Steven Mitchell Nadler^[1] (born November 11, 1958) is an American/Canadianacademic andphilosopher specializing in17th-century philosophy. He is Vilas Research Professor and the William H. Hay II Professor ofPhilosophy, and was (from 2004–2009) Max and Frieda Weinstein-Bascom Professor ofJewish Studies at theUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison. He is also director of their Institute for Research in the Humanities.^[2]

Nadler has written extensively onSpinoza,Descartes andCartesianism, andLeibniz, and engaged withmedieval and early modernJewish philosophy.^[2]

Nadler received hisB.A. fromWashington University in St. Louis in 1980 and hisM.A. andPh.D. fromColumbia University in 1981 and 1986.^[3] He has taught at theUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison since 1988 and has been a visiting professor of philosophy atStanford University, theUniversity of Chicago, theEcole des hautes études en sciences sociales andÉcole normale supérieure in Paris, and theUniversity of Amsterdam.^[4]

In November 2006, he presented at theBeyond Belief: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival symposium.^[5] In 2007, he held the Spinoza Chair at the University of Amsterdam.^[6]

From 2010 to 2015 he was the editor of theJournal of the History of Philosophy.^[7]

In April 2015, he was a Scholar in Residence at theAmerican Academy in Rome.^[8] In the same year, he was invited to sit on an advisory board at a symposium held by theAmsterdam Talmud Torah congregation to discuss the lifting of thecherem on 17th-century Jewish philosopherBaruch Spinoza, which had been imposed in 1656 on account of his views on the God of theTorah, which were condemned as heretical.^[9]

In 2020 Nadler was elected aFellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.^[10]

Nadler's research focus has been devoted to the study of philosophy in the seventeenth century, includingDescartes andCartesian philosophy, Spinoza, andLeibniz. His research also includes antecedents of aspects of early modern thought inmedieval Latin philosophy and (especially with respect to Spinoza)medievalJewish philosophy.^[2]

Nadler married Jane Carole Bernstein in 1984.^[1] They have a daughter, Rose (b. 1989), and a son, Ben (b. 1991).^[11] Rose is a social worker; Ben is an illustrator and writer, who illustrated and co-authored, with his father, the 2017 graphic novel,Heretics!.^[12]

• Arnauld and the Cartesian Philosophy of Ideas. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 1989.ISBN 9780719025099.
• Malebranche and Ideas. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1992.ISBN 9780195077247.
• Editor,Causation in Early Modern Philosophy: Cartesianism, Occasionalism, and Preestablished Harmony. University Park, Pennsylvania: Penn State University Press. 1993.ISBN 9780271026572.
• Editor,Causation in Early Modern Philosophy (Penn State Press, 1993)ISBN 0-271-02657-X
• Spinoza: A Life (Cambridge University Press, 1999) - Winner of the 2000Koret Jewish Book AwardISBN 0-521-00293-1. Second edition published in 2018.
• Editor,The Cambridge Companion to Malebranche (Cambridge University Press, 2000)ISBN 0-521-62729-X
• Editor,A Companion to Early Modern Philosophy (Blackwell, 2002)ISBN 0-631-21800-9
• Spinoza's Heresy: Immortality and the Jewish Mind (Oxford, 2002)ISBN 0-19-924707-2
• Rembrandt's Jews (University of Chicago Press, 2003) - Finalist for thePulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 2004.^[13]ISBN 0-226-56737-0
• Co-editor (with Manfred Walther and Elhanan Yakira),Spinoza and Jewish Identity (Konigshausen & Neumann, 2003)ISBN 3-8260-2715-9
• Co-editor (with Daniel Garber),Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2006)ISBN 0-19-920394-6
• Spinoza's Ethics: An Introduction (Cambridge, 2006)ISBN 0-521-83620-4
• The Best of All Possible Worlds: A Story of Philosophers, God, and Evil (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008; paperback, Princeton University Press, 2010)
• A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza's Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age (Princeton University Press, 2011)
• The Philosopher, the Priest, and the Painter: A Portrait of Descartes (Princeton University Press, 2013)
• Editor,Spinoza and Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 2014)
• Editor and Translator of Géraud de Cordemoy,Six Discourses on the Distinction Between the Body and the Soul andDiscourses on Metaphysics (Oxford University Press, 2015)
• With Ben Nadler, illustrator:Heretics! The Wondrous (and Dangerous) Beginnings of Modern Philosophy (Princeton University Press, 2017)
• Menasseh ben Israel: Rabbi of Amsterdam (Yale University Press, 2018) Jewish Lives Series
• Spinoza: A Life (Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition, 2018)
• Think Least of Death: Spinoza on How to Live and How to Die (Princeton University Press, 2020)
• The Portraitist: Frans Hals and His World (University of Chicago Press, 2022)
• Descartes: The Renewal of Philosophy (Reaktion Books, 2023)
• Spinoza e Aristotele sull'amicizia [in Italian] (ed. by G.M. Arrigo, Mimesis, 2023) ISBN 9791222304359

• Nadler, Steven (2016-04-28)."Why Spinoza Still Matters".Aeon.
• Nadler, Steven (2018-08-10)."We Have an Ethical Obligation to Relieve Individual Animal Suffering".Aeon.

• Philosophy of Spinoza

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