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Curriculum Vitae
IDIT DOBBS-WEINSTEIN
U.S. RESIDENCE
1515 Cedar Lane
Nashville, TN 37212
USA.
(615) 298-1719
Date of birth: 18 April, 1950
Place of birth: Tel-Aviv, Israel.
Citizenships: Israel, Canada.
UNIVERSITY EDUCATION:
B.A. (Honours) Political Science
York University, Toronto 1977-81
Major: Political Philosophy (Summa cum Laude)
M.A. Political Science
York University, Toronto 1981-82
Major: Political Philosophy
M.A. Medieval Studies
Centre for Medieval Studies 1982-83
Major: Philosophy
University of Toronto
Ph.D. Medieval Studies
Centre for Medieval Studies 1983-87
Major: Philosophy
University of Toronto
LANGUAGES:
Speaking knowledge: Hebrew, English, French, Polish.
Reading knowledge: Arabic, esp., Judaeo-arabic, Aramaic, German,
Greek, Latin, Spanish.
Graduate Honours and Awards:
1984-87 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Doctoral Fellowships.
1982-84 Ontario Graduate Scholarship
Doctoral Scholarships:
1981-82 Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Special M.A. Fellowship
York University Graduate Fellowship
Glendon College Graduate Reader in History AwardRecent Grants:
URC Summer Research grant, 1995
URC travel grant to Hungary, 1996
URC travel grant to Germany, 1997
URC travel grant to Israel, 1998
TEACHING EXPERIENCE:
1994-
Associate Professor, Vanderbilt University
1987-94
Assistant Professor, Vanderbilt University
1983-84
Course co-director, (Pol 2904Y) University of Toronto
1982-83
Course co-director, (Hist/ph 3932.6; Hist 4100.6) Glendon College,
York University, Toronto
1981-82
Graduate Assistant, (Hist 324.6) Glendon College, York University,
Toronto
Courses taught at graduate level:
Medieval Metaphysics and Epistemic Psychology, Philosophical Hermeneutics,
Critical Theory, Philosophy of History, Spinoza, the Pre-Socratics,
Aristotle, Commentaries on Aristotle, Twentieth century continental
philosophy, pre- and postmodern configurations of body.
Courses taught at undergraduate level:
Ancient Philosophy, Medieval Intellectual History, Medieval Philosophy,
Philosophy of History, Maimonides, Concepts of the Soul, Philosophical
Hermeneutics, Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy
Related areas:
Adjunct appointment in the Graduate Faculty of Religion.
DISSERTATION AND THESIS
Ph. D. Dissertation supervision:
Thomas Gaskill, defended 1992.
Julie Klein, defended 1996
Jeffrey Bernstein, defended 1997
Sean Erwin, defended, 1998
Gordon Hull, defended, Fall, 1999
Pascal Massey, expected date of defense: Spring, 2000
Currently at various stages of writing:
Charles Bentley, Jennifer Holt, Jason Carroll
Ph.D. Dissertation Committees in Philosophy:
approximately 35
Ph.D. Dissertations Committees in Other
Departments:
English Dept. - Three (all completed)
Divinity School - Five completed and four in progress.
Comparative Literature - Two completed
M. A. Thesis Supervision:
Robert Shields (completed)
B. A. Thesis Supervision:
Seven completed
NON-CREDIT TEACHING:
Jan. 1988 Mini-seminar on Jewish Philosophy, Jewish Community Center,
Nashville 1984-87
Directing a non-credit graduate and post-graduate weekly seminar
on the philosophy of Moses Maimonides.
Related Activities:
Nov. 1988 Seminar: "What is Jewish Philosophy," Professional
Jewish Educators Conference, Vancouver, B.C.
AREAS OF SPECIAL COMPETENCE:
Aristotle, Medieval Jewish, Arabic and Christian Philosophy, Spinoza,
Hermeneutics, Political Philosophy, Contemporary Continental Philosophy
Publications:
"Medieval Bases for Political Obligation: Maimonides' and Aquinas'
Alternative Derivations of Positive Law," Proceedings of the
Annual Meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, 1984.
(mfe. 13): 1-20.
"Is the Philosopher a Perfect Man? Man's Natural Capacity for
Perfection," The Thought of Moses Maimonides: Philosophical
and Legal Studies, I. Robinson, L. Kaplan, J. Bauer eds. (The Edwin
Mellen Press: 1990), pp. 26-41.
