Beth Lord

Last updated
Beth Lord
Born1976 (age 46–47)
NationalityCanadian
Alma mater University of Warwick
School Continental philosophy
Institutions
Main interests
 History of philosophy, Baruch Spinoza, Immanuel Kant

Beth Lord (born 1976) is a Canadian philosopher specialising in the history of philosophy, especially the work and influence of Immanuel Kant and Baruch Spinoza, and contemporary Continental philosophy. She is currently a Professor and Head of School in the School of Divinity, History and Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen, where she has worked since 2013.

Contents

Education and career

Lord was raised in Ontario, and initially studied at the University of Toronto. She intended to study drama, but graduated with a degree in Philosophy and Literary Studies. She went on to the University of Warwick, where she read for an MA in Continental Philosophy and then a doctorate. [1] Her doctoral thesis, which was supervised initially by Andrew Benjamin and then by Stephen Houlgate, was entitled Kant's Productive Ontology: Knowledge, Nature and the Meaning of Being. In the thesis, Lord argues that Kant's ontology is a "productive ontology"; i.e., a theory which rests upon an idea of production. [2] Lord completed her doctorate in 2004. [3] In the same year, she started a permanent position in the philosophy department at the University of Dundee. [3] [1]

In 2010, with funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Lord founded the Spinoza Research Network, of which she remains the director. [3] [4] In the same year, she published Spinoza's Ethics: An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide (Edinburgh University Press), a study aid for Spinoza's Ethics (1677). [5] The following year, she published Kant and Spinozism: Transcendental Idealism and Immanence from Jacobi to Deleuze (Palgrave Macmillan), in which she examined the work of Johann Gottfried Herder, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, Salomon Maimon and Gilles Deleuze, all of whom, she argues, drew upon both Kant's transcendental idealism and Spinoza's immanence. For Lord, Spinoza's thought is key to understanding the influence of Kantian ideas. [6] [7] [8] In addition to publishing these books, Lord co-edited The Continuum Companion to Continental Philosophy (Continuum, 2010, later republished as The Bloomsbury Companion to Continental Philosophy) with John Ó Maoilearca [9] and was the sole editor of Spinoza Beyond Philosophy (Edinburgh University Press, 2012). [10]

Lord left Dundee in 2012, starting at the University of Aberdeen in January 2013, [3] where she led the AHRC-funded Equalities of Wellbeing project. [11] [3] As of 2019, she is a professor in the School of Divinity, History and Philosophy at Aberdeen, [3] and is serving as the secretary of the British Society for the History of Philosophy [12] and the chair of the Society for European Philosophy. [13]

In the spring of 2023, as the Head of School of Divinity, History, Philosophy, and Art History at the University of Aberdeen, Lord violated UK GDPR legislation in an attempt to track and mitigate trade union activities within the school. [14] [15]

Select bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gilles Deleuze</span> French philosopher (1925–1995)

Gilles Louis René Deleuze was a French philosopher who, from the early 1950s until his death in 1995, wrote on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus (1972) and A Thousand Plateaus (1980), both co-written with psychoanalyst Félix Guattari. His metaphysical treatise Difference and Repetition (1968) is considered by many scholars to be his magnum opus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">German idealism</span> Philosophical movement

German idealism was a philosophical movement that emerged in Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It developed out of the work of Immanuel Kant in the 1780s and 1790s, and was closely linked both with Romanticism and the revolutionary politics of the Enlightenment. The best-known thinkers in the movement, besides Kant, were Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and the proponents of Jena Romanticism. August Ludwig Hülsen, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, Gottlob Ernst Schulze, Karl Leonhard Reinhold, Salomon Maimon and Friedrich Schleiermacher also made major contributions.

The doctrine or theory of immanence holds that the divine encompasses or is manifested in the material world. It is held by some philosophical and metaphysical theories of divine presence. Immanence is usually applied in monotheistic, pantheistic, pandeistic, or panentheistic faiths to suggest that the spiritual world permeates the mundane. It is often contrasted with theories of transcendence, in which the divine is seen to be outside the material world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Continental philosophy</span> Philosophical traditions from mainland Europe

Continental philosophy is a term used to describe some philosophers and philosophical traditions that do not fall under the umbrella of analytic philosophy. However, there is no academic consensus on the definition of continental philosophy. Prior to the twentieth century, the term "continental" was used broadly to refer to philosophy from continental Europe. A different use of the term originated among English-speaking philosophers in the second half of the 20th century, who used it to refer to a range of thinkers and traditions outside the analytic movement. Continental philosophy includes German idealism, phenomenology, existentialism, hermeneutics, structuralism, post-structuralism, deconstruction, French feminism, psychoanalytic theory, and the critical theory of the Frankfurt School as well as branches of Freudian, Hegelian and Western Marxist views.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Modern philosophy</span> Philosophy in recent times

Modern philosophy is philosophy developed in the modern era and associated with modernity. It is not a specific doctrine or school, although there are certain assumptions common to much of it, which helps to distinguish it from earlier philosophy.

Non-philosophy is a concept developed by French Continental philosopher François Laruelle.

