Department News and Faculty Books Archive


Sextus Empiricus: Against Those in the Disciplines

Sextus Empiricus: Against Those in the Disciplines (Pros Mathematikous, also known by the abbreviated title M 1-6) deals with six specialized fields of study: grammar, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astrology, and music. In sceptical fashion, it questions the credentials of those who claim to have expert knowledge in these fields. It is the least well known of […]


A book review in The Nation

The Nation has published a review by Associate Professor Chris Lebron of Charles Mills’ new book Black Rights/White Wrongs: A Critique of Racial Liberalism.


Chris Lebron wins Hiett Prize

Associate Professor Christopher Lebron is the 2018 winner of the Hiett Prize in the Humanities, awarded each year to an early-career scholar in the humanities whose work promises to have an especially significant impact on contemporary culture. More details can be found on The Hub.


Graduate Student Alex Englert receives Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship

Alex Englert has received a Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship for 2018. The Newcombe Fellowships are awarded by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, and are the nation’s most prestigious award for Ph.D. candidates in the humanities and social sciences addressing questions of ethical and religious values. His dissertation is titled Evolving the Highest […]


Faculty publication

Justin Bledin’s paper “Fatalism and the Logic of Unconditionals” has been accepted for publication in Nous.


$75 Million Gift to the Department

William H. “Bill” Miller, a renowned investor and a former graduate student of the department, has committed a record $75 million gift to the Johns Hopkins Philosophy Department. This will allow us to grow the faculty from its current 13 to 22 within 10 years, as well as expanding our graduate program and greatly broadening […]


The Autobiography of Solomon Maimon

The first complete and annotated English translation of Maimon’s influential and delightfully entertaining memoir. Solomon Maimon’s autobiography has delighted readers for more than two hundred years, from Goethe, Schiller, and George Eliot to Walter Benjamin and Hannah Arendt. The American poet and critic Adam Kirsch has named it one of the most crucial Jewish books […]


Spinoza’s Ethics: A Critical Guide

Spinoza’s Ethics, published in 1677, is considered his greatest work and one of history’s most influential philosophical treatises. This volume brings established scholars together with new voices to engage with the complex system of philosophy proposed by Spinoza in his masterpiece. Topics including identity, thought, free will, metaphysics, and reason are all addressed, as individual […]