledge: Food and Medicine in Early modern Physiologies, a special issue of Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, 2011.
Justin E. H. Smith, “‘A corporall Philosophy’: Language and ‘Body-Making’ in the Work of John Bulwer (1606-1656),” in Ofer Gal and Charles Wolfe (eds.), Embodied Empiricism, Dordrecht: Springer, 2010.
Justin E. H. Smith, “Descartes and Henry More on Living Bodies,” in Vlad Alexandrescu (ed.), Branching Off: The Early Modern in Quest for the Unity of Knowledge, Zeta Books, 2009.
Justin E. H. Smith, “‘A Mere Organical Body Like a Clock’? Organic Body and the Problem of Idealism in the Late Leibniz,” in Eighteenth Century Thought 4 (2008).
Justin E. H. Smith, “Genealogy or Convergence? Leibniz and the Spectre of Pagan Rationality,” in Marcelo Dascal (ed.), Leibniz: What Kind of Rationalist?, Dordrecht: Springer, 2008.
Justin E. H. Smith, “‘The Unity of the Generative Power’: Modern Taxonomy and the Problem of Animal Generation,” in Perspectives on Science 17, 1 (2008): 78-104.
Justin E. H. Smith, “Language, Bipedalism, and the Mind-Body Problem in Edward Tyson’s Orang-Outang (1699),” in Intellectual History Review 17, 3 (2007): 291-304.
Justin E. H. Smith, “The Tenacity of Spirit in Late 17th-Century Natural Philosophy,” in Wolfgang Neuber and Christine Göttler (eds.), Spirits Unseen: The Representation of Subtle Bodies in Early Modern European Culture. Intersections, 9 (2007): 269-92.
Justin E. H. Smith, “‘Corpus hominis est machina quaedam’: A Selection of Texts from the LH III Manuscripts. Latin transcription, English translation, and commentary,” in The Leibniz Review (December, 2007): 141-179.
Justin E. H. Smith, “Leibniz on Spermatozoa and Immortality,” in Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 89 (2007): 264-282.
Pauline Phemister and Justin E. H. Smith, “Leibniz and the Cambridge Platonists in the Debate over Plastic Natures, in Pauline Phemister and Stuart Brown (eds.), Leibniz and the English-Speaking World, Dordrecht: Springer, 2007, 95-110.
Justin E. H. Smith, “La génération spontanée et le problème de la reproduction des espèces avant et après Descartes,” in Philosophiques 34, 2 (2007): 273-94.
Justin E. H. Smith, “The Problem of Heredity in Mechanist Embryology,” in Justin E. H. Smith (ed.), The Problem of Animal Generation in Early Modern Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Justin E. H. Smith, “The Leibnizian Organism between Locke’s Thinking Matter and Cudworth’s Plastic Natures,” in François Duchesneau and Jérémie Griard (eds.), Leibniz selon les Nouveaux essais sur l’entendement humain, Paris and Montréal: Bellarmin-Vrin, 2006.
Justin E. H. Smith, “Degeneration and Hybridism in the Early Modern Species Debate: Toward the Philosophical Roots of the Creation-Evolution Controversy,” in Charles T. Wolfe (ed.), Monsters and Philosophy, King’s College Press, 2005, 109-130.
Justin E. H. Smith, “The Metaphysics of Animal Generation in Aristotle and Leibniz,” in Yeditepe’de Felsefe 3 (2004): 235-257.
Justin E. H. Smith, “Christian Platonism and the Metaphysics of Body in Leibniz,” in British Journal for the History of Philosophy 12, 1 (2004): 43-59.
Justin E. H. Smith, “Confused Perception and Corporeal Substance in Leibniz,” in The Leibniz Review 13 (2003): 45-66.
Ohad Nachtomy, Ayelet Shavit and Justin E. H. Smith, “Leibnizian Organisms, Nested Individuals, and Units of Selection,” in Theory in Biosciences 121 (2002): 205-230.
Justin E. H. Smith, “Leibniz Scholarship in Germany, 1890-1945,” in The Leibniz Review (2002).
Justin E. H. Smith, “Leibniz’s Hylomorphic Monad,” in History of Philosophy Quarterly 19, 1 (2002): 21-42.
Justin E. H. Smith, “Трансцендентальный идеализм и аналитическая философия с точек зрения советской философии сталинской эры и актуального американского прагматизма [Transcendental Idealism and Analytic Philosophy of Language, from the Perspective of Stalin-Era Soviet Philosophy and Current American Pragmatism],” in Kantovskiï Sbornik 22 (2001): 129-142.
Justin E. H. Smith, “En attendant dans l’antichambre de la philosophie. La relation de Leibniz à Descartes, d’après M. Devaux,” in Descartes e il seicento. Atti del Seminario ‘Descartes et ses adversaires’, Parigi, 12-13 dicembre, 2000, 93-98.
Justin E. H. Smith, “Stalin and the Linguistic Turn in Soviet Philosophy,” in Wiener Slawistischer Almanach 43 (1999): 129-142.
Justin E. H. Smith, “On the Fate of Composite Substances after 1704,” in Studia Leibnitiana 31, 1, (1999): 1-7.
Invited contributions to Handbooks and Encyclopedias
Justin E. H. Smith, “Gabriel Daniel as Critic and Satirist of Cartesianism,” in Steven Nadler, Tad Schmaltz, and Delphine Antoine-Mahut (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Descartes, 2019.
