Donald
Rutherford
Professor
of Philosophy
Philosophy
Department, 0119
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093-0119
I've been a member of the UCSD
Philosophy Department since
1999. Prior to that I taught for a decade at Emory University, and
before that
briefly at Reed College. My complete c.v. can be found here.
My main research interests are in the history of modern philosophy.
Much of my
work has dealt with the philosophy of Leibniz, leading to a book Leibniz
and
the Rational Order of Nature and to
a critical edition and translation (with Brandon Look) of the
Leibniz-Des
Bosses correspondence. My current research focuses on the role of
eudaimonistic
ethical theory in the seventeenth century. Here I am particularly
interested in
the ways in which Stoic and Epicurean themes are taken up and
transformed by
such philosophers as Gassendi, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz.
I have
also worked, and continue to work, on these philosophers' treatments of
a
variety of metaphysical questions. Other areas of interest are Kant's
critical
philosophy and its development, and Nietzsche.
Some
Recent and
Forthcoming Publications
- Leibniz
and the Rational Order of Nature (Cambridge University Press,
1995, pb. 1998)
- Leibniz:
Nature and Freedom (ed. with J. A. Cover, Oxford
University Press, 2005)
- The
Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Philosophy (Cambridge University Press,
2006)
- The
Leibniz-Des Bosses Correspondence (ed. and tr. with Brandon Look,
Yale University Press, 2007)
- "Leibniz on Spontaneity," in Leibniz:
Nature and Freedom, ed. Rutherford and Cover
- "Metaphor and the Language of
Philosophy," in Leibniz et les Puissances du Langage, ed. Fréderic Nef
and Dominique Berlioz (Vrin, 2005).
- "Idealism Declined: Leibniz and
Christian Wolff," in Leibniz
and His Correspondents, ed. P. Lodge (Cambridge, 2004)
- "On the Happy Life: Descartes
vis-à-vis Seneca," in Stoicism
: Traditions and Transformations, ed. S. Strange and J. Zupko
(Cambridge, 2004)
- "In Pursuit of Happiness:
Hobbes's New Science of Ethics," Philosophical Topics 31 (2003), 360-93.
- "Patience sans
Espérance: Leibniz's Critique of
Stoicism," in Hellenistic
and Early Modern Philosophy, ed. B. Inwood and J. Miller
(Cambridge, 2003).
- "The Consolations of Theodicy:
Leibniz and the Stoics," in The
Problem of Evil in Early Modern Philosophy, ed. E. Kremer and M. Latzer
(Toronto, 2001)
- "Malebranche's Theodicy," in The
Cambridge Companion to Malebranche, ed. S. Nadler (Cambridge,
2000).
- "G.W. Leibniz," in The
Blackwell Guide to the Modern Philosophers, ed. S. Emmanuel (Blackwell,
2000)
- "Salvation as a State of Mind:
The Place of Acquiescentia in Spinoza's Ethics," British
Journal of the History of Philosophy 7 (1999), 447-73.
- "Phenomenalism and the Reality of Body in Leibniz's Later Philosophy", Studia Leibnitiana 22 (1990), 11-28.
Work
in Progress
- The Wisdom of the
Moderns: The Science of Happiness in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy (book)
Upcoming Events
- Southwest
Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy, UCSD, February 24-25, 2007
Teaching
Below are some
of the undergraduate courses
I teach on a regular basis. Links lead to class webpages, where
available:
- Philosophy
32: The Origins of Modern Philosophy
- Humanities
3: Renaissance, Reformation, and Early Modern Europe (the
third course of the Revelle College humanities sequence)
- Philosophy
87: Perfection and the Human Genome (Freshman Seminar)
- Philosophy 102: Hellenistic
Philosophy
- Philosophy
104: The Rationalists
- Philosophy
108: Nietzsche
- Philosophy 130: Metaphysics
Some of the
figures and topics on which I
have given (or will be giving) graduate seminars include: Hobbes;
Spinoza;
Leibniz; Nietzsche; Hellenistic and Early Modern Ethics; Natures and
Laws in
Seventeenth-Century Natural Philosophy.
- Philosophy
201A: Spinoza's Ethics
- Philosophy
214: Leibniz, Nature and Mathematics
- Philosophy
285: Nietzsche's Critique of Morality
Links
- The
UCSD History of Philosophy Roundtable
- Third
Biennial Margaret Dauler Wilson Conference, UCSD, June 21-23,
2006
- G.W.
Leibniz: Texts and Translations (contains materials relating
to the study of Leibniz's philosophy, including translations of primary
texts, a partial translation of Louis Couturat's La Logique
de Leibniz,
and the web pages of the Leibniz Society of North America)
Donald
Rutherford / drutherford@ucsd.edu
University of California, San Diego
Last update: January 7, 2007