In philosophy, transcendence is the basic ground concept from the word's literal meaning, of climbing or going beyond, albeit with varying connotations in its different historical and cultural stages. It includes philosophies, systems, and approaches that describe the fundamental structures of being, not as an ontology, but as the framework of emergence and validation of knowledge of being. These definitions are generally grounded in reason and empirical observation, and seek to provide a framework for understanding the world that is not reliant on religious beliefs or supernatural forces. "Transcendental" is a word derived from the scholastic, designating the extra-categorical attributes of beings.

Plane of immanence is a founding concept in the metaphysics or ontology of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze.

<i>Spinoza: Practical Philosophy</i> 1970 book by Gilles Deleuze

Spinoza: Practical Philosophy is a book by the philosopher Gilles Deleuze, in which the author examines Baruch Spinoza's philosophy, discussing Ethics (1677) and other works such as the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670), providing a lengthy chapter defining Spinoza's main concepts in dictionary form. Deleuze relates Spinoza's ethical philosophy to the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche and Willem van Blijenbergh, a grain broker who corresponded with Spinoza in the first half of 1665 and questioned the ethics of his concept of evil. The work has received praise from commentators.

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that investigates principles of reality transcending those of any particular science. Cosmology and ontology are traditional branches of metaphysics. It is concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world. Someone who studies metaphysics can be called either a "metaphysician" or a "metaphysicist".

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to metaphysics:

Raymond Brassier is a British philosopher. He is member of the philosophy faculty at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, known for his work in philosophical realism. He was formerly Research Fellow at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy at Middlesex University, London, England.

Speculative realism is a movement in contemporary Continental-inspired philosophy that defines itself loosely in its stance of metaphysical realism against its interpretation of the dominant forms of post-Kantian philosophy.

Iain Hamilton Grant is a British philosopher. He is a senior lecturer at the University of the West of England in Bristol, United Kingdom. His research interests include ontology, European philosophy, German Idealism, and both contemporary and historical philosophy of nature. He is often associated with the recent philosophical current known as Speculative Realism.

<i>Philosophical Inquiries into the Essence of Human Freedom</i> 1809 work by Friedrich Schelling

Philosophical Inquiries into the Essence of Human Freedom is an 1809 work by Friedrich Schelling. It was the last book he finished in his lifetime, running to some 90 pages of a single long essay. It is commonly referred to as his "Freiheitsschrift" or "freedom essay".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul W. Franks</span>

Paul Walter Franks is the Robert F. and Patricia Ross Weis Professor of Philosophy and Judaic Studies at Yale University. He graduated with his PhD from Harvard University in 1993. Franks' dissertation, entitled "Kant and Hegel on the Esotericism of Philosophy", was supervised by Stanley Cavell and won the Emily and Charles Carrier Prize for a Dissertation in Moral Philosophy at Harvard University. He completed his B.A and M.A, in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Balliol College, Oxford. Prior to this, Franks received his general education at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle, and studied classical rabbinic texts at Gateshead Talmudical College.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leonard Lawlor</span> American philosopher

Leonard "Len" Lawlor is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Philosophy at Pennsylvania State University. He specializes in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Continental philosophy.

The following is a list of the major events in the history of German idealism, along with related historical events.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel W. Smith (philosopher)</span> American philosopher

Daniel W. Smith is an American philosopher, academic, researcher, and translator. He is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at Purdue University, where his work is focused on 19th and 20th century continental philosophy.

References

  1. 1 2 Protevi, John (11 April 2012). "New APPS Interview: Beth Lord". New APPS. Accessed 21 December 2016.
  2. ↑ Lord, Beth (2003) Kant's Productive Ontology: Knowledge, Nature and the Meaning of Being. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Professor Beth Lord". University of Aberdeen. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  4. ↑ "About the Spinoza Research Network". Spinoza Research Network. Accessed 21 December 2016.
  5. ↑ Lord, Beth (2011). Spinoza's Ethics: An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
  6. ↑ Davies, Paul (2012). "Kant and Spinozism: Transcendental Idealism and Immanence from Jacobi to Deleuze". Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 4 (13). Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg
  7. ↑ Somers-Hall, Henry (2014). "Kant and Spinozism". Kant Studies Online 2014: 160-9. Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg
  8. ↑ Boehm, Omri (2012). "Kant and Spinozism: Trancendental Idealism and Immanence from Jacobi to Deleuze". British Journal for the History of Philosophy 20 (5): 1041-5. doi : 10.1080/09608788.2012.697866.
  9. ↑ Mitscherling, Jeff (2013). "The Continuum Companion to Continental Philosophy". The European Legacy 19 (1): 125-6. doi : 10.1080/10848770.2013.859791.
  10. ↑ Gatens, Moira (2013). "[ndpr.nd.edu/news/38755-spinoza-beyond-philosophy/ Spinoza Beyond Philosophy]. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 4 (2). Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg
  11. ↑ "People". Equalities of Wellbeing. Accessed 21 December 2016.
  12. ↑ "The BSHP Management Committee". British Society for the History of Philosophy. Accessed 21 December 2016.
  13. ↑ "About". Society for European Philosophy. Accessed 21 December 2016.
  14. ↑ Horne, Marc (13 July 2023). "Aberdeen University broke data rules with colour-coded strikers chart". The Times.
  15. ↑ Pizzuto-Pomaco, Josh (11 July 2023). "University 'MAB-tracker' found to be in violation of GDPR rules". The Gaudie.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.