David Cunning

Professor and Collegiate Fellow
Biography

 

Recent and upcoming talks

  • "Faraway Worlds in the Fiction of Cavendish," Margaret Cavendish on Literature Conference, University of Southampton, UK June 2025.
  • “Cavendish on Action-at-a-Distance, and an implication for her view on Fame,” Conference of the International Margaret Cavendish Society, University of Seville, Spain – December 2024.
  • "The Place of Minds in Nature," Iowa K-12 Lyceum July 2024
  • "Systematic Thinking in the History of Philosophy, and a point about confusion," Conference in Honor of Alan Nelaon, UNC Chapel Hill May 2024.
  • "What Descartes maybe should have said: panpsychism and Ethics II.1-8," Cornell University Panpsychism Conference April 2024.

Books

  • Descartes, in the series The Routledge Philosophers, Routledge (2023), 424 pp. / errata
  • Editor, Margaret Cavendish: Philosophical Writings, Oxford University Press (2019), 274 pp.
  • Cavendish, in the series The Arguments of the Philosophers, Routledge (2016), 318 pp.
  • Everyday Examples, Bloomsbury Academic Publishing, (2015), 312 pp.
  • Editor, The Cambridge Companion to Descartes' Meditations, Cambridge University Press (2014), 336 pp.
  • Argument and Persuasion in Descartes' Meditations, Oxford University Press (2010), 248 pp.

Articles 

  • "Cavendish on Liberty and Freedom," commissioned for The Oxford Handbook of Cavendish, ed. Julie Crawford and Jacqueline Broad, Oxford UP.
  • "An Additional Route to Ethics Ip5," forthcoming in HPLA: History of Philosophy and Logical Analysis.
  • "Simple Natures and Eternal Truths," forthcoming in The Cartesian Mind, ed. Cecilia Wee and Jorge Secada, Routledge Publishing.
  • Review of The Metaphysics of Margaret Cavendish and Anne Conway by Marcy Lascano, Mind (2024), https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzad076.
  • "Margaret Cavendish," Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward Craig (2024), 10 pp.
  • "Ethics Ip11 and the Necessary Existence of God," International Philosophical Quarterly 63 (2023), 375-389.
  • "Margaret Cavendish and Galen Strawson on Emergence, Mind, and Self," Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Mind 4 (2023), 369-398.
  • "Ways of Knowing," in The Routledge Handbook of Women and Early Modern European Philosophy, ed. Karen Detlefsen and Lisa Shapiro, Routledge Publishing (2023), 140-154.
  • "Cavendish, Philosophical Letters, and the Plenum," in Cavendish: An Interdisciplinary Perspective, ed. Lisa Walters and Brandie Siegfried, Cambridge UP (2022), 98-111.
  • "The Feminist Worlds of Margaret Cavendish," in World-Making Renaissance Women, ed. Pamela Hammons and Brandie Siegfried, Cambridge UP (2021), 184-198.
  • Review of Women Philosophers of Seventeenth-Century England: Selected Correspondence by Jacqueline Broad, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (2020).
  • "Hyperbolic Doubt, Cognitive Garbage, and the Regulae," Revue Internationale De Philosophie 290 (2019), 449-467.
  • "Cavendish on Material Causation and Cognition," Causation and Cognition: Perspectives on Early Modern Philosophy, ed. Dominik Perler and Sebastian Bender, Routledge Publishing (2019), 145-170.
  • Review of The Well-Ordered Universe: The Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish by Deborah Boyle, Locke Studies 18 (2018), 1-9.
  • "Cavendish on the Metaphysics of Imagination and the Dramatic Force of the Imaginary World," Early Modern Women on Metaphysics, ed. Emily Thomas, Cambridge UP (2018), 188-210.
  • "Mind-Body Problems," The Routledge Companion to Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, ed. D. Kaufman, Routledge Publishing (2018), 253-286.
  • "Descartes and the Force of Skepticism," Skepticism: From Antiquity to the Present, ed. Baron Reed and Diego Machuca, Bloomsbury Academic (2017), 306-319.
  • Review of The Will to Reason: Theodicy and Freedom in Descartes by C.P. Ragland, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (2016).
  • "True and Immutable Natures," The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon, ed. L. Nolan, Cambridge UP (2016), 727-730.
  • "Analysis vs. Synthesis," The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon, ed. L. Nolan, Cambridge UP (2016), 7-12.
  • "Introduction," The Cambridge Companion to Descartes' Meditations, ed. D. Cunning, Cambridge UP (2014), 1-22.
  • "The First Meditation: Divine Omnipotence, Necessary Truths, and the Possibility of Radical Deception," The Cambridge Companion to Descartes' Meditations, Cambridge UP (2014), 68-87.
  • "Descartes on God and the Products of His Will," Models of God and Other Ultimate Realities, ed. J. Diller and A. Kasher, Springer Publishing (2013), 175-193.
  • Review of Matter Matters by Kurt Smith, British Journal for the History of Philosophy 19 (2011), 997-1001.
  • “Margaret Lucas Cavendish,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. E. Zalta (2009), 43 pp.
  • Review (co-authored) of Fallen Nature, Fallen Selves: Early Modern French Thought II by Michael Moriarty, 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 Panpsychism in the West by David Skrbina, 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, ed. D. Sutton (2004).
  • "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, ed. E. Zalta (2002), 37 pp.
  • "Agency and Consciousness," Synthese 120 (1999), 271-294.
  • "Modality and Cognition in Descartes" (co-authored), Acta Philosophica Fennica 64 (1999), 137-153.

Dissertations directed

  • Peter Bezanson, "Idealism : A Brief History, Taxonomy, and Nietzschean Evaluation" (2005) -- CEO of the BASIS Educational Group, a charter school system.
  • Pete Legrant, "Spinoza's Realist and Four-dimensionalist Theory of Physical Individuation" (2009) -- Associate Professor of Philosophy, Bakersfield College.
  • Seth Jones, "Modality, Compatibilism, and Leibniz: A Critical Defense" (2012) -- Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
  • Kristopher Phillips, "Cartesian Modality: God's Nature and the Creation of Eternal and Contingent Truth" (2014) -- Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Eastern Michigan University.
  • Hannibal Jackson, "Eternal and Expansive Super-Necessitarianism: a new interpretation of Spinoza's metaphysics (2016) -- Lecturer, Temple College.

Selected Committees and Service

  • 2023-2024 Interim Department Chair – UI Religious Studies 

  • 2014-2022 Department Chair – UI Philosophy

  • 2019-2022 Member of CLAS Executive Committee 

  • 2020-2021 Co-Chair of CLAS Strategic Plan Committee 

  • 2020-2021 Member of UI Presidential Search Committee 

  • 2018-2020 Humanities Rep - CLAS Department Chair Advisory Board 

  • 2016-2017 Co-Chair of UI Strategic Plan Committee 

  • 2013-2014 UI Faculty Senate Officer: Secretary 

  • 2011-2014 UI Faculty Senator 

  • 2007-2013 Director of Graduate Studies – UI Philosophy

CV

Research areas
  • Early modern history of philosophy
  • Philosophy of mind
  • Epistemology
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Education
PhD, University of California, Irvine
Contact Information
Address

University of Iowa
250 English-Philosophy Building (EPB)
251 W. Iowa Avenue
Iowa City, IA 52242
United States