Ohad Nachtomy | Technion Israel Institute of Technology (original) (raw)
Books by Ohad Nachtomy
Oxford University Press, 2019
The Psychophysical Lab: Yoga Practice and the Mind-Body Problem, 2019
The book establishes a practical framework, the psychophysical lab, as a means of observing, stud... more The book establishes a practical framework, the psychophysical lab, as a means of observing, studying and developing the relations between mental and physical aspects of human nature through yoga practice (chapter 1); it attempts to show how yoga practice can foster a mutual development of our mental and physical faculties (in chapter 2); and offers a philosophical and historical analysis of the mind-body problem—its origin, development, and possible solution (in chapter 3); The final chapter adds practice sequences with marked mental benefits, such as confidence, balance, and optimism. The book is unique in offering a comprehensive framework – both practical and theoretical – to investigate and develop our human nature as a psychophysical unity.
Oxford University Press, 2014
The present volume advances a recent historiographical turn toward the intersection of early mode... more The present volume advances a recent historiographical turn toward the intersection of early modern philosophy and the life sciences by bringing together many of its leading scholars to present the contributions of important but often neglected figures, such as Ralph Cudworth, Nehemiah Grew, Francis Glisson, Hieronymus Fabricius ab Aquapendente, Georg Ernst Stahl, Juan Gallego de la Serna, Nicholas Hartsoeker, Henry More, as well as more familiar figures, such as Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Malebranche.
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.
This work presents Leibniz’s subtle approach to possibility and explores some of its consequentia... more This work presents Leibniz’s subtle approach to possibility and explores some of its consequential repercussions in his metaphysics. Ohad Nachtomy presents Leibniz’s approach to possibility by exposing his early suppositions, arguing that he held a combinatorial conception of possibility. He considers the transition from possibility to actuality through the notion of agency; the role divine agency plays in actualization; moral agency and human freedom of action and the relation between agency and necessity in comparison to Spinoza. Nachtomy analyzes Leibniz’s notion of nested, organic individuals and their peculiar unity, in distinction from his notion of aggregates.
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.
Academic Studies Press, 2009
Delving into Israel's multifaceted society, editors Avi Sagi and Ohad Nachtomy, along with their ... more Delving into Israel's multifaceted society, editors Avi Sagi and Ohad Nachtomy, along with their distinguished contributors, explore the many ethnic and religious communities that comprise modern Israel and the ways in which they interact and often misunderstand each other. Detailing both the tensions between Israelis and Arab minorities, as well as issues involving recent immigrants and the different religious sects within the Jewish community at large, this collection of essays covers diverse subjects such as Holocaust education, language rights, military service, and the balancing of religious with secular systems of law. An essential read for anyone searching for a better understanding of the challenges being faced in contemporary Israel.
Papers by Ohad Nachtomy
The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 2018
This paper argues that God's immanent causation and Spinoza's account of activity as adequate cau... more This paper argues that God's immanent causation and Spinoza's account of activity as adequate causation (of finite modes) do not always go together in Spinoza's thought. We show that there is good reason to doubt that this is the case in Spinoza's early Short Treatise on God, Man and His Well-being. In the Short Treatise, Spinoza defends an account of God's immanent causation without fully endorsing the account of activity as adequate causation that he will later introduce in the Ethics (E3def2). We turn to an examination of how God's immanent causation relates to the activity of finite things in the Ethics. We consider two ways to think about the link between God, seen as immanent cause, and the activity of finite things: namely, in terms of entailment and in terms of production. We argue that the productive model is most promising for understanding the way in which the activity of finite things and God's immanent causality are connected in Spinoza's (mature) philosophy
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 2007
While the definition of the 'genotype' has undergone dramatic changes in the transition from clas... more While the definition of the 'genotype' has undergone dramatic changes in the transition from classical to molecular genetics, the definition of the 'phenotype' has remained for a long time within the classical framework. In addition, while the notion of the genotype has received significant attention from philosophers of biology, the notion of the phenotype has not. Recent developments in the technology of measuring gene-expression levels have made it possible to conceive of phenotypic traits in terms of levels of gene expression. We demonstrate that not only has this become possible but it has also become an actual practice. This suggests a significant change in our conception of the phenotype: as in the case of the 'genotype', phenotypes can now be conceived in quantitative and measurable terms on a comprehensive molecular level. We discuss in what sense gene expression profiles can be regarded as phenotypic traits and whether these traits are better described as a novel concept of phenotype or as an extension of the classical concept. We argue for an extension of the classical concept and call for an examination of the type of extension involved.
