Donald Rutherford

I've been a member of the UCSD Philosophy Department since 1999. Prior to that I taught for a decade at Emory University, and before that briefly at Reed College. My main research interests are in the history of modern philosophy. Much of my work has dealt with the philosophy of Leibniz, leading to a book Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature and to a critical edition and translation (with Brandon Look) of the Leibniz-Des Bosses correspondence. My current research focuses on the fate of eudaimonistic ethical theory in the seventeenth century. Here I am particularly interested in the ways in which Stoic and Epicurean themes are taken up and transformed by such philosophers as Gassendi, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. I have also worked, and continue to work, on these philosophers' treatments of a variety of metaphysical questions. Other areas of interest are Kant's critical philosophy and its development, and Nietzsche.

Selected Publications

Books

• Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature (Cambridge University Press, 1995, pb. 1998)
• Leibniz: Nature and Freedom (ed. with J. A. Cover, Oxford University Press, 2005)
• The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 2006)
• The Leibniz-Des Bosses Correspondence (ed. and tr. with Brandon Look, Yale University Press, 2007)

Articles

• "Leibniz on Compossibility" (with James Messina), Philosophy Compass, 4/6 (2009),962-977
• "Leibniz as Idealist," Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy 4 (2008), 141-190
• "Spinoza and the Dictates of Reason," Inquiry 51/5 (2008), 485-511
• "Unities, Reality and Simple Substance: A Reply to Samuel Levey," The Leibniz Review, 18 (2008), 101-118
• "Leibniz on Infinitesimals and the Reality of Force," in Infinitesimal Differences: Controversies between Leibniz and his Contemporaries, ed. U. Goldenbaum and D. Jesseph (De Gruyter, 2008), 255-280
• "Metaphor and the Language of Philosophy," in Leibniz et les Puissances du Langage, ed. F. Nef and D. Berlioz (Vrin, 2005)
• "Leibniz on Spontaneity," in Leibniz: Nature and Freedom, ed. Rutherford and Cover (Oxford, 2005)
• "Idealism Declined: Leibniz and Christian Wolff," in Leibniz and His Correspondents, ed. P. Lodge (Cambridge, 2004)
• "On the Happy Life: Descartes vis-à-vis Seneca," in Stoicism: Traditions and Transformations, ed. S. Strange and J. Zupko (Cambridge, 2004)
• "In Pursuit of Happiness: Hobbes's New Science of Ethics," Philosophical Topics 31 (2003), 360-93
• "Patience sans Espérance: Leibniz's Critique of Stoicism," in Hellenistic and Early Modern Philosophy, ed. B. Inwood and J. Miller (Cambridge, 2003).
• "Descartes' Ethics," The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2003 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta.
• "The Consolations of Theodicy: Leibniz and the Stoics," in The Problem of Evil in Early Modern Philosophy, ed. E. Kremer and M. Latzer (Toronto, 2001)
• "Malebranche's Theodicy," in The Cambridge Companion to Malebranche, ed. S. Nadler (Cambridge, 2000).
• "G.W. Leibniz," in The Blackwell Guide to the Modern Philosophers, ed. S. Emmanuel (Blackwell, 2000)
• "Salvation as a State of Mind: The Place of Acquiescentia in Spinoza's Ethics," British Journal of the History of Philosophy 7 (1999), 447-73
• "Language and Philosophy in Leibniz," in The Cambridge Companion to Leibniz, ed. N. Jolley (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 224-269
• "Metaphysics: The Late Period," in The Cambridge Companion to Leibniz, ed. N. Jolley (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 124-175
• "Leibniz and the Problem of Monadic Aggregation," Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 76 (1994), 65-90
• "Natures, Laws and Miracles: The Roots of Leibniz's Critique of Occasionalism," in Causation in Early Modern Philosophy, ed. S. Nadler (Penn State Press, 1993), 135-158
• "Leibniz's 'Analysis of Multitude and Phenomena into Unities and Reality'," Journal of the History of Philosophy 28/4 (1990), 525-52
• "Phenomenalism and the Reality of Body in Leibniz's Later Philosophy," Studia Leibnitiana 22 (1990), 11-28

For a complete list of publications, see my c.v.

Forthcoming and Draft Papers

• "Spinoza's Conception of Law: Metaphysics and Ethics" (forthcoming in Y. Melamed and M. Rosenthal, Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise: A Critical Guide (CUP))
• "Freedom as a Philosophical Ideal: Nietzsche and His Antecedents" (draft)

Conferences

• Sixth Southwest Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy, Cal Poly Pomona, December 3-4, 2011
• Fifth Annual Conference of the Leibniz Society of North American, University of California, San Diego, June 15-17, 2011
(Program pdf)
• Leibniz's Theodicy: Context and Content, University of Notre Dame, September 16-18, 2010
• Lectures et interprétations des Essais de Théodicée de G. W. Leibniz, Université de Paris, Sorbonne, June 24-26, 2010

Teaching

Below are some of the undergraduate courses I have taught at UCSD. Links lead to class webpages, where available.

• Philosophy 32: The Origins of Modern Philosophy
• Humanities 3: Renaissance, Reformation, and Early Modern Europe (the third course of the Revelle College humanities sequence)
• Philosophy 87: Perfection and the Human Genome (Freshman Seminar)
• Philosophy 102: Hellenistic Philosophy
• Philosophy 104: The Rationalists
• Philosophy 105: The Empiricists
• Philosophy 108: Nietzsche
• Philosophy 130: Metaphysics

Because I am currently serving as department chair, I have a reduced teaching load. In Fall quarter 2011, I am teaching Revelle Humanities 3.

More information about my graduate teaching can be found here.

Links

• The UCSD History of Philosophy Roundtable
• G.W. Leibniz: Texts and Translations (contains materials relating to the study of Leibniz's philosophy, including translations of primary texts and a partial translation of Louis Couturat's La Logique de Leibniz)
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• The Early Modern Philosophy Calendar
• Eighteenth Century Collections Online (UCSD access only)
• Clinton Tolley's History of Philosophy Texts Online
• Third Biennial Margaret Dauler Wilson Conference, UCSD, June 21-23, 2006

Donald Rutherford / drutherford@ucsd.edu
University of California, San Diego
Last update: July 20, 2011