Justin E. H. Smith, “Philosophy and the Life Sciences,” in Fred Beiser and Brandon Look (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Eighteenth-Century German Philosophy, 2018.
Justin E. H. Smith, “Leibniz and Medicine,” in Maria-Rosa Antognazza (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Leibniz, Oxford University Press, 2018.
Justin E. H. Smith, “Indian Philosophy in Global Context: Diffusion, Transmission, and Convergences from Antiquity to Early Modernity,” in Jonardon Ganeri (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Indian Philosophy , Oxford University Press, 2016.
Justin E. H. Smith, “Leibniz und die Lebenswissenschaften,” in Wenchao Li (ed.), 300 Jahre Leibnizforschung: Ein Bilanz-Buch, Hannover, 2016.
Justin E. H. Smith, “Natural History and the Speculative Sciences of Origins,” in Aaron Garrett (ed.), Routledge History of 18th-Century Philosophy, Routledge, 2014.
Justin E. H. Smith, “Theories of Generation and Form,” in Peter Anstey (ed.), Oxford Handbook of 17th-Century British Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 2011.
Justin E. H. Smith, “Animal Souls and Animal Machines,” in Desmond Clarke and Catherine Wilson (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Philosophy in Early Modern Europe, Oxford University Press, 2011, 96-115.
Justin E. H. Smith, “Leibniz and the Life Sciences,” in Brandon Look (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Leibniz and His Times, Continuum Press, 2011.
Lexicon Entries and Short Reference Articles
“Marine Invertebrates,” in The Encyclopaedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences, Springer, 2017.
“Tier, 1450-1850 [Animal, 1450-1850],” in Die Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit, 2011.
“Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm,” in The New Dictionary of Scientific Biography, New York: Scribner’s Sons, 2004.
“The History of Philosophy,” in The New Dictionary of the History of Ideas, New York: Scribner’s Sons, 2004.
Selected Book Reviews
Delphine Antoine-Mahut, L'autorité d'un canon philosophique. Le cas Descartes, in Revue de métaphysique et de morale, forthcoming, 2023.
Jean-Michel Robert, Leibniz et les universaux du langage (Honoré Champion, 2020), in Histoire, Épistémologie et Langage, forthcoming, 2021.
Catherine König-Pralong, La colonie philosophique. Écrire l'histoire de la philosophie aux XVIIIe-XIXe siècle, in Revue de métaphysique, forthcoming, 2021.
Éric Marquer and Paul Rateau (eds.), Leibniz lecteur critique de Hobbes (Les Presses de l'Université de Montréal, 2017), in Bulletin de la Société d'études leibniziennes de langue française, 2018.
Han F. Vermeulen, Before Boas: The Genesis of Ethnography and Ethnology in the German Enlightenment (University of Nebraska, 2016), in History of Anthropology Newsletter, 2017.
Ansgar Lyssy, Kausalität und Teleologie bei Leibniz. Studia Leibnitiana Sonderhefte, Franz Steiner Verlag (2016), in Bulletin de la Société Leibnizienne de Langue Française, 2017.
Jessica Riskin, The Restless Clock (University of Chicago Press, 2016), in Journal of Modern History, 2017.
Heinrich Schepers, Leibniz. Die Wege zur reifen Metaphysik (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), in German Quarterly, forthcoming, 2016.
Juan Arana (ed.), Leibniz y las ciencias (Madrid, 2014), in Bulletin de la Société Leibnizienne de Langue Française, Spring, 2015.
François Duchesneau, L’organisme et le vivant chez Leibniz (Vrin, 2010), in The Leibniz Review, January, 2011 (twenty-page essay-review).
Daniel Garber, Leibniz: Body, Substance, Monad (Oxford University Press, 2009), in History of Philosophy of Science, 2011.
Tobias Cheung, Res vivens. Agentenmodelle organischer Ordnung, 1600-1800 (Freiburg: Rombach Verlag, 2008), in Isis, 2010.
Daniel Cook, Hartmut Hecht, et al., Leibniz und das Judentum (Studia Leibnitiana Supplementa, 2006), in British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 2010.
Mogens Lærke, Leibniz lecteur de Spinoza. La génèse d’une opposition complexe (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2008), in Journal of the History of Philosophy, 2010.
Vincent Aucante, La philosophie médicale de Descartes (Presses Universitaires de France, 2006), in Isis, 2008.
Pauline Phemister, Leibniz and the Natural World: Activity, Passivity, and Corporeal Substances in Leibniz’s Philosophy (Dordrecht: Springer, 2005), in The Leibniz Review, 2006 (an essay-review).
Sarah Hutton, Anne Conway: A Woman Philosopher (Cambridge University Press, 2004), in Philosophy in Review, 2005.
Franklin Perkins, Leibniz and China: A Commerce of Light (Cambridge University Press, 2004), in Philosophy in Review, 2005.
Wolfgang Lefèvre (ed.), Between Leibniz, Newton, and Kant: Philosophy and Science in the Eighteenth Century, in Annals of Science 59, 2002.
Andreas Blank, Der logische Aufbau von Leibniz’ Metaphysik, in The Leibniz Review 11 (2001): 29-34.
Thomas Leinkauf, Mundus combinatus: Studien zur Struktur der barocken Universalwissenschaft, am Beispiel Athanasius Kirchers, SJ, 1602-1680, in The Leibniz Review 9 (1999): 14-20
Phillip Beeley, Kontinuität und Mechanismus, in The Leibniz Society Review, 1997 (co-written with Christia Mercer).