"Medieval Biblical Commentary and Philosophical Inquiry as
Exemplified in the Thought of Moses Maimonides and St. Thomas
Aquinas," Maimonides and His Times, E. Ormsby, ed. (Catholic
University of America Press: 1989), 101-120.
"Matter as Creature and as the Source of Evil: Maimonides and
Aquinas," Neoplatonism and Jewish Thought, Lenn Goodman, ed.,
Neoplatonism: Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 (SUNY Press, 1992),
pp. 217-235.
"The Tension Between the Universality of Hermeneutics and that
of Faith," Studies in Jewish Philosophy, Vol. 2, Norbert Samuelson
and David Novack, eds., (University Press of America, 1991).
"The Existential Dimension of Providence in the Thought of
Gersonides," "Gersonide en son Temps: science et
philosophie medievales," Gilbert Dahan et Charles Touati, eds.
(E. Peters, Louvain-Paris, 1991), pp. 159-178.
"The Nature of Biblical Language in Maimonides' Guide of the
Perplexed: Parabolic Contradictions and Negative Attributions,"
Proceedings of the PMR Conference 1988, Vol. 12-13, pp. 113-127.
"The Concurrence of Necessity and Freedom In Spinoza's Thought,"
Freedom and Responsibility: Studies in Jewish Philosophy, Daniel
Frank, ed. 1994.
"Between Natural Inclination and Convention," Proceedings
of the Ninth International Congress of Medieval Philosophy, 1993.
"The Ambivalent Role of the Imagination in Maimonides and Spinoza,"
The Sovereignty of Construction: Essays in Memory of David
Lachterman, Daniel Conway and Pierre Kretzberg, ed., Rodopi, Value
Inquiry Book Series, forthcoming.
"Maimonides Aspects in Spinoza's Thought," Graduate Faculty
Philosophy Journal, Vols. 1-2, Essays in Memory of David Rapport
Lachterman, Vol. 17, Nos. 1-2, 1994: 153-174.
"The Anti-Maimonidean Controversy," The Routledge History
of World Philosophy; Jewish Philosophy, Vol. II, Daniel Frank and
Oliver Leaman, eds., The Academic Publishing Division, Routledge,
Chapman and Hall, 1997, Chap. 14, pp. 331-349.
"Abarvanel, Judah Ben Isaac," Routledge Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, Vol. II, Lenn Goodman and Oliver Leaman, eds. London:
Routledge, Chapman and Hall, 1998, pp. 23-27.
"Gersonides' Radically Modern Understanding of the Agent Intellect,"
Meeting of the Minds: The Relations Between Medieval and Classical
Modern European Philosophy, Stephen F. Brown, ed. Brepols, 1998,
pp. 191-213.
"Gersonides, the Supercommentator on Aristotle: A Decisive
Forgotten Link Between Averroes and Spinoza," Problems in Arabic
Philosophy, Maroth Miklos, ed. forthcoming.
"Rereading the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus in Light of Benjamin's
Theologico-Politico Fragment" in Piety, Peace, and the Freedom
to Philosophize, Paul Begley, ed. (Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer
Academic Publishers, 1999) pp. 67-89.
"Necessity Revisited: Spinoza as a Radical Aristotelian,"
Spinoza by 2000 Vol. 5, Yirmiyahu Yovel, ed. Forthcoming.
"Maimonides' Reticence toward Ibn-Sina.," Avicenna
and His Heritage, Jules Janessens, ed., Federation Internationale
des Instituts d'Etude Medievales, Textes et Etudes du Moyen Age,
(Brepols, Lovain-la-Neuve)
Book:
Maimonides and St. Thomas on the Limits of Reason, SUNY Press, Philosophy
Series, 1995
Popular Publication:
Moses Maimonides and Medieval Jewish Philosophy, audio tape series
The World of Philosophy, Knowledge Products, 1996
Reviews:
Athur Hyman's "Averroes' "De Substantia Orbis," Critical
Edition of the Hebrew Text with Hebrew Translation and Commentary,"
(Cambridge, Mass. and Jerusalem: The Medieval Academy of Sciences
and Humanities, 1986) The Muslim World (1989), 142-143.
Maimonides: A Collection of Critical Essays, Joseph A. Buijs, ed.
(University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, IN, 1988) Teaching
Philosophy, 1991.
