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Kenneth Novis

@kennethnovis.bsky.social
1.5K followers 562 following 812 posts

Philosophy DPhil (PhD) @ox.ac.uk | Early modern moral philosophy (especially Spinoza and Bayle) and the history of atheism | Post-Kantian Philosophy and Critical Theory | 27 | he/him linktr.ee/saditious

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Kenneth Novis @kennethnovis.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Well, I feel silly! This whole time I thought it was weird that I wasn't seeing more philosophers discussing which things can or can't be appropriately called 'God.' Turns out it's a huge, ongoing debate in the philosophy of religion place.asburyseminary.edu/faithandphil...
place.asburyseminary.edu
The Reference of "God" Revisited
By Hugh Burling, Published on 07/01/19
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Kenneth Novis @kennethnovis.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Reminded again just how different the way they do history of philosophy is in continental Europe
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The Philosopher @philosopher1923.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
TODAY! Mon Sep 28 ~ 2pm ET / 7pm UK "On Living with Men" Manon Garcia & Lori Morso start from the Pelicot trial to explore the political and philosophical questions raised by men's violence against women. How does patriarchy shape love? #Philosophy thephilosopher1923.substack.com/p/this-week-...
thephilosopher1923.substack.com
This Week: “Living with Men” Event, “Harnessing the State” and “Philosopher & the News: Are We Living in End Times” videos, and a Volunteer Opportunity
How does the Pelicot trial affect our most intimate relationships?
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Bloomsbury Philosophy @bloomsburyphilo.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Now in paperback! This 2nd edition Bloomsbury Handbook brings together the latest international scholarship to explore the biographical details of Spinoza's life, as well as essential scholarship on his influences and early critics. Available now: bit.ly/4bWbM9q
Book cover of 'The Bloomsbury Handbook of Spinoza, Second Edition' edited by Wiep van Bunge, Henri Krop, Piet Steenbakkers, and Jeroen van de Ven.
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Kenneth Novis @kennethnovis.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I've been getting some questions about what Spinoza would think about AI ('make your research relevant'), but I'm a little stumped by it because one of the few things we actually know about him personally is that he resented automation
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Kenneth Novis @kennethnovis.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I've got my slides and script all ready for the Rotterdam conference this week www.ozsw.nl/activity/rec...
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The Philosopher @philosopher1923.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
#Philosophy #SexualAssault #MaritalRape #Patriarchy #Marriage #Love #Relationships @manongarcia.bsky.social @lorimarso.bsky.social Have a look at Manon Garcia's book, "Living with Men: Reflections on the Pelicot Trial," and we hope to see you on Monday! www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?b...
politybooks.com
Living With Men: Reflections on the Pelicot Trial
Living With Men: Reflections on the Pelicot Trial, Manon Garcia is a rising star in feminist and public philosophy with a strong international following. Her previous books have been translated into n...
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Manon Garcia @manongarcia.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I think (hope?) this will be a super interesting discussion. Lori Marso is an amazing feminist political theorist. Join us, it's free (although donations are welcome!)
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Kenneth Novis @kennethnovis.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Could Spinoza have read Montaigne? I've wondered where Spinoza gets his list of the three 'primitive passions' from, since they're not exactly present in Hobbes (who has two) or Descartes (who has six) . But the requisite three are there in Montaigne: fear, hope, and desire.
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Kenneth Novis @kennethnovis.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Over the course of the summer, I've developed a real interest in Montaigne and Malebranche - they're both great fun to read, there's something very refreshing to their approaches! And all that, just in time to realise I don't actually need them for my dissertation...
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Nate Holdren @nhold.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I wrote a review of Lorenzo Feltrin's very good book. I'd appreciate if you'd read the review and I hope it makes you want to read the book. prometheus-mag.com/2026/09/17/a...
prometheus-mag.com
A Review of "Workers and the World" - Prometheus Magazine
Nate Holdren reviews Lorenzo Feltrin's "Workers and the World: Fighting Ecological Crisis from Within", praising it for countering climate despair.
