History of Philosophy
UCSD offers extensive opportunities for coursework and research in the history of philosophy. In addition to graduate seminars and dissertation supervision, faculty participate in the History of Philosophy Roundtable (where graduate students and faculty present their research), facilitate translation groups, organize reading groups that discuss recently published books of general interest, maintain web-resources, and host conferences that bring leading scholars to UCSD. The wide range of faculty interests and expertise, the variety of historiographical approaches pursued, and the numerous activities available to graduate students create a lively intellectual environment, making UCSD an excellent place for students interested in the history of philosophy.Core Faculty
Georgios Anagnostopoulos works primarily in ancient philosophy on both Aristotle and Plato. He is the author of Aristotle on the Goals and Exactness of Ethics (Berkeley, 1994) as well as articles on Plato's Cratylus and philosophy of science. He has edited two special issues of Topoi, most recently "Aristotle on Philosophy of Mind, Ethics, and Politics" (1996).
Michael Hardimon works on Hegel and the development of ethical thought in German philosophy from Kant to Nietzsche, as well as its relevance for contemporary ethical theory. He is the author of Hegel's Social Philosophy (Cambridge, 1994) as well as "Role Obligations" (The Journal of Philosophy, 1994) and "The Project of Reconciliation" (Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1992). In addition to contemporary interests in applied ethics and philosophical problems of race, he has strong interests in Kant and Nietzsche.
Monte Johnson specializes in ancient philosophy and its influence on medieval and early modern philosophy. He is the author of Aristotle on Teleology (Oxford, 2005) and 'Authenticating Aristotle's Protrepticus' (with D. S. Hutchinson, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 2005). His main philosophical interests lie in natural philosophy (especially cosmology and biology) and scientific method. He employs a diverse range of philosophical and philological techniques (including analysis, translation, commentary, textual and literary criticism, paleography, and papyrology) in order to interpret and reconstruct Greek philosophy. He is currently working on a study of atomism as a systematic philosophy, the role of experiment and empirical data collection in Aristotle, and the reconstruction of Aristotle's lost work Protrepticus (Exhortation to Philosophy).
Sam Rickless works on a wide range of topics in philosophy, including both ancient and early modern history of philosophy, philosophy of language, metaphysics, philosophy of law, and ethics. He is the author of Plato's Forms in Transition: A Reading of the Parmenides (Cambridge, 2007), and articles on Plato's Parmenides (Philosophical Review, 1998; Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2007) and Plato's Protagoras (Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 1998). In early modern philosophy, he is the author of "Is Locke's Theory of Knowledge Inconsistent?" (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2008), "Locke's Polemic Against Nativism" (in The Cambridge Companion to Locke's Essay, 2007), "Locke on the Freedom to Will" (The Locke Newsletter, 2000), and "Locke on Primary and Secondary Qualities" (Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 1997). He has also published essays on the Cartesian Circle (Noûs, 2005) and on Kant's argument for the categorical imperative (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2004). He is currently working on a book tentatively titled Berkeley's Argument for Idealism.
Don Rutherford has interests that span the history of philosophy, with most of his published work focusing on the early modern period. He is the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Philosophy (2006) and (with Jan Cover) Leibniz: Nature and Freedom (Oxford, 2005). In addition to many articles, he is the author of Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature (Cambridge, 1995), and has edited (with Brandon Look) a critical edition and translation of the Leibniz-Des Bosses correspondence (Yale, 2007). He is currently working on a book to be titled The Wisdom of the Moderns: The Science of Happiness in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, which explores the fate of eudaimonistic ethical theory in early modern philosophy. Outside of the early modern period, his strongest interests are in Hellenistic philosophy, Kant, and Nietzsche.
Clinton Tolley works primarily in the history of philosophy of logic, in particular, on the history of attempts -- and criticisms of attempts -- to provide metaphysical and/or epistemological foundations for logic. The problem which lies at the center of his research is that of determining the relation that obtains between logic and the rest of philosophy (independence?, interdependence?, priority?, equipriority?, logic as 'first' philosophy?, or merely as a 'propaedeutic' to philosophy?). He is especially interested in exploring the ways in which this problem is addressed within the modern, post-Kantian, phenomenological, and early analytic traditions, focusing on the work of Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Husserl, and Frege. In addition to a book on Kant's logic, he is currently working on articles on: the nature of concepts in Kant; Kant's criticism of Leibniz's arguments for a theological foundation for logic; Hegel's dialectical account of the logical articulation of conceptual content; Husserl's theory of categorial intuition; and Husserl's criticism of Frege's conception of identity.