Selected Book Reviews
“Marine Invertebrates,” in The Encyclopaedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences, Springer, 2017.
“Tier, 1450-1850 [Animal, 1450-1850],” in Die Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit, 2011.
“Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm,” in The New Dictionary of Scientific Biography, New York: Scribner’s Sons, 2004.
“The History of Philosophy,” in The New Dictionary of the History of Ideas, New York: Scribner’s Sons, 2004.
Conference Presentations and Colloquium Papers (A Selection)
May 28, 2022. “José de la Vega as Philosopher of Early Modern Global Capitalism,” Conference on Philosophy and Money, University of South Dakota.
May 22, 2022. “Catena aurea quadam. Quelques remarques sur l'édition du Negotium otiosum,” Colloque en l'honneur de François Ducheneau, Université de Montréal.
April 30, 2022. “Assessing the Evidence for Zera Yacub's Authenticity from the Point of View of the History of Philosophy,” “In Search of Zera Yacub: An International Conference”, Worcester College, Oxford University.
March 28, 2022. “Zera Yacub: A 17th-Century Ethiopian Philosopher Who May or May Not Have Existed,” “Cartesianism and Beyond” Seminar, Università Ca' Foscari, Venice, Italy.
November 4, 2021. “Why Philosophers Should Study Indigenous Languages.” Lecture series of the University of Edinburgh Futures Institute, Edinburgh, Scotland.
March 2, 2021. “Anton Wilhelm Amo and the Connected Histories of Early Modern African and European Philosophy.” The W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture Series, Harvard University.
May 21, 2020. “The History of Philosophy in Global Context: Three Case Studies,” Department of History and Civilisation, European University Institute, Florence.
May 1, 2020. “Anton Wilhelm Amo's Philosophical Dissertations.” Colloquium of the Department of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego (virtual colloquium).
April 23, 2020. “Indigenous Languages and Philosophy: Past Contacts and Future Prospects,” Philosophy Department Colloquium Series, New School for Social Research, New York (virtual colloquium).
March 25, 2020. “The Harmony of Languages: Leibniz, the Kamchatka Expedition, and the Birth of Comparative Linguistics,” The Cullman Center, New York Public Library (virtual colloquium).
January 29, 2020. “The Harmony of Languages.” Stanford University Colloquium Series of the Program in History and Philosophy of Science.
June 2, 2019. “Leibniz à Kamtchatka,” Les Académies scientifiques : Paris, Berlin, Saint-Pétersbourg, a conference at the École Normale Supérieure, Lyon.
May 18, 2018. “What Can We Know about Anton Wilhelm Amo?” Workshop on Racism and the Disciplinary Differentiation of Science and Philosophy, University of Dallas, Texas.
April 14, 2018. “Gassendi and Ramism.” Symposium on Logic, Mnemotechnics, and Research Practices as Habits in Early Modern Philosophy, meeting of the British Society for the History of Philosophy, Durham University, UK.
April 4, 2018. “Racial Difference and Biological Taxonomy in Early Modern Philosophy.” Colloquium Paper, Department of Philosophy, Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota.
April 2, 2018. “What Are Jokes? A Very Serious Question.” Public Lecture, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
March 9, 2018. “Amo on the Mind-Body Problem.” Philiminality Oxford (student philosophy club), Oxford University.
January 23, 2018. “Gassendi on the Ends of Logic.” Workshop on Early Modern Logic, Université Paris 10 - Nanterre. With Rodolfo Garau.
December 11, 2017. "Le leibnizianisme appliqué dans l'Académie de Saint-Pétersbourg." Journée d'étude sur la philosophie naturelle dans les académies des sciences, 17e et 18e siècles, Université Paris Diderot.
December 8, 2017. Table ronde sur Nature, Human Nature, and Human Difference: Race in Early Modern Philosophy, Université de Liège, Belgium.
November 3, 2017. “Organic Bodies and Animal Species.” Colloque International sur la Controverse Leibniz-Stahl, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.
October 20, 2017. “Le naturel et l'inné : Une perspective historique.” Colloque de rentrée 2017-18, 'Les Natures en questions', Collège de France, Paris.
September 7, 2017. “À la recherche des res singulares : Leibniz dans l'Empire Russe, 1720-1740.” Leibniz et l'histoire, un colloque de la Société d'études leibniziennes de langue française, Université Paris I - Sorbonne.
May 3, 2017. “De Generatione animalium 3.1-7.: Oviparity and Ovoviparity in the Order of Generation.” Aristotle on Living Beings: An International Conference, Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
March 1, 2017. Author-Meets-Critics Session on Nature, Human Nature, and Human Difference: Race in Early Modern Philosophy, American Philosophical Association, Central Division Meeting, Kansas City, Missouri.
February 3, 2017. “The Art of Moulting.” Seminar in Aesthetics and Cognitive Science, Institut Jean Nicod, Paris.
February 1, 2017. “Qu'est-ce que l'embodiment?” Séminaire ‘Les disciplines corporelles’, École Supérieure du Professorat et de l'Éducation, Lille Nord-de-France.
November 24, 2017. “Philosophers, Neighbours and Tartars.” Public lecture, Center for Philosophy and Critical Thought, Goldsmiths, University of London.
March 8, 2017. “Halle, 1734: Group Portrait with Philosophers.” Southeastern Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida.