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Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment @oxunienl.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
New in July | 'The publication of Bayle and the origins of Hume's philosophy' edited by Jacopo Agnesina, Antony McKenna, and Gianluca Mori. Find out more, and purchase directly for 20% off RRP: bit.ly/OSEJuly26 #c18 #academicsky📖 @voltaire.ox.ac.uk
Promotional banner for 'The publication of Bayle and the origins of Hume's philosophy' edited by by Jacopo Agnesina, Antony McKenna, and Gianluca Mori. The image features a grayscale portrait of philosopher David Hume against a faded background of large text and an old book page. A blue horizontal banner across the center reads the promotional text: “Exploration of the intellectual, cultural, commercial intersections between Scotland and the Netherlands during the Enlightenment.” On the right,  the cover of the book is displayed. Along the bottom are the logos of Liverpool University Press, the Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series, and the Voltaire Foundation.
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Kenneth Novis @kennethnovis.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
That this is an option on Grammarly is sheer evil
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Voltaire Foundation @voltaire.ox.ac.uk · 07/07/2026
Call for Papers! Especially welcome are proposals (in French) from doctoral students and Early Career Researchers working on Voltaire or Diderot. voltaire.ox.ac.uk/news-item/ca...
voltaire.ox.ac.uk
Call for Papers: Journées internationales jeunes chercheuses et chercheurs Diderot-Voltaire 2027
Doctoral students and Early Career Researchers working on Voltaire or Diderot are warmly encouraged to submit proposals in French (by 30 September 2026) for the next Journées internationales jeunes…
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Kenneth Novis @kennethnovis.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
I’d love to teach a class just on The Rationalists sometime: 2 weeks each on Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Malebranche, and Du Châtelet
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Kenneth Novis @kennethnovis.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I've been considering how to describe this magazine that Pierre Bayle created in 1684, the Nouvelles de la république des lettres. He talks about books that interest him, and attacks anything he disagrees with, he publishes replies and always gives himself the last word. In other words, it's a blog.
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Nick Clanchy @nickclanchy.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Pleased this paper has now finally been published: journals.publishing.umich.edu/ergo/article...
journals.publishing.umich.edu
Infrapolitical Strategies for Preventing Hermeneutical Injustices Amidst the Global Trans Panic
Previously proposed strategies for preventing hermeneutical injustices mostly take for granted the interests people have in various things about themselves being intelligible, and aim only to enable t...
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DescartesLab @descarteslab.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
📢the poster for the 3rd series of #DescartesLab seminar is available - with a lot on #music,🎶 #mind,🧠 cartesianism, and a fascinating book on #Mersenne! Events are online - to attend, contact us or follow the link in the poster⤵️ Join us! #Descartes #Cartesianism #histphilo #histsci #17thcentury
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Scott B Ritner @podsekalnikov.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
If you're in Providence, RI or its environs this coming week, I'll be talking about my forthcoming book at Providence College on Thursday afternoon and Brown on Friday morning!
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Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal @emwjournal.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
We hope that lots of you will consider submitting a piece for our upcoming forum on early modern women and generations #EarlyModern
The editors of Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal invite submissions for the Fall 2027/Volume 22.1 Forum on the topic of Early Modern Women and Generations.
In keeping with the Journal’s tradition since its third issue (2008), this Forum will comprise short contributions on a single topic by scholars from a variety of disciplines. For Volume 22.1, we invite contributions on **women and generations in the early modern world**. Papers might include examinations of intergenerational relationships among and between women, how gender shapes the expression of generational knowledge and status, how women preserve and protect the generations ahead of and behind them, how representations of generations are gendered, etc. We particularly encourage submissions that appeal to readers across disciplinary and national boundaries. Articles may cover literature, history, art history, history of science, geography, music, politics, religion, theater, cultural studies, and any region of the early modern world. 
At least part of our selection process will be focused on assuring geographical, chronological, and disciplinary diversity across the essays ultimately published in this Forum.
