Publications
Edited Books
Journal Articles and Book Chapters
Forthcoming. “Locke on Freedom and the Will.” In The Oxford Handbook of Locke, edited by Patrick Connolly. Oxford University Press.
Forthcoming. “Locke on Knowledge of our own Existence and the Subjective Constitution of the Self.” In British Philosophy in the Long Eighteenth Century: Themes from Kenneth P. Winkler, edited by Bridger Ehli and Matthew A. Leisinger. Routledge.
Forthcoming. “The Conscious Self in Locke and Cudworth.” In Non-Cartesian Philosophies of Mind, edited by Vili Lähteenmäki, Oberto Marrama, and Jani Sinokki. Routledge.
2022. “Cudworthian Consciousness.” Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy 11: 163–196. [Awarded the 2020 Marc Sanders Prize in the History of Early Modern Philosophy.]
2022. “Liberty and Suspension in Locke’s Essay.” Locke Studies 21: 26–55.
2021. “Locke on the Motivation to Suspend Desire.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 51 (1): 48–61.
2021. “Cudworth on Freewill.” Philosophers’ Imprint 21 (1): 1–25.
2020. “Locke’s Diagnosis of Akrasia.” Journal of Modern Philosophy 2 (1): 6, 1–13.
Book Reviews
Informal Writing
In Progress
Books
- Ralph Cudworth’s Psychology of Freewill. A book-length study of Cudworth’s freewill manuscripts, focusing in particular on Cudworth’s psychology and his account of freewill.
- Ralph Cudworth’s Freewill Manuscripts (British Library Additional Manuscripts 4979–4982). A modern edition of Cudworth’s unpublished freewill manuscripts.
Edited volumes
- Under contract. Locke’s ‘An Essay concerning Human Understanding’: A Critical Guide, ed. Matthew A. Leisinger. Cambridge University Press.
- Under contract. The Philosophy of Ralph Cudworth, eds. Matthew A. Leisinger and Marleen Rozemond. Routledge.
Papers
- Under contract. “Locke’s Compatibilism,” in Locke’s ‘An Essay concerning Human Understanding’: A Critical Guide, ed. Matthew A. Leisinger. Cambridge University Press.
- Under contract. “Cudworth’s Plastick Natures and the Passivity of Bodies,” (with Marleen Rozemond) in The Philosophy of Ralph Cudworth, eds. Matthew Leisinger and Marleen Rozemond (Routledge).
- “Racing Horses and Wagging Tails: Cudworth’s Speculations about Animal Minds.”
Presentations
- “Locke’s Compatibilism.” Western University, September 2025.
- “Locke’s Compatibilism.” 21st Annual Atlantic Canada Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy, Dalhousie University, July 2024.
- “Locke on Self-Consciousness: A Winklerian Reading.” 2024 Annual Congress of the Canadian Philosophical Association, McGill University, June 2024.
- “Locke on Self-Consciousness: A Winklerian Reading”, Conference in Honor of Ken Winkler, Yale University, October 2023.
- “Racing Horses and Wagging Tails: Cudworth’s Speculations about Animal Minds”, Animal Minds in the Early Modern Age, KU Leuven, June 2023
- “Cudworth’s Conscious Self”, 2023 John Locke Society Conference, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, June 2023
- “Cudworth’s Conscious Self.” 2023 Annual Congress of the Canadian Philosophical Association, York University, May 2023.
- “Cudworth’s Conscious Self”, Berlin-Hamburg Workshop in Early Modern Philosophy, University of Hamburg, May 2023
- “Cudworth’s Conscious Self”, TEMPO 2023, Washington University in St. Louis, May 2023
- “Cudworth’s Conscious Self”, Department Colloquium, McMaster University, November 2022
- “Cudworth’s Response to More on Immaterial Extension”, Québec-Ontario Workshop in Early Modern Philosophy, University of Toronto, October 2022
- “Ralph Cudworth’s Sentimentalism”, 18th Annual International Society for Neoplatonic Studies, The American College of Greece, June 2021
- “Cudworth’s Theory of the Self”, Dutch Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy VIII, May 2021
- “Cudworth’s Theory of the Self”, Princeton-Bucharest Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy, March 2021
- “Cudworth on Consciousness and the Self”, Workshop on Topics in Early Modern Moral Philosophy and Moral Psychology, University College Dublin, February 2020
- “Ralph Cudworth and the Structure of Personhood”, Royal Institute of Philosophy Lecture, Keele University, November 2019
- “Cudworth on Freewill”, 16th Annual Atlantic Canada Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy, Dalhousie University, July 2019
- “Cudworth on Freewill”, 2019 Finnish-Hungarian Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy, University of Helsinki, June 2019
- “Cudworth on Freewill”, Dutch Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy VI, University of Groningen, May 2019
- “Cudworth on Freewill: A More Plausible Libertarianism?”, Cambridge Platonism and the Origin of the “Philosophy of Religion”, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, May 2019
- “Ralph Cudworth’s Epistemology of Love”, The Ontology of Love, University of Cambridge, April 2019
- “Ralph Cudworth on Freewill (and the Compatibility of Freewill and Divine Grace)”, The D Society, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, March 2019
- “The Role of Desire in Cudworth’s Account of Agency”, Agency in Early Modern Philosophy Workshop, University College Dublin, September 2018
- “Locke on the Motivation to Suspend Desire”, 15th Annual Atlantic Canada Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy, Dalhousie University, July 2018
- “Locke’s Gatekeeper”, The 8th Margaret Dauler Wilson Philosophy Conference, SUNY Buffalo, June 2018
- “Locke and the Possibility of Self-Control”, 2018 Annual Congress of the Canadian Philosophical Association, Université du Quebec à Montreal, June 2018
- “The Gatekeeper of the Will: On Locke’s Claim that Judgment and Desire Both Determine the Will”, 2017 Annual Congress of the Canadian Philosophical Association, May 2017
- “Locke on Persons, Kinds, and Composite Ideas”, History of Early Modern Philosophy Working Group, University of Toronto, March 2017
- “Locke on Persons and Substance-Mode Composites”, Dutch Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy IV, University of Groningen, February 2017
- “Locke on Judgment, Desire, and Weakness of Will”, History of Philosophy Works in Progress, Harvard University, November 2016
- “Cudworth on Personality”, Personal Identity in the History of Philosophy, University of Melbourne, August 2016
- “Locke, Cudworth, and the Vulgar: What’s Wrong With Really Distinct Faculties?”, 13th Annual Atlantic Canada Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy, Dalhousie University, July 2016
- “Cudworth on Reason and Moral Knowledge”, The 7th Margaret Dauler Wilson Philosophy Conference, Northern Arizona University, June 2016
- “Cudworth on Reason and Moral Knowledge”, Scottish Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy VII, University of St. Andrews, May 2016
- “Cudworth on Reason and Moral Knowledge”, Harvard-Yale Graduate Workshop in the History of Philosophy, Harvard University, April 2016
- “Reconciling Freedom and Suspension: Locke on freedom of the will and ‘the source of all liberty’”, Locke Workshop, Yale University, October 2014
Matthew A. Leisinger 