January 17, 2017. “Distant Reading and the Geography of Early Modern Philosophy,” Conference on Distant Reading and Data-Driven Research in the History of Philosophy, with Franco Moretti, University of Turin, Italy.
November 30, 2016. “La controverse Leibniz-Stahl” (with François Duchesneau). Séminaire Leibniz, Université Paris-Sorbonne.
November 23, 2016. “Leibniz on Political and Metaphysical Domination.” Colloquium Series of the Center for Philosophy and Critical Thought, Goldsmiths, University of London.
November 14, 2016. “Leibniz and the Life Sciences.” Leibniz and the Sciences, A Conference of the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
November 28, 2016. “Natural Kinds and Generational Series: Two Conceptions of Race in Modern Philosophy.” Conference on Race and Racialisation, Université de Genève, Switzerland.
October 7, 2016. “Organic Body and Corporeal Substance: Some Fine-Grained Distinctions.” 'Leibniz e la scienza - Leibniz and Science': A Conference at the Università Statale di Milano, Milan, Italy.
July 5, 2016. “The Life and Work of Anton Wilhelm Amo (c. 1703 - c. 1753).” Colloquium on Anton Wilhelm Amo, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany.
May 20, 2016. “The ‘Hard Problem’ of Comparative Intellectual History: The Case of India and Europe.” Meeting of the Science in the Ancient World Research Group, ‘Historiography of Comparison and Historiography of Circulation’, Université Paris Diderot – Paris 7.
April 26, 2016. “Leibniz: Nation und Natur.” Herrenhäuser Konferenzen der VW-Stiftung, Hanover, Germany.
March 14, 2016. “'That peculiar guiding and guardian spirit': Nature and Ingenium after Descartes.” 'Descartes and Ingenium': A Symposium of the ERC Project 'Genius Before Romanticism', Centre for Research in the Arts and Sciences, Cambridge University, UK.
March 3, 2016. “Who Is a Philosopher? Historical, Anthropological, and Cognitive Dimensions of a Vaguely Defined Vocation.” Keynote Lecture, Conference on Cognition and Emotions in History, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
February 17, 2016. “What Is a World? Counterfactuals, Possibility, and Science Fiction in Early Modern Philosophy.” Colloquium Series of the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Groningen, The Netherlands.
October 6, 2015. “La race dans les ‘systèmes de la nature’.” Séminaire de philosophie de biologie, Institut d’Histoire de la Philosophie, des Sciences et des Techniques, Paris.
September 11, 2015. “Is Western Philosophy a 19th-Century Invention? Historiography and Boundary-Policing from the Encyclopédie to Hegel.” Colloquium Series of the Department of Philosophy, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
September 2, 2015. “What Is a Fossil? Teleology, Natural Order and the Knowability of the Past.” Colloquium Series of the Department of Philosophy, University of Sydney, Australia.
August 16, 2015. “Leibniz as Prospector.” Workshop on Natural History, Department of Philosophy, University of Sydney, Australia.
August 15, 2015. “Two Concepts of Race in Early Modern Natural Philosophy.” Colloquium Series of the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Sydney, Australia.
July 24, 2015. “Must One Be a Christian to Be a Philosopher? Some Early Modern Arguments about Indigenous Knowledge Traditions.” Working Group of the Early Modern Conversions Project, Cambridge University, UK.
July 11, 2015. “Is Non-Western Philosophy a 19th-Century Invention?” Meeting of the International Association for Science and Cultural Diversity, Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7, France
June 28, 2015. “What Do Historians of Philosophy Study? Some Methodological Problems in Defining a Corpus without Boundaries.” Historiography Seminar of the Science in the Ancient World ERC Project, Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7, France.
May 6, 2015. “Race, genus, Geschlecht: Leibniz sur les séries de générations.” 2nd Brussels Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium.
April 4, 2015. “Are We Joining a Tradition When We Study the History of Philosophy?” Rethinking the Canon: A Session of the Modern Philosophy Society, American Philosophical Association, Pacific Division Annual Meeting, Vancouver, Canada.
February 20, 2015. “Nature, Human Nature, and Human Difference.” Les entretiens HPS de Paris Diderot, Université Paris Diderot, Paris.
February 13, 2015. “Thinking from Traces: Steno’s Palaeontology.” International confernce on Nicolaus Steno, Institut des Études Avancées, Paris.
February 6, 2015. Leibniz and His World, a conference of the History and Philosophy of Science Program, Stanford University.
November 4, 2014. “Les machines divines.” Séminaire Descartes, Université Paris- Sorbonne, Paris.
July 12, 2014. “Aristotle, Leibniz, and Kant on the Unity of Species.” Bucharest- Princeton Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy, Bran, Romania.
July 1, 2014. “Buffon and Bulwer on Race as Degeneration.” Paper for the conference "Ars effectiva et methodus: The Body in Early Modern Science and Thought," Herzog- August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, Germany.
June 29, 2014. “Ut catena quadam aurea: Leibniz über generative Ketten.” Colloquium Series of the G.-W.-Leibniz Universität zu Hannover, Hanover, Germany.
May 1, 2014. “Aristotle, Leibniz, and Kant on the Unity of the Reproductive Power.” 75th Anniversary Conference of the Journal of the History of Ideas, University of Pennsylvania.
April 29, 2014. “The Production of Racial Categories.” Villanova University Philosophy Department Colloquium, Villanova, Pennsylvania.
