School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences

Dr Pauline Phemister

Photograph of Dr Pauline Phemister
Position
Reader
Email
P.Phemister@ed.ac.uk
Phone
0131 651 3747
Location
6.04 (DSB)
Research Interests
Early modern philosophy, especially Rationalists and Locke/Philosophy of Nature.
Biography

Pauline Phemister M.A. Ph.D. (Edinburgh) returned to the department in 2005, prior to which she held a British Academy Post-doctoral Fellowship at the University of Oxford and taught at the Universities of Nebraska-Lincoln and Liverpool. She is author of Leibniz and the Natural World and The Rationalists: Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz and has recently completed an abridged edition of John Locke's Essay concerning Human Understanding for Oxford World's Classics. She is currently engaged on book-length projects on seventeenth century philosophy and on the philosophy of nature and she runs the interdisciplinary 'Embodied Values' Research Project (http://www.ppls.ed.ac.uk/nature).

Research Interests

Early modern philosophy, especially Rationalists and Locke, Philosophy of Nature. Pauline Phemister is a member of the Early Modern Philosophy @ Edinburgh research cluster.

Teaching

History of Modern Philosophy/Environmental Philosophy.

Pauline Phemister is willing to supervise postgraduate dissertations on topics relating to early modern philosophy.

Publications

Books

  • Leibniz and the Natural World: activity, passivity and corporeal substances in Leibniz’s philosophy (Springer, 2005).
  • The Rationalists: Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz (Polity, 2006).
  • Leibniz and the English-speaking World. Edited by P. Phemister and S. Brown. (Springer, 2007).
  • John Locke, Essay concerning Human Understanding, edited and abridged. Oxford World Classics (Oxford University Press, 2008).
  • Human-Environment Relations: Transformative Values in Theory and Practice. Edited by E. Brady and P. Phemister (Springer, 2012).
  • Under contract: Seventeenth Century Philosophy (Continuum)
  • Under contract: Philosophies of Nature: Environmental Philosophy After Leibniz (Acumen)

Journal issues

  • Rethinking Leibniz, ed. P. Phemister, The Monist, 81 (4) (October 1998)
  • Metaphysics of Consciousness, ed. (with Pierfrancesco Basile and Julian Kiverstein), Philosophy, Supplement vol 67,  (2010) pp. 284.

Articles and book chapters

  • 'Leibnizian Pluralism and Bradleian Monism: A Question of Relations' Studia Leibnitiana (forthcoming)
  • 'Relational Space and Places of Value', Logical Analysis and History of Philosophy, 14 (2011), 89-106. Reprinted in E. Brady and P. Phemister, eds. Human-Environment Relations: Transformative Values in Theory and Practice (Springer, 2012).
  • 'Descartes and Leibniz', in Continuum Companion to Leibniz, edited by Brandon Look (London: Continuum, 2011), 14-29.
  • 'Ideas', in Oxford Handbook for Early Modern Philosophy, edited by Catherine Wilson and Desmond Clarke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 142-159.
  • 'Monads and Machines' in Corporeal Substances and Machines of Nature in Leibniz, edited by Justin Smith and Ohad Nachtomy (Dordrecht: Springer, 2011), 39-60.
  • 'Are mind-body relations natural and intelligible? Some early modern perspectives' in Causation and Modern Philosophy, edited by Keith Allen and Tom Stoneham (London: Routledge, 2011), 87-103.
  • 'Early Critics: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz', in S-J Savonius –Wroth, J. Walmsley, and P. Schuurman eds., Continuum Companion to Locke (Continuum, 2010),  97-100.
  • 'God's Freedom to Create', Revue Roumaine de Philosophie, 51 (2007), 3-19.
  • 'Leibniz's Philosophy and Personal Religion', in L. McHenry & P. Basile, eds., Consciousness, Reality and Value: Philosophical Essays in Honour of T L S Sprigge (Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag, 2007), 211-227.
  • (with Justin Smith), 'Leibniz and the Cambridge Platonists and the Debate over Plastic Natures'. In Phemister & Brown, eds., Leibniz and the English-Speaking World (Springer, 2007), 95-110.
  • 'Progress and perfection of world and individual in Leibniz's philosophy, 1694-1697'. In H. Breger, J. Herbst and S. Erdner, eds. Einheit in der Veilheit, 2 Vols. VIII Internationaler Leibniz Kongress proceedings (G. W, Leibniz Gesellschaft, Hannover, 2006), vol. 2, pp. 805-812.
  • 'Le très petit et l'imperceptible dans la théorie morale de Leibniz d'après les Nouveaux Essais' morals'. In Francois Duchesneau & Jérémie Griard, eds., Leibniz selon les Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement (Montreal: Bellarmin – Editions Fides & Paris: J. Vrin – Librarie Philosophie, 2006), pp. 229-248. (French translation and revision of final chapter of Leibniz and the Natural World).
  • 'All the time and everywhere, everything's the same as here': the Principle of Uniformity in the Correspondence between Leibniz and Lady Masham'. In P. Lodge, ed. Leibniz and his Correspondents (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 103-213.
  • Profile of Leibniz's life and thought. In The Literary Encyclopedia, ed. Robert Clark (http://www.litencyc.com) (2004).
  • 'Exploring Leibniz's Kingdoms: a philosophical analysis of Nature and Grace', Ecotheology, 7 (2) (2003), 126-145.
  • 'Corporeal Substances and the "Discourse on Metaphysics"', Studia Leibnitiana, XXXIII/1 (2001), 66-83.
  • 'Leibniz and Ecology', History of Philosophy Quarterly, 18 (3) (July 2001), 236-258.
  • 'Unity and Multiplicity: Leibniz's Critiques of res cogitans and res extensa'. In Hans Poser, ed., Nihil Sine Ratione: Mensch, Natur und Technik im Wirken von G. W. Leibniz Schirmherrschaft, VII Internationaler Leibniz Kongress Proceedings, 3 vols. (2001), vol. 2, pp. 998-1005.
  • 'Leibniz and Elements of Compound Bodies', British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 7(1) (March 1999), 57-78.
  • Peter Pett (1630-99) and William Wotton (1667 - 1726/7), Dictionary of Eighteenth Century British Philosophers, Bristol: Thoemmes Press, April 1999), 651-2 and 915-7.
  • 'On the Possibility of Real Species in Locke: a reply to Goodin's response', Locke Newsletter, 28 (1997), 77-86.
  • 'Can Perceptions and Motions be Harmonised?' in R. S. Woolhouse, ed., Leibniz's 'New System', 1695 (Leo S. Olschki, Florence, 1996), pp. 141-168.
  • Extended review of C. Wilson, Leibniz's Metaphysics (Manchester University Press, 1989), British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 4(1), (February 1996), 180-188.
  • 'Locke and Sergeant on Scientific Method' in Tom Sorell, ed., The Rise of Modern Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 1993), 231-249.
  • 'Leibniz, Rationality and Freedom of Will', Studia Leibnitiana, 23 (1991), 25-38.
  • 'Real Essences in Particular', Locke Newsletter, 1990, 27-55.

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