'The Syntax and Semantics of Stoic Cases.'

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The Stoics developed a peculiar view of ‘case’ (ptôsis), by which they mean something different from ‘grammatical case’: I call these ‘Stoic’ or ‘metaphysical’ cases. I assume that they are a kind of incomplete ‘sayable’ (lekton), against competing interpretations, according to which they are bodies. I argue that cases explain how propositions denote relations of activity and passivity in bodies. This is crucial to Stoic ontology, since for something to count as a body, it must possess capacities for acting and being-acted-upon. Accordingly, the Stoics had every motivation to develop a logical theory of syntax and semantics that takes stock of such relations. I conclude by exploring how Stoic cases feature in later Ancient authors’ theories of grammatical case.

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'Spinoza and Crescas on the Nature and Number of God's Infinite Attributes.'

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When Spinoza discusses God's infinite attributes throughout Ethics I and II, he plainly means by 'infinite' numerical infinity, and yet that isn't how he defines 'finite' (and so by contraposition, 'infinite') at Id2. I argue that this points to a tension in Spinoza's thinking about the infinite: how can a substance that is radically one and simple at the same time possess infinite essential properties? The question is all the more pressing as Spinoza himself offers such a definition of God at Id6. To make sense of the text, we need to look at the fuller discussion of the various senses of 'infinite' by Hasdai Crescas (1340-1410), to whom Spinoza is indebted for his understanding of infinity, as he tells us himself in the 'Letter on the Infinite' (Ep. 12). We also need to look at what Crescas' student,  Joseph Albo, had to say on this issue.