March 5, 2014. “L'unité de l'espèce humaine chez Leibniz et Kant.” Les Jeudis Histoire et Philosophie des Sciences, École Normale Supérieure, Paris.
February 15, 2014. “A Short History of the Dark Side of the Moon, from Plutarch to Pink Floyd.” Colloquium Series of the Goethe-Institut, Moscow, Russia.
February 12, 2014. “Dismantling Corporeal Substance.” Colloquium paper in the Department of Philosophy, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia
February 11, 2014. “Динамика и основания движения у Лейбница” [Dynamics and the Foundations of Movement in Leibniz], Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia.
January 22, 2014. “Phaenomena bene fundata: In welchem Sinne sind Körper für Leibniz real?” Forum Philosophicum, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
December 28, 2013. “The Criminal Trial and Punishment of Animals: A Case Study in Shame and Necessity.” Eastern Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association, Baltimore, Maryland.
November 18, 2013. “Leibniz and the Theology of Mechanism.” Meeting of the Societas Leibnitiana Japonica, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan.
November 14, 2013. “Comparative Philosophy and Cosmopolitanism in the 17th Century.” Colloquium Series of the Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
November 12, 2013. “Lunar Astronomy and Philosophy from Plutarch to Kepler.” Colloquium Series of the Department of Philosophy, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan.
November 11, 2013. “Cosmopolitanism in Early Modern Philosophy.” Colloquium Series of the Department of Philosophy, Kobe University, Kobe, Japan.
October 11, 2013. “Geist und Lebensfunktionen. Zur Diskussion.” Abschlusstagung der Leibnizpreis-Forschungsgruppe, Transformation des Geistes: Philosophische Psychologie, 1500-1750, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
October 5, 2013. “Descartes dans la Lune: Astronomie lunaire et métaphysique dans leVoiage du Monde de Descartes de Gabriel Daniel.” Physique et Métaphysique: Quels enjeux dans la constitution des cartésianismes et anti-cartésianismes? A conference at the École Normale Supérieure, Paris.
June 27, 2013. “Are Animals Things?” A Workshop on Things, Department of Philosophy, University of California, Santa Cruz.
June 20, 2013. “Diderot, Leibniz, and the Problem of Parthenogenesis.” Colloque Leibniz-Diderot, Université d'Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario.
May 7, 2013. “What Was Race? Science, Taxonomy, and the Problem of Historical Kinds.” Colloquium Series of the Committee for Interdisciplinary Science Studies, CUNY Graduate Center, New York.
May 5, 2013. “The Theory of Monads as Utopian Fiction.” Bifröst University Philosophy Colloquium, Bifröst, Iceland.
February 15, 2013. “Leibniz on Singular Things,” New York Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy, Fordham University, New York.
November 30, 2012. “Anton Wilhelm Amo on the Faculty of Sensation, or, Leibnizianism in West Africa, 1747-1753.” Early Modern Philosophy Workshop, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida.
November 18, 2012. “Leibniz's Heuristic Teleology.” “The End(s) of the World as We Know It? Ancient and Early Modern Uses of Teleology”: A Panel at the annual conference of the History of Science Society, San Diego, California.
November 4, 2012. “Early Modern Medical Eudaimonism.” Early Modern Medicine and Natural Philosophy: A Conference at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
October 14, 2012. “The Scope and Limits of Mathematized Medicine in the Late 17th Century.” The Language of Nature. Re-Appraising the Mathematization of Natural Philosophy in the Seventeenth Century: A Joint Workshop of the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science and the Rotman Institute of Philosophy, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario.
September 1, 2012. “Life and Vegetative Structure in Leibniz.” Workshop zum Thema 'das Lebendige', Universität Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland.
June 30, 2012. “Tierexperiment als Erkenntnistheorie in der frühen Neuzeit," a public lecture in conjunction with the conference 'Leibniz und die Erfahrung', Universität zu Hannover, Hanover, Germany.
May 13, 2012. “Life and Vegetative Structure in Leibniz.” The Life Sciences and Mathematics in Early Modern Philosophy, a Conference at the University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio.
April 7, 2012. Author-Meets-Critics Session on Divine Machines: Leibniz and the Sciences of Life, Pacific Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association, Seattle, Washington
November 18, 2011. “Towards a General Science of the Past: Abductive Inference and Inductive Consilience in Paleontology, Archeology, and History.” Annual Lecture Series of the Center for the Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
October 29, 2011. “The History of Philosophy as Past and as Process: The Archaeological Analogy.” Workshop on Methodology in the History of Philosophy, Montréal, Québec.
October 21, 2011. “Sharks’ Teeth and Snakes’ Tongues: Fossils as an Epistemological Problem from Leibniz to George Gaylord Simpson.” Colloquium Series in the History and Philosophy of Science, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.
September 25, 2011. “The Philosophical Core of the Leibniz-Stahl Controversy.” Ninth International Leibniz Congress, Gottfried-Wilhelm-Leibniz-Universität zu Hannover, Hanover, Germany
June 15, 2011. “The Textual Sources of Leibniz's Late Philosophy.” Annual Meeting of the Leibniz Society of North America, University of California, San Diego.
May 27, 2011. “Vegetative Structure and Bodily Motion in the Leibniz-Stahl Controversy.” Early Modern Natural Philosophy and Medicine Workshop, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
May 18, 2011. “Peut-on lire la Genèse comme histoire naturelle? Du figurisme jésuite au Telliamed.” École Normale Supérieure, Lyon, France.