Dictionary Articles:
"Maimonides," Dictionary of Literary Biography:
Medieval Philosophers, Jeremiah Hackett, ed. (Bruccoli Clark
Layman, 1992), pp. 263-280.
In preparation:
AThe Power of Prejudice and the Force of Law: Spinoza and His Heirs
on Religion.@
AThinking Desire in Gersonides and Spinoza,@ to be submitted
to Feminist Perspectives on Jewish Philosophy, Hava Samuelson, ed.
(Indiana University Press)
An Occluded Philosophical Tradition: A Study of the transmission
and occlusion of the Arabic and Jewish Aristotelian tradition.
Fuller description attached. (In preparation for a book-length
study.)
Conference papers:
Sept., 2000 The Power of Prejudice and the Force of Law: Spinoza
and His Heirs, Invited Conference Speaker, Recent Continental Philosophy
and Early Modern Philosophy, Texas A&M, College Station, TX.
April, 2000 The Power of Prejudice and the Force of Law: Spinoza's
Critique of Religion, Invited Lecture, Philosophy Colloquium, Villanova
University, Villanova, PA.
Oct., 1999 "Ibn-Sina's Influence upon Maimonides' Understanding
of Necessity and Possibility," Twenty Fourth International
Conference on Patristic, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies, Villanova,
PA.
Sep., 1999 "Maimonides' Reticence Toward Ibn-Sina," International
Colloquium on Avicenna and His Heritage, Leuven, Hoger Instituut
voor Wijsbegeerte and Louvain-la-Neuve, Institute superieur de Philosophie,
Belgium.
Sept., 1999 Chair: Closing Plenary session of International Colloquium
on Avicenna and His Heritage, Leuven, Belgium.
June 1999 Chair: Plenary Session (3), Spinoza by 2000, Ethica V:
Love, Knowledge, & Beatitude, The Jerusalem Spinoza Institute,
Israel
June 1999 "Necessity Revisited: Spinoza as a Radical Aristotelian,"
Spinoza by 2000, Ethiva V: Love Knowledge & Beatitude, The Jerusalem
Spinoza Institute, Israel
April 1999 Reply to Steve Barbone's "What's so Cool about the
TP," North America Spinoza Society, Pacific APA. Berkeley,
CA
Oct. 1998 "Necessity Revisited: Necessity as Freedom in Spinosa's
Ethics," International Conference of Patristic, Medieval and
Renaissance Philosophy, Villanova, PA. Oct. 9-11.
Aug. 1998 "Desire as an Efficient Cause of Knowledge in Gersonides'
Supercommentary on Averroes' Commentary on De Anima," International
Society for the Classical Tradition, Tubingen, Germany.
July 29-Aug. 1.
May 1998 University of Oregon Humanities Center and Dept. of Philosophy
Fellows Program on Time Memory and History (May 8-14):
(1) Seminar: "Walter Benjamin on History as Violence"
(2) Lecture: "Memory as Imagination in Gersonides' Supercommentary
on Averroes' Commentary on De Anima"
Apr. 1998 "Human Being as a Desiring Intellect in Gersonides'
Philosophy," Averroes and Averroists on Knowledge and Happiness:
A Conference Commemorating the 800th Anniversary of Averroes' Death,
NYU, NY. April 15-16.
Apr. 1998 "Desire in Gersonides' Supercommentary on Averroes'
Commentary on De Anima," Traditions of Reading Aristotle, Penn
State University, University Park, PA
Sept. 1997 Gersonides= Radical reinterpretation of the Relations
Among Dreams, Divinations and Prophecy," International Conference
of Patristic Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy, Villanova, PA.
August 1997 "Between Imagination and Appetition: Reading Gersonides'
Understanding of Dreams, Divinations, and Prophecy in Light of his
Supercommentary on Averroes' commentary on the 'de Anima.'"
The Tenth International Congress of Medieval Philosophy, Erfurt,
Germany
April 1997 "Response to Heidi Ravven, Fluid Body, Expansive
Mind: A Glimpse Into the Ethical Strategy of Spinoza's Short Treatise
on God, Man, and His Well-being," Spinosa Society, Central
Meeting of the APA, Pittsburgh, PA.
April 1997 "The Aspectival Relation between The Material and
Agent Intellects in Gersonides' Supercommentary on Averroes' Commentary
of Aristotle's "de Anima," Philosophy Colloquium, Virginia
Tech. April 11, 1997.
