T I M O T H Y   Y E N T E R

Associate Dean for Capstone, Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College
Associate Professor of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy and Religion
The University of Mississippi

My CV usually has the most accurate information.

RESEARCH

Overview

My research is primarily in early modern metaphysics and methodology. My dissertation was on Hume and his British context, but I also have interests in the continental rationalists and especially the interplay between metaphysics and philosophical methodology, such as the various forms of the principle of sufficient reason in Leibniz, Spinoza, and Clarke. My research and my teaching reflect a commitment to uncovering and encouraging the diversity of early modern philosophical work, including currently under-discussed figures such as Anne Conway, Mary Astell, and Maria W. Stewart. Much of my recent work examines the metaphysical support for ethical, political, and theological views.

I have a second line of research that falls at the intersection of cinema studies and philosophy. I have written on a potentially paradoxical portrayal of love in Buster Keaton's films, a new approach to teaching philosophy through film that connects philosophical questions of the good life to cinephillia, and historical contexts in the films of Whit Stillman. A video discussing some of the latter essay, recording a talk given to a broad audience, is here.

Published

  1. Mary Astell on Neighborly Love, Religions (2022).
  2. Historical Knowledge as Self-Understanding in the Film os Whit Stillman, Film and Philosophy (2022).
  3. What Hume Didn’t Notice about Divine Causation, Divine Causation: Essays in Philosophical Theology (2021).
  4. Harmony in Spinoza and His Critics, Spinoza’s Philosophy of Ratio, ed. Beth Lord (2018).
  5. Cinephilia and Philosophia: Or Why I Don't Show The Matrix in Philosophy 101, For the Love of Cinema: Teaching Our Passion in and outside the Classroom, ed. Rashna Richards and David T. Johnson (2017).
  6. Buster Keaton and the Puzzle of Love, Faith and Spirituality in Masters of World Cinema, Volume 3, eds. Kenneth R. Morefield and Nicholas Olson (2015).
  7. Clarke Against Spinoza on the Manifest Diversity of the World, British Journal of the History of Philosophy 22.2 (2014).

In Progress and Forthcoming

  1. The Metaphysical Implications of Newtonianism, The Oxford History of Scottish Philosophy in the Eighteenth Century, Volume II: Method, Mind and Matter [forthcoming]
  2. Suffering for Justice in Anne Conway and Maria W. Stewart [forthcoming]
  3. Appreciating Audiobooks [under review]
  4. Hume and Montagu on Ornament and Superstition
  5. Why Think the Arc of the Universe Bends Toward Justice?
  6. Self-Motion and Attraction in Émilie du Châtelet and Andrew Baxter
  7. When Did Philosophy Begin? The British Debate, 1620-1770

Encyclopedia Articles

  1. Samuel Clarke, The Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Religion, eds. Stewart Goetz and Charles Taliaffero, Wiley-Blackwell, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119009924.eopr0444
  2. Anne Conway, The Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Religion, eds. Stewart Goetz and Charles Taliaffero, Wiley-Blackwell, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119009924.eopr0445
  3. Samuel Clarke, Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences, eds. Dana Jalobeanu and Charles T. Wolfe. Springer, 2020. Springer. ISBN: 9783319310671
  4. Samuel Clarke, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Uri Nodelman (2018). (Co-authored with Ezio Vailati.) [Substantial revisions: 2009, 2014, 2018.]

Book Reviews

  1. Review: D. N. Rodowick, Philosophy's Artful Conversation, Teaching Philosophy 39.4 (2016).
  2. Review: Jamie C. Kassler, Seeking Truth: Roger North’s Notes on Newton and Correspondence with Samuel Clarke c.1704-1713, Isis 106.4 (2015).
  3. Review: Peter R. Anstey (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of British Philosophy in the Seventeenth Century, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (2014).

TEACHING

My courses typically combine close readings of texts, engaging discussions, and lecture. I am committed to (and have written about) teaching that crosses disciplinary boundaries and engages the whole individual.

I was a fellow at the Yale Teaching Center (now the Yale Center for Teaching and Learning), which was dedicated to promoting excellent teaching by graduate students. I provided individual observations and consultations, and I led workshops on Teaching Texts in the Humanities, Course Design, Diversity in the Classroom, and more.

I have taught courses in

I have served (or am serving) as the adviser on multiple master's theses and undergraduate honors theses, including ones on the aesthetics of repair, film festivals, the aesthetics of the absurd, Spinoza’s metaphysics, Kant's aesthetics, Berkeley's notion of spirit, NeoPlatonism in Cockburn's philosophy, and 17th-century French Jesuit responses to Cartesian metaphysics. I have also served on thesis committees or advised independent studies in metaphysics, ethics, philosophy of religion, philosophy of film, and philosophy of humor.

WHERE TO FIND ME

PhilPeople [academic network]

The Mod Squad [a group blog in early modern philosophy]

Khan Academy: Wi-Phi [videos introducing a general audience to philosophy]

Letterboxd [capsule-length film reviews]