Samuel Levey
Professor of Philosophy
Philosophy Department Chair
Samuel Levey received his Ph.D. from Syracuse University in 1997. His philosophical interests are wide-ranging, but his studies focus particularly on topics in metaphysics and the philosophy of mathematics. What is truth? What does a mathematical proof prove? What is the past apart from memory? What is it for something to exist independently of the mind? How can something remain one and the same through change? What are the correct logical rules for reasoning about such subjects? He writes primarily on Leibniz's philosophy and teaches a variety of courses in the history of modern philosophy, metaphysics, philosophy of mathematics, logic, epistemology and the philosophy of language.
Selected Publications
“The Paradox of Sufficient Reason.” The Philosophical Review 125:3 (July 2016).
“Comparability of Infinities and Infinite Multitude in Galileo and Leibniz.” In N. Goethe, P. Beeley and D. Rabouin, eds., G.W. Leibniz: Interrelations between Mathematics and Philosophy, Archimedes Series 41 (Dordrecht: Springer-Verlag: 2015): 157-187.
“On Time and the Dichotomy in Leibniz.” Studia Leibnitiana 44 (2012): 33-59.
“Unity, Borrowed Reality and Multitude in Leibniz.” The Leibniz Review 22 (2012): 97-134.
“On Two Theories of Substance in Leibniz: Critical Notice of Daniel Garber, Leibniz: Body, Substance, Monad.” The Philosophical Review 120: 2 (2011), 285-319.
“Logical Theory in Leibniz.” In B. Look, ed., The Continuum Companion to Leibniz. (New York: Continuum, 2011), 110-135.
“Dans les corps il n'y a point de figure parfaite: Leibniz on Time, Change and Corporeal Substance.” Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy 5 (2010), 146-170.
“Archimedes, Infinitesimals and the Law of Continuity: On Leibniz’s Fictionalism.” In U. Goldenbaum and D. Jesseph, eds., Infinitesimals Differences: Controversies between Leibniz and his Contemporaries (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter: 2008), 107-134.