April 1997 "Maimonides' Reading of Aristotle's Statement that
'the moral virtues are not by nature'," Philosophy Colloquium,
Virginia Tech. April 12, 1997.
April 1997 "The Aspectival Relation between The Material and
Agent Intellects in Gersonides' Supercommentary on Averroes' Commentary
of Aristotle's "de Anima," Philosophy Colloquium, Virginia
Tech. April 11, 1997.
April 1997 "Maimonides' Reading of Aristotle's Statement that
'the moral virtues are not by nature'," Philosophy Colloquium,
Virginia Tech. April 12, 1997.
March 1997 "Self-Knowledge as the Concommitance of Freedom
and Necessity in Spinoza's Thinking," Collaboration with Jeff
Bernstein, Collaborations Conference, Southern Illinois University.
March 21, 1997.
Sept. 1996 "Gersonides: The Last Explicit Voice of an
Occluded Aristotelian Tradition." Inaugural Address at
a Conference commemorating the reopening of The Faculty of Philosophy
and Theology and inauguration of a Center for Research in Arabic
Philosophy, Pazmany Peter Katolikus Egyetem, Hungary.
June 1996 "Gersonides, Precursor of Spinoza: The Aspectival
Relation Between the Material and Agent Intellect(s)," International
Conference on The Relations Between Medieval and Classical Modern
European Philosophy, S.I.E.P.M. Boston College.
May 1996 "The Problematic Relations Between Nature, Habit,
and Law in Maimonides' Political Philosophy, The Thirty-First International
Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo,
Michigan.
April 1996 Response to Mark Conrad, "Some Contemporary Readings
of the identity of Attributes in Spinoza," Mid-South Philosophy
Conference, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN.
Oct. 1995 "Gersonides' Radically Modern Understanding of the
Agent Intellect," 14th Annual Conference of SSIPS/SAGP 1995,
Global and Multicultural Dimensions of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy,
SUNY Binghamton.
Dec. 1994 Response to Charles Huenemann, "Modes Finite and
Infinite in Spinoza's Metaphysics," American Philosophical
Association, Eastern Division, Boston, MA, December 27-30, 1994.
Oct. 1994 "The Ambivalent Role of the Imagination in Maimonides'
Thought," SSIPS/SAGP, 14th Annual Conference, SUNY Binghamton,
Binghamton, NY, October 13-15, 1994.
Mar. 1994 "The A-Natural, A-Rational Status of Creation and
Other Miracles in Maimonides' Thought," Medieval Association
of the Pacific, Seattle University, Seattle, Washington, March 4-6,
1994.
Apr. 1993 "Ambiguities in Maimonides' Moral Psychology,"
Simposi Internacional de Filosofia de L'Edat Mitjana, Barcelona,
Vic, Girona, 11-16 d'abril de 1993.
Dec. 1992 Commentator on invited paper by Tamar Rudavski, "Can
God Tell Time? Medieval Paradigms of Time and Temporality."
(82nd Annual Meeting) American Philosophical Association, Eastern
Division, Washington, DC.
Sept. 1992 "The Ambivalent Role of The Imagination in Maimonides
and Spinoza," 17th International Conference on Patristic, Medieval
and Renaissance Studies, Villanova University, Villanova, PA.
Aug. 1992 "Between Natural Inclination and Convention:
The Ambiguity of Moral Virtue in Maimonides and Aquinas."
Ninth International Congress of Medieval Philosophy, SIEPM, Ottawa,
Ont. Canada.
May-June 92 "The Concurrence of Necessity and Freedom in Spinoza's
Thought." Annual Meeting of the Academy for Jewish Philosophy,
Philadelphia, PA.
Dec. 1991 "The Influence of Neoplatonic Jewish Philosophy on
the Thought of Spinoza," New York Medieval Philosophy
Colloquium, NYU., NY.
Oct. 1990 "Remembrance and the Limits of Language," 29th
Annual Meeting of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential
Philosophy, Villanova University, Villanova, PA.
Sep. 1990 "Aquinas' Neoplatonic Negative Theology," 16th
Annual Conference of the Southeastern Medieval Association, Meredith
College, Raleigh, NC.
Sep. 1990 "Aquinas' Commentary on the Divine Names: Taking
the Good Beyond Being," 15th International Conference on Patristic,
Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Villanova University, Villanova,
PN.