Eric Watkins specializes in Kant's theoretical and practical philosophy and the history of modern philosophy more generally, both before and after Kant. He also has interests in metaphysics and the history of philosophy of science. He is the author of Kant and the Metaphysics of Causality (Cambridge, 2005). In addition to publishing numerous articles, he has edited Kant and the Sciences (Oxford, 2000) and Readings in Modern Philosophy (2 vols., Hackett, 2000). He is in the process of editing Kant's Scientific Writings and translating Kant's Critique of Pure Reason: Background Source Materials, both for Cambridge University Press.
Other Faculty with Research Interests in the History of Philosophy
David Brink works in ethical theory, history of ethics, and jurisprudence. His approach blends historical concern with the views of important figures and traditions in the history of ethics and systematic concern with the clearest and most plausible formulations of ethical principles. Much of his work combines historical and systematic perspectives, though in different ratios for different projects. Within the history of ethics, he has published articles on Greek ethics ("Eudaimonism, Love and Friendship, and Political Community"), Kant ("Kantian Rationalism: Inescapability, Authority, and Supremacy"), Mill ("Mill's Deliberative Utilitarianism" and "Millian Principles, Freedom of Expression, and Hate Speech"), Sidgwick ("Sidgwick's Dualism of Practical Reason," "Sidgwick and the Rationale for Rational Egoism," and "Commonsense and First Principles in Sidgwick's Methods"), and Green ("Self-Realization and the Common Good"). He recently edited a new edition of T.H. Green's Prolegomena to Ethics (Oxford, 2003) and published Perfectionism and the Common Good: Themes in the Philosophy of T.H. Green (Oxford, 2003). He has taught historically oriented seminars on Greek ethics and political theory, Mill's moral and political philosophy, and Green's ethics of self-realization. He has supervised theses on the ethics of Hobbes and Spinoza and on Kant's theory of virtue.
Rick Grush has a significant interest in 18th and 19th century philosophers of mind, particularly with respect to the experience of space and time. This interest is an organic aspect of his broader research agenda to understand the physical bases of mentality. He is the author of "Berkeley and the Spatiality of Vision" (Journal of the History of Philosophy, 2007), and "A Brief History of Time Consciousness" (with Holly Andersen, forthcoming in Journal of the History of Philosophy). The bulk of his historical research has been on Berkeley, Kant, Hodgson and Husserl.
A number of other faculty inside and outside the department also have significant interests in the history of philosophy. In addition to David Brink, Gerald Doppelt and Richard Arneson teach the history of moral, social, and political philosophy, while Gila Sher and Dana Nelkin along with Rick Grush have significant systematic interests in Kant. Nancy Cartwright, Craig Callender, and Robert Westman (History) participate in the Science Studies Program, which brings together scholars from history, philosophy, and sociology working on the history and philosophy of science. The work of faculty in the Political Science Department and the German Studies Program connects closely with the history of philosophy.
