Ohad Nachtomy
I work on early modern philosophy, philosophy and history of biology, Wittgenstein’s philosophy, and multicultural theory (especially in the Israeli context). I began studying philosophy and history of science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and went to Columbia University for graduate school. I wrote my PhD thesis (A Leibnizian Approach to Possibility, 1998) under the supervision of Christia Mercer, Alan Gabbey, and Haim Gaifman. I also spent a year at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris conducting postdoctoral research on Leibniz and Spinoza with Pierre-François Moreau. I have previously taught at Tel-Hai Academic College, Israel, Lehigh University, Fordham University, and been a visiting scholar at Princeton and the École Normale Supérieure in Lyon.
My publications include some forty articles and five books: Possibility, Agency, and Individuality in Leibniz’s Metaphysics, Springer, 2007; The Life Sciences in Early Modern Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 2014, coedited with Justin E. H. Smith; Machines of Nature and Corporeal Substances in Leibniz, Springer, 2010, coedited with Justin E. H. Smith; The Multicultural Challenge in Israel (eds.), Academic Studies Press, 2009, coedited with Avi Sagi; and Examining Multiculturalism in Israel (in Hebrew), Magnes Press, 2003. In recent years I have been mainly focusing on the connection between infinity and life in Leibniz's philosophy. My recent books are: Living Mirrors: Infinity, Unity, and Life in Leibniz's Philosophy, Oxford University Press 2019; The Psychophysical Lab: Yoga Practice and the Mind-Body Problem, Mudita Books, 2019.
For more details, see ohadnachtomy.com
My publications include some forty articles and five books: Possibility, Agency, and Individuality in Leibniz’s Metaphysics, Springer, 2007; The Life Sciences in Early Modern Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 2014, coedited with Justin E. H. Smith; Machines of Nature and Corporeal Substances in Leibniz, Springer, 2010, coedited with Justin E. H. Smith; The Multicultural Challenge in Israel (eds.), Academic Studies Press, 2009, coedited with Avi Sagi; and Examining Multiculturalism in Israel (in Hebrew), Magnes Press, 2003. In recent years I have been mainly focusing on the connection between infinity and life in Leibniz's philosophy. My recent books are: Living Mirrors: Infinity, Unity, and Life in Leibniz's Philosophy, Oxford University Press 2019; The Psychophysical Lab: Yoga Practice and the Mind-Body Problem, Mudita Books, 2019.
For more details, see ohadnachtomy.com
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Books by Ohad Nachtomy
The contributions to this volume are organized in accordance with the particular problems that living beings and nature posed for early modern philosophy: the problem of life in general, whether it constitutes something ontologically distinct at all, or whether it can ultimately be exhaustively comprehended “in the same manner as the rest”; the problem of the structure of living beings, by which we understand not just bare anatomy but also physiological processes such as irritability, motion, digestion, and so on; the problem of generation, which might be included alongside digestion and other vital processes, were it not for the fact that it presented such an exceptional riddle to philosophers since antiquity, namely, the riddle of coming-into-being out of—apparent or real—non-being; and, finally, the problem of natural order.
Nachtomy suggests that Leibniz defined possible individuals through combinatorial rules that generate unique and maximally consistent structures of predicates in God’s understanding and that such rules may be viewed as programs for action. He uses this definition to clarify Leibniz’s notions of individuation, relations and his distinction between individual substances and aggregates as well as the notion of organic individuals, which have a nested structure to infinity. Nachtomy concludes that Leibniz’s definition of a possible individual as a program of action helps clarifying the unity and simplicity of nested individuals. The book thus reveals a thread that runs through Leibniz’s metaphysics: from his logical notion of possible individuals to his notion of actual, nested ones.
Papers by Ohad Nachtomy
The contributions to this volume are organized in accordance with the particular problems that living beings and nature posed for early modern philosophy: the problem of life in general, whether it constitutes something ontologically distinct at all, or whether it can ultimately be exhaustively comprehended “in the same manner as the rest”; the problem of the structure of living beings, by which we understand not just bare anatomy but also physiological processes such as irritability, motion, digestion, and so on; the problem of generation, which might be included alongside digestion and other vital processes, were it not for the fact that it presented such an exceptional riddle to philosophers since antiquity, namely, the riddle of coming-into-being out of—apparent or real—non-being; and, finally, the problem of natural order.
Nachtomy suggests that Leibniz defined possible individuals through combinatorial rules that generate unique and maximally consistent structures of predicates in God’s understanding and that such rules may be viewed as programs for action. He uses this definition to clarify Leibniz’s notions of individuation, relations and his distinction between individual substances and aggregates as well as the notion of organic individuals, which have a nested structure to infinity. Nachtomy concludes that Leibniz’s definition of a possible individual as a program of action helps clarifying the unity and simplicity of nested individuals. The book thus reveals a thread that runs through Leibniz’s metaphysics: from his logical notion of possible individuals to his notion of actual, nested ones.