David Cunning Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies Department of Philosophy The University of Iowa       250 English-Philosophy Bldg. Voice: (319) 335-0027 Fax: (319) 353-2322     e-mail c.v.

Hi.  I am a philosophy professor at the University of Iowa.  I am currently working on three projects.  One is a book-length study of the philosophy of the 17th-Century philosopher and scientist, Margaret Cavendish.  She defends the view that the bodies that surround us, and the bodies that compose us, are sophisticated and intelligent.  Then she proceeds to develop a number of compelling theses about agency and social obligation.  The second project is an edited volume that attempts to pull out the many strains of Descartes' thinking by looking at each of his six Meditations from a different methodological angle.  This will be the Cambridge Companion to Descartes' Meditations.  The third is a textbook in which I try to use everyday colloquial examples to illustrate the importance and significance of central views and arguments in the great philosophers of history.  This is entitled, Everyday Examples in the History of Philosophy.  I am also working on some freestanding papers on Spinoza's monism and pan-psychism.

I received my B.A. in Philosophy from UC Berkeley and my Ph.D. from UC Irvine.

Books

• Argument and Persuasion in Descartes' Meditations, New York: Oxford University Press (June 2010), 248 pp. [synopsis & reviews]
• Editor, The Cambridge Companion to Descartes' Meditations, Cambridge University Press (summer 2013)
• Margaret Cavendish, in the series The Arguments of the Philosophers, Routledge Publishing (under contract)

Articles and Reviews

• "Descartes and the Force of Skepticism," A Companion to Skepticism, ed. Baron Reed and Diego Machuca, Continuum Publishing
• "Introduction," forthcoming in The Cambridge Companion to Descartes' Meditations, ed. D. Cunning, Cambridge University Press
• "The First Meditation: Divine Omnipotence, the Eternal Truths, and the Possibility of Radical Deception," The Cambridge Companion to Descartes' Meditations
• "True and Immutable Natures," The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon, ed. L. Nolan, Cambridge University Press
• "Analysis vs. Synthesis," The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon, ed. L. Nolan, Cambridge University Press
• "Descartes on God and the Products of His Will," Models of God and Other Ultimate Realities, ed. J. Diller and A. Kasher, Springer Publishing (2011)
• Review of K. Smith, Matter Matters, British Journal for the History of Philosophy 19 (2011), 997-1001
• "Mind-Body Problems," The Routledge Companion to Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, ed. D. Kaufman, Routledge Publishing
• “Margaret Lucas Cavendish,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. E. Zalta (2009), 43 pp.
• Review (co-authored) of M. Moriarty, Fallen Nature, Fallen Selves: Early Modern French Thought II, Journal of the History of Philosophy 46 (2008), 644-5
• "Malebranche and Occasional Causes," Philosophy Compass 3 (2008), 1-20
• "Fifth Meditation TINs Revisited: A Reply to Criticisms of the Epistemic Interpretation,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 16 (2008), 215-227
• "Nicolas Malebranche," The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, ed. T. Hockey, Springer Academic Publishers (2007), 731-2
• "Semel in Vita: Descartes' Stoic View on the Place of Philosophy in Human Life," Faith and Philosophy 24 (2007), 164-183
• "Descartes on the Dubitability of the Existence of Self," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 74 (2007), 111-131
• "Cavendish on the Intelligibility of the Prospect of Thinking Matter," History of Philosophy Quarterly 23 (2006), 117-136
• "Descartes on Sensations and Ideas of Sensations,"An Anthology of Philosophical Studies, Athens: Atiner Publishing (2006), 17-32
• Review of D. Skrbina, Panpsychism in the West, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (2005)
• "Rationalism and Education," A Companion to Rationalism, ed. A. Nelson, Blackwell Publishing (2005), 61-81
• Editor and translator, “Principii Cartesia” by Robert Percy Smith, The Philological Museum (2004), ed. D. Sutton
• "Systematic Divergences in Malebranche and Cudworth," Journal of the History of Philosophy 41 (2003), 343-363
• "True and Immutable Natures and Epistemic Progress in Descartes' Meditations," British Journal for the History of Philosophy 11 (2003), 235-248
• "Descartes on the Immutability of the Divine Will," Religious Studies 39 (2003), 79-92
• "Descartes' Modal Metaphysics," The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2002), ed. E. Zalta, 37 pp.
• "Agency and Consciousness," Synthese 120 (1999), 271-294
• "Modality and Cognition in Descartes" (co-authored), Acta Philosophica Fennica 64 (1999), 137-153

Below are some links to materials that might be useful.

Page updated 12 September 2012.