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Baier Chair in Early Modern Philosophy

Contact details

2N2, second floor, north wing, Arts Building, 95 Albany Street
Tel +64 3 479 5083
Email michael.lebuffe@otago.ac.nz
academia.edu

Academic qualifications

2000: PhD UCSD
1991: BA Princeton

Research interests

I grew up in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles. I received my doctorate at the University of California, San Diego, where I worked with Nick Jolley, David Brink, and Richard Arneson. Each has had an enduring influence on me. Before coming to Otago in 2014, I taught at Texas A&M University. I work in the history of philosophy, ethics, philosophy of mind, and political philosophy. I also convene the Philosophy Club.

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.

Publications

Books

Selected articles and chapters

  • "Moral Psychology and Human Motivation in Leviathan," in Hobbes's Leviathan: A Critical Guide, Sharon Lloyd ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (in progress).
  • “Laws and Nature in Spinoza’s Ethics,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 64 (2026), pp. 53-75.
  • "Reason," "Consciousness," "Joy," and "Miracles" in the Spinoza Cambridge Lexicon, Karolina Hübner and Justin Steinberg eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2025).
  • "The Identity of Indiscernibles and Human Nature in Spinoza," Spinoza and the Human Life Form, Ursula Renz, Oliver Toth, Philip Waldner and Sarah Tropper, eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2026), pp. 13-28.
  • "Citizens and States in Spinoza's Political Treatise," Mind 130 (2021), pp. 809-832.
  • "Spinoza and Hobbes," in A Companion to Spinoza, Yitzhak Melamed, ed. London: Blackwell (2021), pp. 81-91.
  • "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
  • "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.

Teaching and supervision

Courses regularly taught

  • PHIL 105 Critical Thinking
  • PHIL 231/331 Early Modern Philosophy A: Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz
  • PHIL 232/332 Early Modern Philosophy B: Locke, Berkeley, and Hume
  • PHIL 401 Advanced History of Philosophy
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