University of Otago emblem    Philosophy

MICHAEL LEBUFFE: RESEARCH


The interpretation of Spinoza is my focus. I have interests across the early modern period and the history of ethics and have supervised graduate work on Spinoza; Descartes’s Meditations; nominalism and its history; Hobbes’s moral theory; Hume’s Treatise; Sidgwick and theories of interest; J.S. Mill; Leibniz’s metaphysics; T.H. Green and Kant; and virtue ethics.

BOOKS
SELECTED ARTICLES AND CHAPTERS cover of Lebuffe 2018
  • "Citizens and States in Spinoza's Political Treatise," Mind (online preprint), 24 pages.
  • "Spinoza and Hobbes," in A Companion to Spinoza, Yitzhak Melamed, ed. London: Blackwell, forthcoming.
  • "Motivation, Reason, and the Good in On the Citizen," in Hobbes's On the Citizen: A Critical Guide, Johan Olsthoorn and Robin Douglass eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2020), pp. 89-107.
  • "Holbach," (with Emilie Gourdon) in A Companion to Atheism and Philosophy, Graham Oppy, ed. Oxford: Wiley. (2019), pp. 28-42.
  • "Reason and Body in Spinoza's Metaphysics," in Spinoza and Ratio, Beth Lord, ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. (2018), pp. 19-32.
  • “Moral Philosophy,” in The Routledge Companion to Seventeenth Century Philosophy, Dan Kaufman, ed. Routledge: London. (2018), pp. 449-475.
  • “Reason and Ethics 5p7,” in The Cambridge Critical Guide to Spinoza's Ethics, Yitzhak Melamed, ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, (2017), pp. 304-319.
  • “The Principles of Spinoza’s Philosophy,” in The Idea of Principles in Early Modern Thought, Peter Anstey, ed. New York: Routledge, (2017, pp. 172-193.
  • “Spinoza’s Rules of Living,” in The Young Spinoza, Yitzhak Melamed, ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press (2015), pp. 92-105
  • cover of Lebuffe 2010
  • "The Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms: Miracles, Monotheism, and Reason in Spinoza," British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 23:2 (2015), 318-332.
  • “Necessity and the Commands of Reason in the Ethics,” in Spinoza’s Moral Philosophy, Andrew Youpa and Matthew Kisner, eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2014), pp. 197-220.
  • “Virtue as Power,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 35 (2011), 164-178.
  • “Theories about Consciousness in Spinoza’s Ethics,” Philosophical Review 119, 4 (2010), 531-563.
  • “Change and the Eternal Part of the Mind in Spinoza,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 91 (2010), 369-384.
  • “Spinozistic Perfectionism,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 27, 4 (2010), 317-333.
  • “Ethics and Reason,” in The Routledge Companion to Ethics, John Skorupski, ed. London: Routledge (2010).
  • “The Anatomy of the Passions,” in The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza’s Ethics, Olli Koistinen, ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2009).
  • “Spinoza’s Normative Ethics,” The Canadian Journal of Philosophy v. 37, n. 3 (2007), 371-392.
  • “Hobbes’s Reply to the Fool,” Philosophy Compass 2, 1 (2007), 31-35.
  • “Spinoza’s Summum Bonum,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly v. 86, n. 2 (2005), 242-265.
  • “Why Spinoza Tells People to Try to Preserve Their Being,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, v. 86 (2004), 119-145.
  • “Hobbes on the Origin of Obligation,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy, v. 11, n. 1 (2003), 15-39.
  • “Holbach,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  • “Spinoza’s Psychological Theory,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.