Aug. 1990 "A-Humanist Feminism," Seminar presented conversation,
Collegium Phaenemenologicum, Perugia, Italy.
June 1990 "Questions Concerning the Canon of Jewish Philosophy,"
Area Colloquium for Judaic Studies Faculty, Ohio State University,
Columbus, OH.
July 1990 Response to David Lachterman, "Modern Appropriations
of Medieval Noetics of Prophecy," Continuing Workshop on University
Teaching of Jewish Philosophy, "From Modernity to Contemporaneity,"
Jerusalem, Israel.
Nov. 1989 Response to Gayne Nerney, "On the Esotericism Thesis
as Applied to Locke: The Hesitations of a Pious Reader," Annual
Meeting of the Tennessee Philosophical Association, Vanderbilt University,
Nashville, TN.
Oct. 1989 "Heidegger's Radically Pregnant Silence(s) about
Spinoza: Decanonizing Heidegger, "Recanonizing" Spinoza,
Colloquium on "Disciplines and the Canon," Vanderbilt
University, Nashville, TN.
Oct. 1989 Review Essay of Current Research: "John McCumber,
Poetic Interaction: Language, Freedom, Reason," 28th Annual
Meeting of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy,
Pittsburgh, PA.
May 1989 "Language and Contradiction in Maimonides: The Epistemic
Status of Negative Attribution," 24th International Congress
on Medieval Studies, Society for the Study of Islamic Philosophy
and Science, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI.
Nov. 1988 "Maimonides on the Ideal Curriculum," xviii
Workshop of the Committee for Medieval Studies: Education in Medieval
Jewish Society, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C.
Oct. 1988 "The Existential Dimension of Providence in the Thought
of Gersonides," International Colloquium "Gersonide en
son Temps: science et philosophie medievale," Paris, France.
Sep. 1988 "The Nature of Biblical Language in Maimonides' Guide
of the Perplexed," Thirteenth PMR Conference, Villanova University,
Villanova, PA.
May 1988 "The Tension Between the Universality of Hermeneutics
and that of Faith," Annual Meeting of the Academy for Jewish
Philosophy, Philadelphia, PA.
Apr. 1988 "Biblical Exegesis as Philosophical Practice,"
Society for the Study of Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy, Annual
Meeting of the ACPA, "Hermeneutics and Tradition," Louisville,
KY.
Nov. 1987 "Matter as Creature and as the Source of Evil: Maimonides
and Aquinas," International Conference on Neoplatonism and
Jewish Thought, Honolulu, Hawaii.
Oct. 1987 "The Transformation from Subject to Participant in
Providence: Maimonides and Aquinas," Boston Medieval Colloquium,
Boston, Mass.
Apr. 1987 "Aristotle and Maimonides on the Origin of the Universe,"
The Eighth Medieval Forum, Plymouth, NH.
Dec. 1986 "The Ambivalent Disciple of Medieval Philosophy:
Spinoza's Theory of Prophecy in Relation to Those of Maimonides
and Aquinas," Eighteenth Annual Conference of the Association
for Jewish Studies, Boston, Mass.
May 1986 Response to W. Dunphy, "Maimonides' not so Secret
Position on Creation," Annual Meeting of the Canadian Philosophical
Association, Winnipeg, Man.
Oct. 1985 "Is the Philosopher a Perfect Man? Man's Natural
Capacity for Perfection," International Colloquium "Maimonides:
The Master as Exemplar," Montreal, Que.
Sept. 1985
1) "The Relation between Philosophy and Religion in the Thought
of of Al-Farabi," Tenth International PMR Conference, Villanova,
PA.
2) "The Metaphysical Foundation of Moral Evil in the Light
of the De Divinis Nominibus," Tenth International PMR Conference,
Villanova, PA.
June 1984
1) "Medieval Bases for Political Obligation: Maimonides' and
Aquinas' Alternative Derivations of Positive Law," Annual Meeting
of the Canadian Political Science Association, Guelph, Ont.
2) Panel discussion paper: "How to Teach Medieval Political
Philosophy," Annual Meeting of the Canadian Political Science
Association, Guelph, Ont.
June 1983 Response to C. J. Nederman, "Medieval English Politics
in William of Ockham's Political Thought." Annual Meeting of
the CanadianPolitical Science Association, Vancouver, B.C.
