Michael Della Rocca
Biographic Data
| ID | 3866281 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael Della Rocca |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael |
| FAMILY NAME | Della Rocca |
| SIGNATURE | DELLA ROCCA M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Yale University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0446-7842 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 10 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Showing, Dialetheism, or Eliminativism
Replies to Critics of The Parmenidean Ascent
Many thanks to my four critics, all of whom have produced thoughtful, engaged, and significant challenges. Let's jump right in. Barbara Sattler is the philosopher from whom I have learned the most about ancient theories of motion, change, and multiplicity,1 and while I would not saddle her with the perhaps burdensome label of being the reason for the Parmenidean turn in my thinking, it was Sattler's example of taking Parmenides especially serious…
A New Defense of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
This paper offers a defense of a much-maligned Leibnizian argument for the Principle of Sufficient Reason, the principle according to which whatever is has a sufficient reason or explanation. While Leibniz’s argument is widely thought to rely on a question-begging premise, the paper offers a wholly original and non-question-begging defense of that premise, a defense that Leibniz did not anticipate. The paper does not present this defense of Leibn…
Parmenides' insight and the possibility of logic
The purpose of this paper is twofold: to explain and render more accessible the arguments in a recent, important, and already famously difficult book and, on the basis of this appreciation and illumination, to level a criticism of the book that cuts deep and thereby opens up a new and powerful path to a paradoxical Parmenideanism. The book in question is Irad Kimhi's Thinking and Being . Kimhi is to be applauded for taking seriously Parmenidean c…
Tamers, deniers, and me
Oxford Handbook of Spinoza
Spinoza's Metaphysics
From time to time, we are fortunate enough to be given a book that promises to transform our understanding of central aspects of a philosopher's thought. I have in mind, among works on early modern philosophers, such acclaimed efforts as Margaret Wilson's Descartes, Daniel Garber's Descartes’ Metaphysical Physics, and—closer to home as far as this review is concerned—Edwin Curley's Spinoza's Metaphysics: An Essay in Interpretation. In the same ca…
The Oxford Handbook of Spinoza
Until recently, Spinoza’s standing in Anglophone studies of philosophy has been relatively low and has only seemed to confirm Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi’s assessment of him as “a dead dog.” However, an exuberant outburst of excellent scholarship on Spinoza has of late come to dominate work on early modern philosophy. This resurgence is due in no small part to the recent revival of metaphysics in contemporary philosophy and to the increased appreci…
Spinoza and German Idealism
There can be little doubt that without Spinoza, German Idealism would have been just as impossible as it would have been without Kant. Yet the precise nature of Spinoza's influence on the German Idealists has hardly been studied in detail. This volume of essays by leading scholars sheds light on how the appropriation of Spinoza by Fichte, Schelling and Hegel grew out of the reception of his philosophy by, among others, Lessing, Mendelssohn, Jacob…
Rationalism, idealism, monism, and beyond
A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
The intelligibility of change in Descartes
Spinoza
Renowned for his metaphysics, Spinoza made significant contributions to understanding the human mind, the emotions, moral philosophy, and political philosophy.Beginning with an overview of Spinoza's life, Michael Della Rocca carefully unpacks and explains Spinoza's philosophy: his metaphysics of substance and argument at the center of his whole system that God is the sole independent substance; his account of the human mind and its relation to th…
Descartes-Inseparability-Almog
Descartes, the Cartesian Circle, and Epistemology Without God
This paper defends an interpretation of Descartes according to which he sees us as having normative (and not merely psychological) certainty of all clear and distinct ideas during the period in which they are apprehended clearly and distinctly. However, on this view, a retrospective doubt about clear and distinct ideas is possible. This interpretation allows Descartes to avoid the Cartesian Circle in an effective way and also shows that Descartes…
A Rationalist Manifesto
Representation and the Mind-Body Problem in Spinoza
Representation and the Mind-Body Problem in Spinoza
This first extensive study of Spinoza's philosophy of mind concentrates on two problems crucial to the philosopher's thoughts on the matter: the requirements for having a thought about a particular object, and the problem of the mind's relation to the body. Della Rocca contends that Spinoza's positions are systematically connected with each other and with a principle at the heart of his metaphysical system: his denial of causal or explanatory rel…
Part of Nature
Representation and the mind-body problem in Spinoza
This book offers a powerful new reading of Spinoza's philosophy of mind, the aspect of Spinoza's thought often regarded as the most profound and perplexing. Michael Della Rocca argues that interpreters of Spinoza's philosophy of mind have not paid sufficient attention to his causal barrier between the mental and the physical. The first half of the book shows how this barrier generates Spinoza's strong requirements for having an idea about an obje…
Spinoza's Argument for the Identity Theory
L'A. argue de la theorie de l'identite numerique qui est explicite dans le systeme spinozien, la cle de sa comprehension etant la vaste etendue des contextes opaques
Descartes, the Cartesian Circle, and Epistemology Without God
This paper defends an interpretation of Descartes according to which he sees us as having normative (and not merely psychological) certainty of all clear and distinct ideas during the period in which they are apprehended clearly and distinctly. However, on this view, a retrospective doubt about clear and distinct ideas is possible. This interpretation allows Descartes to avoid the Cartesian Circle in an effective way and also shows that Descartes…