In his Pensees, Blaise Pascal gives vivid voice to both the wonder and anxiety that many early mo... more In his Pensees, Blaise Pascal gives vivid voice to both the wonder and anxiety that many early modern thinkers felt towards infinity. Contemplating our place between the infinite expanse of space and the infinite divisibility of matter, Pascal writes:
Delving into Israel's multifaceted society, editors Avi Sagi and Ohad Nachtomy, along with th... more Delving into Israel's multifaceted society, editors Avi Sagi and Ohad Nachtomy, along with their distinguished contributors, explore the many ethnic and religious communities that comprise modern Israel and the ways in which they interact and often misunderstand each other. Detailing both the tensions between Israelis and Arab minorities as well as issues involving recent immigrants and the different religious sects within the Jewish community at large, this collection of essays covers diverse subjects such as Holocaust education, language rights, military service, and the balancing of religious with secular systems of law.
The Leibniz Review
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Journal of Early Modern Studies
Many pagan, Jewish, Christian and Muslim philosophers from Antiquity to the Enlightenment made no... more Many pagan, Jewish, Christian and Muslim philosophers from Antiquity to the Enlightenment made no meaningful distinction between philosophy and religion. Instead they advocated a philosophical religion, arguing that God is Reason and that the historical forms of a religious tradition serve as philosophy's handmaid to promote the life of reason among non-philosophers. Carlos Fraenkel provides the first account of this concept and traces its history back to Plato. He shows how Jews and Christians appropriated it in Antiquity, follows it through the Middle Ages in both Islamic and Jewish forms and argues that it underlies Spinoza's interpretation of Christianity. The main challenge to a philosophical religion comes from the modern view that all human beings are equally able to order their lives rationally and hence need no guidance from religion. Fraenkel's wide-ranging book will appeal to anyone interested in how philosophy has interacted with Jewish, Christian, and Mus...
British Journal For the History of Philosophy, 2010
British Journal for the History of Philosophy
Oxford Scholarship Online
Leibniz’s theory of organic emboîtement is well known, but seldom analyzed in detail. The model o... more Leibniz’s theory of organic emboîtement is well known, but seldom analyzed in detail. The model of embodiment Leibniz deploys is not a material one, not the kind of physical emboîtement that we find exemplified in Russian dolls, which are physically encapsulated one within the other, or the view of living things as subtle machines advanced by Descartes. This paper will examine several models of embodiment: physical, logical, expressive/representative, as well as a model of functional organization. I will conclude that the latter captures most adequately the Leibnizian view of a living being as a nested individual and the kind of embodiment it involves. What makes all these nested individuals components of a single individual is that they all follow one dominant program of action which may be seen as composed of many subprograms. But they all serve a single end (telos) that informs the developmental program of an individual.
Oxford University Press, 2019
The Psychophysical Lab: Yoga Practice and the Mind-Body Problem, 2019
The book establishes a practical framework, the psychophysical lab, as a means of observing, stud... more The book establishes a practical framework, the psychophysical lab, as a means of observing, studying and developing the relations between mental and physical aspects of human nature through yoga practice (chapter 1); it attempts to show how yoga practice can foster a mutual development of our mental and physical faculties (in chapter 2); and offers a philosophical and historical analysis of the mind-body problem—its origin, development, and possible solution (in chapter 3); The final chapter adds practice sequences with marked mental benefits, such as confidence, balance, and optimism. The book is unique in offering a comprehensive framework – both practical and theoretical – to investigate and develop our human nature as a psychophysical unity.
Oxford University Press, 2014
The present volume advances a recent historiographical turn toward the intersection of early mode... more The present volume advances a recent historiographical turn toward the intersection of early modern philosophy and the life sciences by bringing together many of its leading scholars to present the contributions of important but often neglected figures, such as Ralph Cudworth, Nehemiah Grew, Francis Glisson, Hieronymus Fabricius ab Aquapendente, Georg Ernst Stahl, Juan Gallego de la Serna, Nicholas Hartsoeker, Henry More, as well as more familiar figures, such as Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Malebranche.
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.
This work presents Leibniz’s subtle approach to possibility and explores some of its consequentia... more This work presents Leibniz’s subtle approach to possibility and explores some of its consequential repercussions in his metaphysics. Ohad Nachtomy presents Leibniz’s approach to possibility by exposing his early suppositions, arguing that he held a combinatorial conception of possibility. He considers the transition from possibility to actuality through the notion of agency; the role divine agency plays in actualization; moral agency and human freedom of action and the relation between agency and necessity in comparison to Spinoza. Nachtomy analyzes Leibniz’s notion of nested, organic individuals and their peculiar unity, in distinction from his notion of aggregates.