May 16, 2011. “Does the History of Philosophy Require a Philosophy of History?” Colloquium Series of the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary.
May 7, 2011. “‘Like salt in cured ham’: Leibniz and Stahl on the Role of the Soul in the Body.” Workshop on the Life Sciences in Early Modern Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, Princeton University.
April 8, 2011. “The Politics of Curiosity.” ‘Curiosity and Method’: A Conference of the Princeton University Interdepartmental Humanities Program and Cabinet Magazine, Princeton University.
March 30, 2011. “‘Like salt in cured ham’: Chemical Pietism and the Role of the Soul in the Body.” 18th-Century Colloquium Series, Department of History, Princeton University.
March 25, 2011. “Perception and Appetite: From Physiology to Metaphysics.” ‘Leibniz und die Realität’: A Symposium, Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek, Hanover, Germany.
January 30, 2011. “Longitude and Language in Leibniz’s Campaign for the Russian Empire.” Colloquium Series of the School for Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey.
September 24, 2010. “Leibniz’s Anti-Vitalism.” Third Annual Integrated History and Philosophy of Science Conference, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.
June 25, 2010. “Georg Ernst Stahl and the Curious History of Leibnizian ‘Vitalism’.” Annual Congress of the History of the Philosophy of Science Association, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary.
June 19, 2010. “Leibniz on Natural History and National History.” ‘In Kind: Species of Exchange in Early Modern Science and Philosophy’, A Workshop of the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, Cambridge University.
June 2, 2010. “Ethnolinguistics as Theodicy in Leibniz’s Correspondence with Peter the Great.” Colloquium Series of the Philosophical Psychology, Morality and Politics Research Unit of the University of Helsinki, Finland.
May 4, 2010. “Leibniz’s Anti-Vitalism,” Scottish Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland
Between 1999 and 2009 I gave over 50 conference and seminar presentations. A full list is available on request.
Invited Commentary on Conference and Seminar Papers
December 9, 2017. Commentary on Peter Anstey (Sydney), John Locke and Natural Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2011). Séminaire Descartes de l'École Normale Supérieure, Paris.
December 10, 2016. Commentary on Raphaële Andrault (ENS Lyon), La vie selon la raison. Physiologie et métaphysique chez Spinoza et Descartes (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2014), Séminaire Descartes, École Normale Supérieure, Paris.
October 26, 2016. Han Qi (Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing), “Mei Juecheng (1681-1764) and His Use of European Algebra in the Interpretation of Chinese Traditional Mathematics.” Conference: Writing Histories of Ancient Mathematics, Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7.
February 17, 2014. Daniel Sabbagh and Magali Bessone, "Race, racisme, discriminations raciales." Séminaire 'Race et Globalisation', Université de Paris – Sorbonne.
December 28, 2010. Jeffrey McDonough (Harvard University), “Leibniz on Optimality.” Meeting of the North American Leibniz Society at the Eastern Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association, Boston, Massachusetts.
April 30, 2009. André Gombay (University of Toronto), “Les animaux-machines: Descartes et son chien.” Colloque sur Descartes et le Matérialisme, Université du Québec à Montréal.
March 21, 2009. Arash Abizadeh (McGill University), “Linguistic Convention and Mental Representation in Hobbes.” Author Meets Critics Workshop on Arash Abizadeh’s The Oscillations of Thomas Hobbes: Between Insight and the Will, McGill University, Montréal, Québec.
March 13, 2001. Nicholas Jolley (University of California, Irvine), “Leibniz and Occasionalism.” ‘Leibniz and His Correspondents’: A Conference at Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana.
December 13, 2000. Michaël Devaux, “Leibniz face à la philosophie première de Descartes.” Colloque du Centre d’Études Cartésiennes, université de Paris IV- Sorbonne, Paris, France.
Funding, Honors and Awards
Institutional Partner on the International Project, “Attention After Technology”, led by Kunsthall Trondheim Norway, in association with Université Paris Cité, Princeton University, and Swiss Institute New York. Funded by the European Union. 2022-24.
NEH Grant for the project “Philosophy and Money”, PI Joseph Tinguely (University of South Dakota), director and editor for the early modern section, 2022-23.
Member of the Interdisciplinary LabEx (Laboratory of Excellence, a multi-year interdisciplinary funded project), “Who Am I? Exploring Identity from Molecules to Individuals”, Université Paris Cité, 2020-22.
Joint Award Kings College London-Université de Paris, co-PI with Professor Adrian Blau on “Satire and Democracy”. 28,000 Euros. 2022.
John and Constance Birkelund Fellowship, Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, New York Public Library, 2019-20.
Émile Francqui Chair, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, 2016-2017.
Collaborator on the European Research Commission Advanced Grant project, Science in the Ancient World, directed by Karine Chemla, Université Paris Diderot – Paris 7. Period of funding: 2011-2016.
Collaborator on the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada- funded Project, “Forms of Conversion: Religious, Cultural, and Cognitive Transformation in Early Modern Europe and Its Worlds”. Project Director: Paul Yachnin, McGill University, Period of funding: 2013-18.
Conference funding from the SPHERE Research Laboratory for International Conference in Honour of Roger Ariew, École Normale Supérieure, Paris, January 7-10, 2016.