A Rationalist Manifesto
Representation and the Mind-Body Problem in Spinoza
Spinoza's Argument for the Identity Theory
L'A. argue de la theorie de l'identite numerique qui est explicite dans le systeme spinozien, la cle de sa comprehension etant la vaste etendue des contextes opaques
Spinoza's Argument for the Identity Theory
L'A. argue de la theorie de l'identite numerique qui est explicite dans le systeme spinozien, la cle de sa comprehension etant la vaste etendue des contextes opaques
Part of Nature
Representation and the mind-body problem in Spinoza
This book offers a powerful new reading of Spinoza's philosophy of mind, the aspect of Spinoza's thought often regarded as the most profound and perplexing. Michael Della Rocca argues that interpreters of Spinoza's philosophy of mind have not paid sufficient attention to his causal barrier between the mental and the physical. The first half of the book shows how this barrier generates Spinoza's strong requirements for having an idea about an obje…
Representation and the Mind-Body Problem in Spinoza
This first extensive study of Spinoza's philosophy of mind concentrates on two problems crucial to the philosopher's thoughts on the matter: the requirements for having a thought about a particular object, and the problem of the mind's relation to the body. Della Rocca contends that Spinoza's positions are systematically connected with each other and with a principle at the heart of his metaphysical system: his denial of causal or explanatory rel…
Representation and the Mind-Body Problem in Spinoza
A Rationalist Manifesto
Descartes-Inseparability-Almog
Descartes, the Cartesian Circle, and Epistemology Without God
This paper defends an interpretation of Descartes according to which he sees us as having normative (and not merely psychological) certainty of all clear and distinct ideas during the period in which they are apprehended clearly and distinctly. However, on this view, a retrospective doubt about clear and distinct ideas is possible. This interpretation allows Descartes to avoid the Cartesian Circle in an effective way and also shows that Descartes…
Spinoza
Renowned for his metaphysics, Spinoza made significant contributions to understanding the human mind, the emotions, moral philosophy, and political philosophy.Beginning with an overview of Spinoza's life, Michael Della Rocca carefully unpacks and explains Spinoza's philosophy: his metaphysics of substance and argument at the center of his whole system that God is the sole independent substance; his account of the human mind and its relation to th…
The intelligibility of change in Descartes
Spinoza and German Idealism
There can be little doubt that without Spinoza, German Idealism would have been just as impossible as it would have been without Kant. Yet the precise nature of Spinoza's influence on the German Idealists has hardly been studied in detail. This volume of essays by leading scholars sheds light on how the appropriation of Spinoza by Fichte, Schelling and Hegel grew out of the reception of his philosophy by, among others, Lessing, Mendelssohn, Jacob…
Rationalism, idealism, monism, and beyond
A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
The Oxford Handbook of Spinoza
Until recently, Spinoza’s standing in Anglophone studies of philosophy has been relatively low and has only seemed to confirm Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi’s assessment of him as “a dead dog.” However, an exuberant outburst of excellent scholarship on Spinoza has of late come to dominate work on early modern philosophy. This resurgence is due in no small part to the recent revival of metaphysics in contemporary philosophy and to the increased appreci…
Spinoza's Metaphysics
From time to time, we are fortunate enough to be given a book that promises to transform our understanding of central aspects of a philosopher's thought. I have in mind, among works on early modern philosophers, such acclaimed efforts as Margaret Wilson's Descartes, Daniel Garber's Descartes’ Metaphysical Physics, and—closer to home as far as this review is concerned—Edwin Curley's Spinoza's Metaphysics: An Essay in Interpretation. In the same ca…
Oxford Handbook of Spinoza
Tamers, deniers, and me
Parmenides' insight and the possibility of logic
The purpose of this paper is twofold: to explain and render more accessible the arguments in a recent, important, and already famously difficult book and, on the basis of this appreciation and illumination, to level a criticism of the book that cuts deep and thereby opens up a new and powerful path to a paradoxical Parmenideanism. The book in question is Irad Kimhi's Thinking and Being . Kimhi is to be applauded for taking seriously Parmenidean c…
A New Defense of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
This paper offers a defense of a much-maligned Leibnizian argument for the Principle of Sufficient Reason, the principle according to which whatever is has a sufficient reason or explanation. While Leibniz’s argument is widely thought to rely on a question-begging premise, the paper offers a wholly original and non-question-begging defense of that premise, a defense that Leibniz did not anticipate. The paper does not present this defense of Leibn…
Replies to Critics of The Parmenidean Ascent
Many thanks to my four critics, all of whom have produced thoughtful, engaged, and significant challenges. Let's jump right in. Barbara Sattler is the philosopher from whom I have learned the most about ancient theories of motion, change, and multiplicity,1 and while I would not saddle her with the perhaps burdensome label of being the reason for the Parmenidean turn in my thinking, it was Sattler's example of taking Parmenides especially serious…
Showing, Dialetheism, or Eliminativism
Philosophy (17 works) · Epistemology (14 works) · Medieval and Classical Philosophy (12 works) · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought (9 works) · Classical Philosophy and Thought (6 works) · benedictus de Spinoza (1632-1677) (4 works) · Metaphysics (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Political science (4 works) · Analytic philosophy (3 works)