Submissions are due October 1, 2026 and should be 3,500 words including footnotes; essays should follow the EMW Style Guide (www.journals.uchicago.edu/pb-assets/docs/journals/EMW-style-guide-CMOS18-1735857164913.pdf). Contributions will be peer-reviewed. 
If you have any questions about whether your proposed forum essay fits the scope of the journal, please contact us at emw@press.uchicago.edu.
Please submit contributions at https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/journals/emw/about.
See Submissions and Instructions for Authors. For article type, select Forum
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Kenneth Novis @kennethnovis.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
To state the obvious: eking out a tolerably comfortable existence in an age of crumbling empires is horrifyingly difficult
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Kenneth Novis @kennethnovis.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
There used to be a statue of the great early modern philosopher Pierre Bayle in the French city of Pamiers, but it was destroyed in 1942. All that we have left of it are a few grainy photographs:
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Kenneth Novis @kennethnovis.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
You heard it here first: even Pierre Bayle thought that Oxford makes you evil
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Avi Lifschitz @diderotesque.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
'Enlightenment Decentred': moving on from the centre-periphery paradigm and national Enlightenments to focus on connections and multi-directional transfer. Join us in Oxford, 30 Sep - 2 Oct: intellectualhistory.web.ox.ac.uk/event/enligh...
intellectualhistory.web.ox.ac.uk
Enlightenment Decentred: Networks, Media, Practices
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Kenneth Novis @kennethnovis.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
In the midst of continuing discussion about Spinoza's religion, this comment by Feuerbach is quite interesting. Perhaps when people claim that Spinoza's substance cannot be a God, it is because it cannot do what they only desire a God to be able to do.
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dr. caitlin m. green @caitlinmoriah.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
the sliding reactionary time window strikes again: everything i don’t like was invented ten years ago, and everyone will realize i was right five years from now
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Stop Funding Hate @stopfundinghate.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
A new study has found that the British public greatly overestimate the number of sex crimes committed by foreign nationals: www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home... Wonder where people might be getting such misconceptions… #ukmedia #migrants #gbnews #misleading #mediahate
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Tom Vandeputte @tomvandeputte.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Exactly how little Adorno is read today seems be accurately measured by the fact that none of the Nolan hot takes even bothers to cite the extensive interpretation of Odysseus in the Dialectic of Enlightenment
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Bloomsbury Philosophy @bloomsburyphilo.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Introducing 'A Genealogy of Italian Thought' 💭 Dario Gentili analyses the genesis of Italian thought through the history of the political and theoretical conflicts in Italy from the 1960s to the present. Learn more: bit.ly/4fwHGu8
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Scott B Ritner @podsekalnikov.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
My book is now available for preorder in Bookshop, for a VERY reasonable price of $34.50 for a paperback! Revolutionary Pessimism a book by Scott Ritner - Bookshop.org US share.google/lg3qiqx2CK2v...
bookshop.org
Bookshop.org: Buy books online. Support local bookstores.
A better way to buy books online. Every purchase financially supports local independent bookstores.
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Kenneth Novis @kennethnovis.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
I haggled today for the first time in my life. It's not a good feeling doing it, but I managed to talk a £60 book down to £45.
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Kenneth Novis @kennethnovis.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
An eclipse occurring at the same time as a meteor shower, a 6 planet syzygy, the 6th heatwave of the summer, and a meningitis outbreak. I’m simply asking for fewer bad omens to be happening all at once.
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Justin Weinberg @dailynous.com · 11/08/2026
The University of Dundee is announced plans to kill its philosophy major. The petition launched in protest has over 5300 signatures and the effort to fight the cuts has a new website.
dailynous.com
Update on Fight Against Dundee Cutting Philosophy - Daily Nous
Earlier this summer, the administration of the University of Dundee announced a plan to cut costs by, among other things, no longer offering students the option of majoring in philosophy. See this pre...