OTHER CONFERENCE ACTIVITIES:
Fall 1994 Co-director, Faculty seminar: "Ahumanist Writings,"
Humanities Center, Vanderbilt University.
July 1990 Discussant, Continuing Workshop on University Teaching
of Jewish Philosophy, "From Modernity to Contemporaneity,"
Jerusalem, Israel.
Apr. 1990 Discussant and session chair, Second International Colloquium
on Critical Theory: Walter Benjamin, SUNY Buffalo, NY.
Oct. 1989 Member of organizing fellows' committee and `General Lecture'
moderator of Colloquium on "Disciplines and the Canon,"
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN.
Sep. 1989 Chair: "Intellectual History: High Middle Ages,"
Fourteenth International Conference on Patristic, Mediaeval and
Renaissance Studies, Villanova University, Villanova, PA.
Aug. 1989 Discussant, Continuing Workshop on University Teaching
of Jewish Philosophy, "From Modernity to Contemporaneity,"
Jerusalem, Israel.
July 1988 Discussant and session chair, Continuing Workshop on University
Teaching of Jewish Philosophy, "From Modernity to Contemporaneity,"
Jerusalem, Israel.
March 1988 Discussant, "Modernism/Postmodernism: A Division
in the Heritage of Europe?" International Symposium at Trent
University, Trent, Ont.
1984-85 Member of organizing committee and editorial board of the
"International Conference on Medieval Coronations," Toronto,
Jan. 31 - Feb. 2, 1985
GUEST LECTURES:
Feb. 1998 McGill Lecture: "Superbowl, Final Hour, World Series:
The Violent Repression of Eros in Homoerotic Sports."
April 1996 "Leone Ebreo's Dialoghi d'Amore: Radical Aristotelianism
in Platonic Garb," Philosophy Department Colloquium, Southern
Illinois University, Carbondale, IL.
Invited Class Lecture: "Between Law and Grace: Summa
Theologiae, Ia IIae, Qs. 90-114." Philosophy Dept., Southern
Illinois University.
Nov. 1994 McGill Lecture: "The Political Implications
of the Biological Determination of Sexual Orientation."
1993 McGill Lecture: "The Social Construction of Gender."
Oct. 1992 McGill Lecture: "Can There Be Poetry After Auschwitz?"
Apr. 1990 "The Noetics of Prophecy in the Thought of Gersonides,"
Philosophy Lecture Series, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY.
Sep. 1989 Keynote Address: "The Islamic and Judaeo-Arabic Influence
on Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages," Medieval-Renaissance
Conference III, Clinch Valley College of the University of Virginia,
Wise, VA.
March 1989 McGill Lecture: "Contemporary Hermeneutics and Faith,"
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN.
March 1989 Amnesty Lecture: "The Problematic of Human Rights,"
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN.
Jan. 1989 "Aquinas' Influences on the Thought of Gersonides,"
Philosophy Lecture Series, Penn State University, State College,
PA.
PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES:
Dec. 1999- Executive Committee and Chair of Program Committee of
the Society for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy
1998- Program Committee member of Society for Medieval and Renaissance
Philosophy.
1992- Executive Board member of and reviewer for the North American
Spinoza Society.
Aug. 1990 Participant in the Collegium Phaemenologicum in Perugia,
Italy.
Jul.-Aug.89 Student-Participant in the Collegium Phaenemenologicum
in Perugia, Italy, "Heidegger in the 30s."
1988-89 Fellow of the Center for the Humanities, Vanderbilt University
1987-89 Member of Faculty Enrichment Seminar at the Center for the
Humanities, Vanderbilt University
1988- Corresponding Fellow of the Academy for Jewish Philosophy
1990- Reviewed manuscripts and articles for Greenwood Press, Journal
of Philosophical Research, Medieval Philosophy and Theology, SUNY
University Press, Epoche, Journal of the History of Philosophy,
AJS Review.
1992- Reviewed fellowship applications for the Canadian Social Sciences
and Humanities Research Council and the NEH.
UNIVERSITY SERVICE:
1993-94 Freshmen Advisor
1992-95 Lambda Faculty Advisor (1992-1998: Yearly lectures to Lambda)
1989-91 Jean and Alexander Heard Library Committee (and Philosophy
Dept. Library Liaison), Sub-committee on the Humanities.
1988-89 Student-Faculty Relations Committee.