Conference funding from the SPHERE Research Laboratory for the International Conference on Embodiment, Université Paris Diderot – Paris 7. December, 2014. Amount of funding: 3000 euros.
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Aid to Research-Related Conferences and Workshops Grant for the Conference, 'Methodology in the History of Philosophy', Concordia University, Montréal, Québec, October, 2011. Amount of Funding: $16,185 CAD.
Grant from the Matchette Foundation for the Conference, ‘Methodology in the History of Philosophy’, Concordia University, Montréal, Québec, October, 2011. Amount of Funding: $2000 USD.
Member Stipend, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, Winter, 2011. Amount of Funding: $33,000 USD.
Faculty of Arts and Science Distinguished Scholarship Award, Concordia University, Montréal, Québec, 2010-11.
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Standard Research Grant for the project “Philosophical Anthropology and the Problem of Human Diversity in the New Science of Nature, 1500-1800.” Amount of Funding $76,874 CAD. Period: 2009-12.
Grant from the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, Cambridge University, for the Conference ‘In Kind: Species of Exchange in Science and Philosophy, 1670-1730’ (with James Delbourgo and Sachiko Kusukawa). Amount of Funding: £2000.
Research Fellowship of the Alexander-von-Humboldt Stiftung. Amount of Funding: €2500 per month. Period: 2007-08.
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Standard Research Grant. Amount of Funding: $45,533 CAD. Period: 2004-07.
Fonds Québécois pour la Recherche sur la Société et la Culture, Research Grant in the Category ‘nouveaux chercheurs’. Amount of Funding: $29,000 CAD. Period: 2004-07.
Concordia University Start-Up Grant. Amount of Funding: $15,000 CAD. Period: 2003-04.
Participant Stipend for the National Endowment for the Humanities Seminar, ‘Leibniz and His Contemporaries’, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg Virginia, June 23-July 20, 2003. Amount of Funding: $2500 USD.
Miami University Summer Research Grant. Amount of Funding: $5000 USD. Period: Summer, 2001.
Whiting Foundation Fellowship. Amount of Funding: $11,000 USD, plus tuition remission. Period: 1999-2000.
Fellowship of the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst Doctoral Research at the Westfälische-Wilhelms Universität Münster. Amount of Funding: €12,000, plus travel expenses. Period: 1997-98.
Harriman Institute Summer Fellowship for Independent Research at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Amount of Funding: $6000 USD. Period: Summer, 1996.
Columbia University President’s Fellowship for Graduate Study. Amount of Funding: $11,000 USD, plus tuition remission. Period: 1995-96.
UCLA Graduate Fellowship for Doctoral Study in Slavic Linguistics. Amount of Funding: $11,000 USD, plus tuition remission. Period: 1994-95 (declined).
Teaching
IN FRANCE
Université Paris Diderot
Spring, 2022
“Philosophie de l’astrobiologie” (MA level)
Autumn, 2020
“Le concept d'attention en psychologie, sciences cognitives et esthétique” (MA level)
2013-18 (6 times)
“Philosophie des sciences du vivant” (MA level)
2013-19 (6 times)
“Introduction à la philosophie” (MA level)
2014-18 (5 times)
“Introduction à l’histoire et philosophie des sciences” (‘License’ or undergraduate level)
IN NORTH AMERICA
At Princeton University
Spring, 2023
The Concept of Race in Early Modern Philosophy (Graduate Seminar)
Spring, 2023
Introduction to Early Modern Philosophy (Undergraduate Course)
At Concordia University
Gr a d u a te a n d U p p e r - Divis ion Un dergraduate Semin ar
Winter, 2013
“Early Modern Utopias: More, Bacon, Campanella”
Winter, 2012
“Classical Indian Philosophy: Logic, Epistemology, and Metaphysics”
Fall, 2009
“Matter Theory and Alchemy from Pseudo-Geber to Boyle”
Fall, 2008
“The Concept of Race in Enlightenment Philosophy”
Fall, 2006
“Philosophy of Biology”
Fall, 2005
“Spinoza” (co-taught with Matthias Fritsch)
Winter, 2005
“Honours Metaphysics: Matter, Force, and Motion in the 17th Century”
Fall, 2004
“Aristotle on Generation”
Intermediate Undergraduate Courses
Winter, 2010
“Aesthetics: Kant’s Critique of Judgment”
Winter, 2009
“Aesthetics: Philosophy of Figurative Art” (Wollheim and Danto)
Winter, 2007
“Aesthetics: Philosophy of Film”
Fall 2003, 2005, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011
“History of Modern Philosophy: Rationalism”
Winter 2004, 2006, 2012
“History of Modern Philosophy: Empiricism”
Introductory Undergraduate Courses
Winter, 2009, 2010, 2012
“Mind and Action”
Fall, 2011
“Philosophy of Religion”
Winter, 2004, 2005
“Aristotle and Hellenistic Philosophy”
Other Teaching at Concordia
I also supervised at least 25 tutorials, or directed independent research courses, for advanced undergraduate students at Concordia.
Teaching at other institutions
Summer, 2016
Leibniz Summer School (co-directed with Vincenzo de Risi, Maria Rosa Antognazza, Donald Rutherford), University of Lepizig, Germany.
Summer, 2013
‘Kants Philosophie der Biologie’, Sommerseminar der Deutschen Studienstiftung, Greifswald (co-taught with Ina Goy).