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.
Academic Studies Press, 2009
Delving into Israel's multifaceted society, editors Avi Sagi and Ohad Nachtomy, along with their ... more Delving into Israel's multifaceted society, editors Avi Sagi and Ohad Nachtomy, along with their distinguished contributors, explore the many ethnic and religious communities that comprise modern Israel and the ways in which they interact and often misunderstand each other. Detailing both the tensions between Israelis and Arab minorities, as well as issues involving recent immigrants and the different religious sects within the Jewish community at large, this collection of essays covers diverse subjects such as Holocaust education, language rights, military service, and the balancing of religious with secular systems of law. An essential read for anyone searching for a better understanding of the challenges being faced in contemporary Israel.
The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 2018
This paper argues that God's immanent causation and Spinoza's account of activity as adequate cau... more This paper argues that God's immanent causation and Spinoza's account of activity as adequate causation (of finite modes) do not always go together in Spinoza's thought. We show that there is good reason to doubt that this is the case in Spinoza's early Short Treatise on God, Man and His Well-being. In the Short Treatise, Spinoza defends an account of God's immanent causation without fully endorsing the account of activity as adequate causation that he will later introduce in the Ethics (E3def2). We turn to an examination of how God's immanent causation relates to the activity of finite things in the Ethics. We consider two ways to think about the link between God, seen as immanent cause, and the activity of finite things: namely, in terms of entailment and in terms of production. We argue that the productive model is most promising for understanding the way in which the activity of finite things and God's immanent causality are connected in Spinoza's (mature) philosophy
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 2007
While the definition of the 'genotype' has undergone dramatic changes in the transition from clas... more While the definition of the 'genotype' has undergone dramatic changes in the transition from classical to molecular genetics, the definition of the 'phenotype' has remained for a long time within the classical framework. In addition, while the notion of the genotype has received significant attention from philosophers of biology, the notion of the phenotype has not. Recent developments in the technology of measuring gene-expression levels have made it possible to conceive of phenotypic traits in terms of levels of gene expression. We demonstrate that not only has this become possible but it has also become an actual practice. This suggests a significant change in our conception of the phenotype: as in the case of the 'genotype', phenotypes can now be conceived in quantitative and measurable terms on a comprehensive molecular level. We discuss in what sense gene expression profiles can be regarded as phenotypic traits and whether these traits are better described as a novel concept of phenotype or as an extension of the classical concept. We argue for an extension of the classical concept and call for an examination of the type of extension involved.
In his Pensees, Blaise Pascal gives vivid voice to both the wonder and anxiety that many early mo... more In his Pensees, Blaise Pascal gives vivid voice to both the wonder and anxiety that many early modern thinkers felt towards infinity. Contemplating our place between the infinite expanse of space and the infinite divisibility of matter, Pascal writes:
Delving into Israel's multifaceted society, editors Avi Sagi and Ohad Nachtomy, along with th... more Delving into Israel's multifaceted society, editors Avi Sagi and Ohad Nachtomy, along with their distinguished contributors, explore the many ethnic and religious communities that comprise modern Israel and the ways in which they interact and often misunderstand each other. Detailing both the tensions between Israelis and Arab minorities as well as issues involving recent immigrants and the different religious sects within the Jewish community at large, this collection of essays covers diverse subjects such as Holocaust education, language rights, military service, and the balancing of religious with secular systems of law.
The Leibniz Review
<jats:p />
Journal of Early Modern Studies
Many pagan, Jewish, Christian and Muslim philosophers from Antiquity to the Enlightenment made no... more Many pagan, Jewish, Christian and Muslim philosophers from Antiquity to the Enlightenment made no meaningful distinction between philosophy and religion. Instead they advocated a philosophical religion, arguing that God is Reason and that the historical forms of a religious tradition serve as philosophy's handmaid to promote the life of reason among non-philosophers. Carlos Fraenkel provides the first account of this concept and traces its history back to Plato. He shows how Jews and Christians appropriated it in Antiquity, follows it through the Middle Ages in both Islamic and Jewish forms and argues that it underlies Spinoza's interpretation of Christianity. The main challenge to a philosophical religion comes from the modern view that all human beings are equally able to order their lives rationally and hence need no guidance from religion. Fraenkel's wide-ranging book will appeal to anyone interested in how philosophy has interacted with Jewish, Christian, and Mus...
