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Department of Philosophy

Emanuele Costa

Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies

I specialize in Early Modern Philosophy and Metaphysics, but I also find Philosophy of Religion, Political Philosophy, and Renaissance Philosophy to be terribly interesting. I am particularly interested in the philosopher Benedict/Baruch/Bento de Spinoza, his historical antecedents, and his bold metaphysical views.

I love investigating how the concepts and ideas developed in a different era shape the ways we understand our current world. Furthermore, I am committed to expanding the canon of Early Modern Philosophy to be more inclusive of neglected figures.

My first monograph, The Structure of Spinoza’s World (Oxford University Press, 2025), defends a structuralist reading of Spinoza’s metaphysics. I plan to analyze further implications of this view in forthcoming projects.

You can learn more about my research on the following platforms:

Academia profile: https://vanderbilt.academia.edu/EmanueleCosta

PhilPeople profile: philpeople.org/profiles/emanuele-costa

 


Representative Publications

  • “Education, Equality, and Proto-Feminism in Maria Gaetana Agnesi”, in Hypatia (2024).
  • “Spinoza and the Hybrid Distinction of Attributes”, in History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis (2023).
  • “A Spinozist Defense of Trope Theory”, in Southern Journal of Philosophy (2023).
  • “Triadic Metaphysics: Spinoza’s Expression as Structural Ontology”, in Journal of Early Modern Studies (2023).
  • “David of Dinant and Negative Panentheism”, in History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis (2022).
  • “Spinoza’s Metaphysics of Freedom and Its Essential Paradox”, in Rivista di Filosofia Neo-Scolastica (2022).
  • "Spinoza and Scholastic Philosophy", in Y. Melamed (ed.), Blackwell Companion to Spinoza (2021).
  • "Discrimination, Othering, and the Political Instrumentalizing of Pandemic Disease", with M. Baradel (2020).
  • “Whole-Parts Relations in Early Modern Philosophy", in Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences (2021).
  • “Leibniz on Relations: From (Soft) Reductionism to the Expression of the Universe” (2016).
  • “A Systemic Spinoza: a Gateway to a Systemic Interpretation of Spinoza’s Thought” (2014).