Eugene Marshall
Assistant professor of philosophy, Wellesley College
Welcome!
I am an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy at Wellesley College.
View my Curriculum Vitae.
You may email me at emarsha2 [at] wellesley [dot] edu.
Research:
I study the history of modern philosophy, especially the rationalists. My specialty is Spinoza. I tend to focus on issues
in moral psychology.
My recent work addressed Spinoza's views on adequate knowledge, innate ideas, the
affects, and akrasia.
In the future, I plan to look at how the thinkers of this period
re-imagined the mind and being human in the face of the new mechanistic
science.
I am currently working on a manuscript, titled, The Spiritual Automaton: Spinoza's Science of the Mind.
In addition to Spinoza, I also intend to examine Margaret Cavendish's philosophy.
Teaching:
In the Spring of 2012, I'm teaching Philosophy of Religion and History of Modern Philosophy.
I also often teach Introduction to Metaphysics and Epistemology as well as seminars on Spinoza and other topics in early modern philosophy.
I took family leave for the Fall of 2011 to help care for my newborn son, Max.
Before coming to Wellesley, I was a visitor in the philosophy department at Dartmouth College, where I taught the following courses: Ancient Philosophy, Continental
Rationalism, British Empiricism, Hume and Kant, 19th Century German philosophy, and
two special topics seminars, one on akrasia and the other on Spinoza. My courses taught
at Dartmouth also include Intro to Moral Theory, Intro to Philosophy, and Critical
Thinking.
Professional Activities:
Fairly recently I organized a mini-conference on Spinoza's psychology. This
conference, organized under the auspices of the Pacific Division of the APA, was held
concurrently with its 2008 division meeting in Pasadena.
Please visit the website for the conference, where the papers and comments can be read.
I am a member of the APA and the North American Spinoza Society. I also am a
reviewer for several journals.
Personal:
My wife Amy is working on a Ph.D. in
History from Brown University. Her
specialty is the history of modern Japan. She won a
Fulbright scholarship (as well
as a Fulbright-Hays), which allowed us to live in Yokohama for much of 2010, where
she conducted
research for her dissertation.
We have two sons, Eli and Maxwell.
Besides being a philosopher, I'm a foodie, a
runner, and a science
fiction fan.