British Journal For the History of Philosophy, 2010
British Journal for the History of Philosophy
Oxford Scholarship Online
Leibniz’s theory of organic emboîtement is well known, but seldom analyzed in detail. The model o... more Leibniz’s theory of organic emboîtement is well known, but seldom analyzed in detail. The model of embodiment Leibniz deploys is not a material one, not the kind of physical emboîtement that we find exemplified in Russian dolls, which are physically encapsulated one within the other, or the view of living things as subtle machines advanced by Descartes. This paper will examine several models of embodiment: physical, logical, expressive/representative, as well as a model of functional organization. I will conclude that the latter captures most adequately the Leibnizian view of a living being as a nested individual and the kind of embodiment it involves. What makes all these nested individuals components of a single individual is that they all follow one dominant program of action which may be seen as composed of many subprograms. But they all serve a single end (telos) that informs the developmental program of an individual.
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 09608780701604997, May 28, 2008
The New Synthese Historical Library, 2000
The New Synthese Historical Library, 2000
The New Synthese Historical Library, 2007
The New Synthese Historical Library, 2007
Over the last few years there has been a resurgence of interest in the "life sciences" in the ear... more Over the last few years there has been a resurgence of interest in the "life sciences" in the early modern period, involving the study of major figures; practices of experimentation, observation, and visualization; and key notions and processes, including life itself. This volume stems from a workshop held in Princeton, though it also includes several contributions that were not presented on that occasion. The editors bring refreshingly together a number of younger and senior scholars dealing with canonical and less famous figures in the period from Renaissance anatomist Hieronymus Fabricius to Kant.
Possibility, agency, individuality Nachtomy's Leibniz: The metaphysical Aufbau of our world Leibn... more Possibility, agency, individuality Nachtomy's Leibniz: The metaphysical Aufbau of our world Leibniz's leading idea of a combinatorial reconstruction of the world, starting from the first elements of thought and reality, has been sometimes compared to twentieth century logically-minded Aufbau projects; the latter, however, being animated by a robust anti-metaphysical concern, whereas the former displays a full-blown metaphysical insight. Better, an ultrametaphysical one, given that a good deal of this story develops within God's essence -or at least, God's understanding.
JHP, 2014
Jeanne Roland. Leibniz et l'individualité organique. Collection Analytiques, 99. Montréal: Presse... more Jeanne Roland. Leibniz et l'individualité organique. Collection Analytiques, 99. Montréal: Presses de l'Université de Montréal, 2012. Pp. 380. Paper, $39.95.
British Journal for the History of Philosophy , 2017
What exactly was the impact of the scientific revolution, the transition from the old (Aristoteli... more What exactly was the impact of the scientific revolution, the transition from the old (Aristotelian) science to the new (Cartesian) science, on the life sciences? In particular, how did the scientific revolution changed the way the new philosophers, chemists, and physicians perceived living things and the phenomena of life? The scientific revolution is usually considered in the context of physics, astronomy, and mathematics. It is rarely considered in the context of the life sciences (though recently things begin to change in this regard). It is well known that Descartes rejected the Aristotelian definition of living things in terms of their active souls and substantial forms as the principles of life and the cause and explanation of their nature. It is also well known that Descartes has in fact rejected the very category of living beings as uninformative for what he regarded as a scientific explanation of extend things. Instead, he attempted to produce a mechanistic explanation of the so called phenomena of life in terms of matter in motion and the position of organs within natural machines. It is quite plain that this rough statement, though generally true, captures only a very small part of a very complex storya story of mixed positions whose details still remain to be exposed.
5th Annual Meeting: The Program
The 8th New York City Workshop in Early Modern Philosophy will take place at the Van Lear Institu... more The 8th New York City Workshop in Early Modern Philosophy will take place at the Van Lear Institute in Jerusalem, Israel on June 25-27, 2018. The conference will be dedicated to the topic of Teleological Explanations between Leibniz and Kant. Confirmed speakers include Jeff McDonough, Desmond Hogan, Mogens Laerke, and Charles Wolfe.
When Leibniz made his first steps into the scholarly world, Descartes' fame was already well esta... more When Leibniz made his first steps into the scholarly world, Descartes' fame was already well established and his work distributed widely throughout Europe. It is not surprising therefore that Leibniz, who was keen to read whatever he could, especially of the new philosophers, was familiar with Descartes's philosophy. However, as Maria Rosa Antognazza points out in her brilliant study of Leibniz's intellectual biography, "although [Leibniz] was obviously familiar with Descartes's philosophy, his knowledge of it up to [1675] had been basically second-hand. During the winter of 1675-6 and the spring of 1676 he plunged into a careful reading of Descartes' Principia Philosophiae (Amsterdam 1644), leaving after him a trail of notes" (Antognazza, 2009, 167).
