{"id":88848,"date":"2024-10-09T04:00:43","date_gmt":"2024-10-09T08:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/?p=88848"},"modified":"2024-10-11T08:47:38","modified_gmt":"2024-10-11T12:47:38","slug":"simple-question-inspires-philosophy-associate-professor-to-write-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/10_09_2024\/simple-question-inspires-philosophy-associate-professor-to-write-book","title":{"rendered":"Simple Question Inspires Philosophy Associate Professor to Write Book"},"content":{"rendered":"

When considering how to construct the narrative for his book about 17th century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, Dr. Christopher Martin imagined that he was having a conversation with a stranger at a party who knew nothing about philosophy, let alone Spinoza.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was my approach,\u201d said Martin, an associate professor of philosophy in the Philosophy and Religious Studies Program in the College of Arts and Letters. \u201cHow would I explain this to those students who are following along so that they would be able to process it and think about it as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Dr.

Asked what he does when he isn\u2019t teaching, Dr. Christopher Martin, an associate professor of philosophy, wrote \u201cSpinoza\u2019s Argument for Substance Monism: Why There is Only One Thing\u201d to show what philosophy looks like in practice.<\/p><\/div>\n

In fact, something similar that happened to Martin in real life served as the inspiration for the book, when his brother-in-law asked him what he did when he was not teaching.<\/p>\n

\u201cI gave him a very technical and far-too-complicated answer and he said he wanted one he could understand, so I gave him a very basic answer that made me sound like a loon,\u201d Martin said. \u201cSo, I decided to try with a book to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The book, titled \u201cSpinoza\u2019s Argument for Substance Monism: Why There is Only One Thing,\u201d ($89, Lexington Books) started as an attempt to provide an illustration of what professional philosophers do: to show what philosophy looks like in practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo do so, I chose my favorite philosopher \u2013 Baruch Spinoza — and his most popular and controversial argument, substance monism,\u201d Martin said. \u201cI do my best to show someone who is curious about philosophy and may not have much experience with it how philosophical arguments are constructed and discussed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin, who has been teaching philosophy for 16 years, six of those at UToledo, said much of his inspiration in writing his book was his students.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was thinking that upper-level students would learn a lot about the practice of philosophy by reading the book. And since this branch of philosophy is almost entirely just thinking, it\u2019s a great opportunity (if the book is successful) for students in any discipline to sharpen their thinking skills,\u201d he said. \u201cI had a lot of help from my colleagues at UToledo and at other institutions. I called in a lot of favors asking folks to read chapters, hear me out on ideas and arguments \u2014 things like that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe book would not have happened without the help of many other folks.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of those folks, Dr. Peter Feldmeier, the Murray\/Bacik Professor of Catholic Studies, supported Martin all through his writing process.<\/p>\n

\u201cDr. Martin is one of the leading figures in Spinoza scholarship,\u201d Feldmeier said. \u201cHis latest book is both a guide to the essence of Spinoza as well as a philosophical tutoring on how to think.\u201d<\/p>\n

Far from light dinner conversation, \u201cSpinoza\u2019s Argument for Substance Monism: Why There is Only One Thing\u201d is weighty enough to impact a reader\u2019s life \u2014 or at least their outlook \u2014 if they are open to Martin\u2019s pro-substance monism doctrine argument.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpinoza\u2019s substance monism doctrine, as I read and argue for it, is a convincing or at least possibly convincing account of how reality is structured,\u201d Martin said. \u201cAdopting this point of view, even if for just a short while, will dramatically alter how someone thinks about and experience reality. And I think that others may be inspired to learn a little more philosophy too.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Asked what he does when he isn\u2019t teaching, Dr. Christopher Martin wrote \u201cSpinoza\u2019s Argument for Substance Monism: Why There is Only One Thing\u201d to show what philosophy looks like in practice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":914,"featured_media":88849,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,60,1,7],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88848"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/914"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88848"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88852,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88848\/revisions\/88852"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}