1998- Sub-committee on the Humanities
1998- Committee for Academic Standards and Procedures
1999- Director: Committee on Vanderbilt in Israel
1999- Overseas Studies Committee
1999- Graduate Faculty Council
2000- Faculty Council
CURRENT RESEARCH:
The impetus to my current research came from a growing suspicion
that what came to be understood as the tradition of Aristotelian
epistemic psychology is an expression of the culmination during
the Renaissance of the Western, Christo-Platonic appropriation of
Aristotle's work, in particular the de Anima and the Metaphysics.
The overwhelming success of this process, a success greatly aided
by the ecclesiastical/political attempts to silence all aspects
of the Latin Averroist so-called heresies, inevitably assured the
occlusion or loss of another Aristotelian tradition, the Arabic
and Judaeo-Arabic one. Notwithstanding the interesting, even
if ironic, light that this occlusion sheds on the role played by
political forces in the shaping of what comes to be understood as
the history of the philosophical tradition, my current philosophical
concerns focus on the tradition of the de Anima. A decisive
link in the transmission of this tradition to the late Middle Ages
and Renaissance is Gersonides or Rabbi Levi ben Gerson (Provence,
1288-1344). As the supercommentator on Averroes' commentaries
on Aristotle, Gersonides is a highly significant source or trace
of the transmission of the Arabic, Aristotelian tradition to the
Renaissance and 17th Century. Although in many respects he
is its last explicit voice, I believe, and have argued elsewhere,
that he exerted profound influence on Spinoza, who is its last proponent.
Briefly stated, the following are the two, most significant differences
(and their consequences) between the two traditions.
1. Whereas in the Arabic, Aristotelian tradition memory is
an extension of sensation and imagination or a storehouse of common
sensibles and images and thus does not preexist these, nor exists
independently of them, in the Latin, Christian tradition, especially
after Augustine, memory is a part of the self-subsistent soul.
(Thus, even as radical an Aristotelian as St. Thomas still views
memory predominantly as a part of the self-subsistent intellective
soul.) Once memory is understood as a power independent
of sensation and imagination, once its objects are understood strictly
as immaterial, it follows that there can be human knowledge strictly
independent of sensation. All too briefly and reductively,
Descartes' substance dualism is but the conclusion of a progressive
separation between body and soul.
2. As with memory so with the will, the Latin Christian tradition
posits the will as a part of the self-subsistent intellective soul
and understands the upright will as a distinctly intellectual, and
therefore active faculty, or as an efficient cause of distinctly
human action. Indeed, will as an affect or passion is a mark
of the human depravity consequent upon original sin. Since
original sin plays no role in the Arabic Aristotelian tradition
of the de Anima, since moral categories are seen as conventional
rather than natural, the will as an independently active, intellectual
faculty does not even enter into their considerations of the nature
of human knowledge. The most important consequence of understanding
the will as an independent active faculty, especially when it is
combined with memory as a source of knowledge independent of sensation,
is the progressive separation of nature and freedom so that freedom
becomes essentially freedom from nature rather than as concurrent
with it. I am convinced
that the Latin philosophers' concern with individual or personal
immortality, the concern that motivated the Averroist controversy,
must be understood in this context. Likewise I am convinced
that it underlies 17-18 centuries; political philosophy.
My current project, then, is an attempt to retrieve a rich Aristotelian
tradition that is radically at odds with all modern, and many postmodern
sensibilities and as such appears to most modern philosophers as,
naive, non-philosophical, even nonsensical. The ironic mark of the
success of the occlusion is that even today most historians of philosophy
who are interested in this other tradition read it through a modern
lens, as will become evident in my critical evaluation of the dominant
readings of Gersonides and Spinoza.
LIST REFERENCES:
1. Medieval Jewish Thought: Barry Kogan, Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati,
OH
Phone: 513-221-7444 ext. 253
2. Zeev Harvey, Dept. of Jewish Thought, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
Phone: 011-972-2-588-3663
3. Alfred Ivry, Skirball Professor of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies,
NYU, New York
Phone: 212-998-8983
Others:
1. Ed Mahony, Philosophy, Duke University, Durham, NC
Phone: 919-660-3061
2. James Reilly, (emeritus) Philosophy, PIMS, University of Toronto,
Toronto, ONT
Phone: (res.) 416-555-1212
3. Michael Hodges, Chair, Department of Philosophy, Vanderbilt University,
Nashville, TN
Phone: 615-322-2637
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