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Kenneth Novis @kennethnovis.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
I've been spending some time looking into all of the early modern accusations of atheism towards Spinoza, and this is one of the most amusing sources I've encountered: a poem from 1710, casting Spinoza as an agent of Satan
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Kenneth Novis @kennethnovis.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Malebranche has this notion that all (representative) ideas are real beings, and that there are infinitely many of them. The real beings part looks a lot like Platonism to me, but I wonder whether Malebranche thinks there are representative ideas of differences (thinking of Deleuze a lot here).
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Jon @thelitcritguy.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
🏘️🏘️🏘️ Some very exciting news 🏘️🏘️🏘️
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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
"criticizing AI use in journalism or other creative industries is classist" NO IT IS NOT there is a class that benefits enormously from cognitive surrender, epistemic warfare, and the enclosure of all hitherto produced culture and it is NOT THE WORKING CLASS
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Kenneth Novis @kennethnovis.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Not to be missed!
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Working Class History @workingclasshistory.com · 04/08/2026
#OtD 4 Aug 1792 radical Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was born. His most famous poem, penned after the Peterloo massacre, ends: "Rise like Lions after slumber In unvanquishable number! Shake your chains to earth like dew... Ye are many—they are few!" workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e15-...
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dominique routhier @routhier.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
I contributed to this stellar issue with a review of Idris Robinson's new book, The Revolt... (and what it means to be trained to think abstractly about the problem of "violence" in analytical philosophy depts) www.radicalphilosophy.com/reviews/the-...
radicalphilosophy.com
Dominique Routhier · The philosophy of revolt (2026)
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Kenneth Novis @kennethnovis.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
I spent all of last term learning early modern physics for a section of my thesis on what Spinoza means by 'power' (in a bunch of places, he says it's the same as 'force', which is huge for Cartesian physics). But having now written the rest of the chapter, I think I need to delete it all 🥲
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Morgan Golf-French @zenothankyou.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
The left will turn one much-cherished natural fact into a social construct every day until our demands are met. Day 3: hair is a social construct
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Kenneth Novis @kennethnovis.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Looking at the figures in early modern philosophy who have guides published on them, it's surprising to me that Malebranche is not better represented! I was always taught that he's one of the major early modern rationalists, but the work on him pales in comparison to Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz
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Kenneth Novis @kennethnovis.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Very excited to see this coming out in just a few months! The translation is already all available online for free, but I much prefer print versions of these things to read through and annotate
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Kenneth Novis @kennethnovis.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
I'll be giving my paper titled 'A Fiction to Command the Emotions: Du Châtelet and Spinoza' today at 13:40 UK time today. Anyone interested can join by using this link, and clicking on the paperclip on the top right of the 14:00 session indico.uni-paderborn.de/event/157/ti...
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Kenneth Novis @kennethnovis.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
My free copy of the brand new Routledge Companion to Simone Weil just arrived in the mail this morning - it's a strange feeling seeing my words in print like this! (Full article available for free here: www.academia.edu/169551205/Si...).
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Working Class History @workingclasshistory.com · 25/07/2026
#OtD 25 Jul 1867 Karl Marx wrote the preface to the first German edition of his masterwork, Capital. A "weapon in the hands of workers" (as Harry Cleaver called it), it remains the most powerful critique of capitalism ever written shop.workingclasshistory.com/en-gb/collec...
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Kenneth Novis @kennethnovis.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
I’ve been hoping to find this book at my local charity shops for years, and I decided on a whim to step into them today only to find a copy there on the shelves, waiting for me
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Kenneth Novis @kennethnovis.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
I can't believe we're finally getting a translation of this book! A few years ago, I tried my hand at translating two of the sections in it after reading some commentary by Warren Montag, but Maruzzella and Ramos are sure to do a much better job than I ever could.
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Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Why Bernie Sanders is wrong - and nationalizing AI is a bad idea "AI is, above all else, a weapon of class war from above. Whether it’s the state that wields it or corporations does little to change that fact."
jacobin.com
The Socialist Case Against Nationalizing AI
AI is not a neutral technology whose benefits need to be redistributed. It is a weapon of class war from above, designed to cheapen labor and concentrate power. Nationalizing it does nothing to change...
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