Recent Graduate Seminars in the History of Philosophy
- Political Theory of Plato and Aristotle (Anagnostopoulos)
- Plato's Parmenides (Rickless)
- Aristotle's Philosophy of Science (Johnson)
- Aristotle's Ethics (Anagnostopoulos)
- Aristotle's
(Anagnostopoulos and Santas) - Skepticism in Greek Philosophy (Anagnostopoulos)
- Greek Ethics and Political Theory (Brink)
- Early Modern Moral Philosophy (Rutherford)
- Hobbes (Rutherford)
- Spinoza's Ethics (Rutherford)
- Locke's Essay (Rickless)
- Berkeley's Idealism (Rickless)
- Leibniz: Mathematics and Nature (Rutherford)
- Self and Subject in 17th and 18th Century Philosophy (Hardimon)
- Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (Watkins)
- Kant's Philosophy of Science (Watkins)
- Kant's Ethics (Hardimon)
- Kantian Epistemology (Watkins)
- Introduction to German Idealism (Watkins)
- Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (Hardimon)
- Hegel's Philosophy of Right (Hardimon)
- T. H. Green's Prolegomena to Ethics (Brink)
- Mill's Moral and Political Philosophy (Brink)
- Nietzsche's Critique of Morality (Rutherford)
- Strawson (with an emphasis on The Bounds of Sense, Grush)
Recent and Current Dissertations
- Steven Root, Philosophy, Sophistry and Mathematics: A Meditation on Theodorus, the Geometer in Plato's Theaetetus (1996)
- Mariana Ortega, The Role of Das Man in Heidegger's Early Work (1996)
- Jason Frye, Hegel's Dialectic (1999)
- Peter Thielke, The Fact of Experience: Maimon's Skeptical Challenge to Kant's Discursivity Thesis (2000)
- Ian Eagleson, Kant and the Principles of Perception (2000)
- Michael Lebuffe, Hobbes, Spinoza and the Approach to Naturalistic Ethics (2000)
- Iain Thomson, Dwelling in Metaphysica: The Ethical Unity of Heidegger's Thinking (2000)
- Anne Margaret Baxley, Kant's Conception of Autocracy in his Theory of Virtue (2001)
- Matt Kisner, Descartes' Naturalistic Rationalism (2003)
- Ryan Hickerson, Mental Content and the Breakthrough to Phenomenology (2003)
- John Vella, Euripides and the Limits of Reason (2004)
- Carl Sachs, The Collapse of Transcendence in Nietzsche's Middle Period (2005)
- Kory Schaff, Work, Freedom, and Community: Hegel's Normative Economics (2005)
- Gregory Shirley, Heidegger and the Philosophy of Logic (2006)
- Kristen Irwin, The Core Mysteries: The Philosophical Fideism of Pierre Bayle (in progress)
- James Messina, The Unity and Diversity of Space: The Place of Space in Kant's Account of Self-Awareness and Objective Experience (in progress)
History of Philosophy Roundtable
Faculty and graduate students with interests in the history of philosophy meet biweekly at the History of Philosophy Roundtable, a forum for graduate students to present work in progress. Papers are distributed and read in advance so that there is ample time for extensive discussion and constructive feedback on graduate students' research. In the recent past, students have presented papers on Aristotle, Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Reid, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Husserl.
Translation Groups
The university offers undergraduate and graduate level courses that teach students the basic grammar and vocabulary of several foreign languages. However, in order to give students the opportunity to gain experience with philosophical texts written in a foreign language (to pass the language requirement) or to hone their translation skills for specific research projects, several faculty have organized weekly translation groups.
The Greek Group, headed by Monte Johnson, began meeting in January 2007 to read Plato's Statesman.
The Latin Group, headed by Don Rutherford, has recently translated texts by Aquinas, Ockham, Spinoza, and Bayle.
The German Group, headed by Eric Watkins, has worked on texts by Wittgenstein, Schopenhauer, Kant, Lambert, Herz, and Carnap.
The History of Philosophy Reading Group
The History of Philosophy Reading Group meets to read recently published articles or books in the history of philosophy. Recently, the group has read books by Pierre Keller (Kant and the Demands of Self-Consciousness) and Karl Ameriks (Kant and the Fate of Autonomy).
Recent and Upcoming Conferences
Henry Allison Conference, October 5-7, 2007
Southwest Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy, February 24-25, 2007
Third Biennial Margaret Dauler Wilson Conference, June 21-23, 2006
Pacific Study Group of the North American Kant Society, October 4-5, 2002
Speakers who specialize in the history of philosophy also regularly give talks in the Departmental Colloquium Series. Recent speakers include R. Lanier Anderson, Henry Allison and Steven Nadler.
Web Resources
Don Rutherford maintains G. W. Leibniz: Texts and Translations, which includes the web pages for the Leibniz Society of North America.
Monte Johnson maintains a page
with extensive translations and materials related to the reconstruction
of Aristotle's lost work Protrepticus.