Fall, 2004
McGill University: ‘Christianity, Judaism, and Platonism in Ancient Alexandria (co-taught with Carlos Fraenkel; cross-listed in Philosophy and Jewish Studies)
Spring, 2003
Boğaziçi University: ‘History of Modern Philosophy II: From Kant to Nietzsche’
Summer, 2002
Miami University Summer Workshop in Cooperation with the Technische Universität Berlin: ‘German Philosophy before the Critical Turn’
Spring, 2001, 2002
Miami University: ‘History of Modern Philosophy’
Fall, 2000, 2001, 2002
Miami University: ‘History of Ancient Philosophy’
THESIS DIRECTION AND ADVISING
Habilitation Committees, France (Highest academic degree awarded, after Ph.D.)
Eric Vandendriessche, Université Paris Cité (Président), December, 2023
Jean-Pierre Llored, Université Aix-Marseille, November, 2021.
Anne-Lise Rey, Leibniz et les expériments, École Normale Supérieure, Lyon, December 13, 2013.
Ph.D. Thesis Supervision
Dominique Allard, La théorie des couleurs de Gaspard Monge. In course.
Brendan Aubry, Le problème d’individuation chez Nietzsche. In course.
Natacha Demoule, Le concept de rélativisme aux Etats-Unis et en France, 1900-2020.
Can Batukan, L’éthologie animale de Leibniz. École doctorale 400, Université Paris Diderot. In course.
Babette Chabout-Combaz, L’épistémologie historique de Leibniz. École doctorale 400, Université Paris Diderot. Defended December, 2023. Currently employed as an assistant professor at the University of Sherbrooke, Québec.
Arilès Remaki, Épistémologie de la combinatoire comme art d’inventer chez Leibniz. École doctorale 400, Université Paris Diderot. Co-dirigé avec David Rabouin. Defended 2019.
Morgan Houg, L’arithmétique de Leibniz. École doctorale 400, Université Paris Diderot. Co-dirigé avec David Rabouin. Defended 2019.
Trevor Mowchun, La kinématique de Leibniz, École d’Humanités interdisciplinaires, Université Concordia, Montréal, Canada. Defended 2018.
Antoine Lévêque, L'Égalité des races selon Anténor Firmin. Defended 2016.
I also supervise the doctoral research of the following international students in France:
Laurynas Adomaitis (Lithuania), La mécanique de Leibniz. 2018-19.
Masahiko Terashima (Japan), Leibniz et la médecine. 2017-18.
Ph.D. Thesis Committees, France
Takuya Hayashi, La théorie leibnizienne des possibles, Université Paris 1 - Sorbonne, defense scheduled February 8, 2021.
Jack Stetter, The Reception of Spinoza in the English-Speaking World, Université Paris 8 - Saint-Denis. Defended 26 June 2019.
Laure Pédrono, Université Paris I - Sorbonne, Métaphysique et apologétique chez Leibniz et Berkeley. Defended 26 October, 2016.
Jonathan N. Regier, Université Paris Diderot, Cause in Kepler’s Natural Philosophy, defended October, 2014.
Cécilia Bognon, Institut d’Histoire et Philosophie des Sciences, Paris, and École Normale Supérieure, Lyon, Chimie et biologie, du non vivant au vivant. Le cas de la nutrition aux 18e et 19e siècles (in course).
Ph.D Thesis Committees, North America
Dwight Lewis, Anton Wilhelm Amo's Philosophy and Its Reception: From the Origins through the Encyclopédie, University of South Florida. Defended February 20, 2019.
Ashley Inglehart, Seminal Ideas: Forces of Generation in Robert Boyle, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Indiana University, Bloomington (defended March, 2017).
Charles Ives, Plato’s Timaeus: Physics for the Sake of Philosophy, defended August 26, 2014.
Vincent Camarda, Département de Philosophie, Université de Montréal, Leibniz dans le débat sur les natures plastiques (2005).
Jacques Billette, Département de Philosophie, Université de Montréal, Leibniz et le principe de l’inertie (2005).
James Lamborn, Department of History, Miami University, Blessed Assurance? Depraved Saints and the Limits of Knowledge in New England, 1630-1830 (2002).
M.A. Thesis Supervision, France (a selection)
Leah Le Penuizic, L'Astrobiologie de Kepler à Kant. In progress.
Marie-Noëlle Doutreix, Le pluralisme définitionnel étudié à travers des concepts en usage dans la recherché contemporaine en biologie, Université Paris Diderot (defended September, 2017).
Aris Deimezis-Tsikoutas, Homme et nature dans l’oeuvre de Buffon, Département Histoire et Philosophie des Sciences, Université Paris Diderot (defended 3 July, 2015).
Laura Benitez-Cojulun, Conservation Biology et aires protégées terrestres: un cas de science appliquée à l’échelle mondiale, Département Histoire et Philosophie des Sciences, Université Paris Diderot (defended 26 June, 2015).
Daniel Hidalgo, Histoire et limites du concept du ‘moderne’ chez Bruno Latour, Département Histoire et Philosophie des Sciences, Université Paris Diderot (defended June, 2015).
Camille Juzeau, L’Anthropocène, Université Paris Diderot (defended September, 2015).
Marine Carrère, L'idée de la vie artificielle, Université Paris Diderot (defended June 26, 2014).
MA Thesis Supervision, Canada
I supervised roughly 12 MA theses at Concordia University between 2003 and 2012, on topics in early modern philosophy, ancient philosophy, philosophy of biology, and other areas.