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Oliver Toth [5]Oliver Istvan Toth [5]
  1. The possibility of knowing the essence of bodies through scientific experiments in Spinoza’s controversy with Boyle.Oliver Istvan Toth - 2024 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy:1-25.
    In this paper, I argue for a novel reading of Spinoza’s position in his exchangewith Boyle about Boyle’s experiment with nitre. Boyle claimed to have shownthrough experiments that nitre ceased to be nitre after heating. Spinozadisagreed and proposed the alternative hypothesis that nitre has changed itsstate and not its nature. Spinoza’s position was construed in the literature asrational scepticism denying that experiments can yield knowledge ofessences because all sensory experience is underdetermined and open tomultiple interpretations. I argue for an alternative (...)
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  2. Inherence of False Beliefs in Spinoza’s Ethics.Oliver Istvan Toth - 2016 - Society and Politics 10 (2):74-94.
    In this paper I argue, based on a comparison of Spinoza's and Descartes‟s discussion of error, that beliefs are affirmations of the content of imagination that is not false in itself, only in relation to the object. This interpretation is an improvement both on the winning ideas reading and on the interpretation reading of beliefs. Contrary to the winning ideas reading it is able to explain belief revision concerning the same representation. Also, it does not need the assumption that I (...)
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  3. A fresh look on the role of the second kind of knowledge in Spinoza’s Ethics.Oliver Istvan Toth - 2017 - Hungarian Philosophical Review (2):37-56.
    In this paper, through a close reading of Spinoza's use of common notions I argue for the role of experiential and experimental knowledge in Spinoza's epistemology.
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  4. A defense of reconstructivism.Oliver Toth - 2022 - Hungarian Review of Philosophy 65 (1):51-68.
    The immediate occasion for this special issue was Christia Mercer’s influential paper “The Contextualist Revolution in Early Modern Philosophy”. In her paper, Mercer clearly demarcates two methodologies of the history of early modern philosophy. She argues that there has been a silent contextualist revolution in the past decades, and the reconstructivist methodology has been abandoned. One can easily get the impression that ‘reconstructivist’ has become a pejorative label that everyone outright rejects. Mercer’s examples of reconstructivist historians of philosophy are deceased (...)
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  5. Spinoza's theory of intellect – an Averroistic theory?Oliver Istvan Toth - 2020 - In Jozef Matula (ed.), Averroism between the 15th and 17th century. Nordhausen: Verlag Traugott Bautz. pp. 281-309.
    In this paper, I investigate whether Spinoza theory of intellect can be considered as an Averroistic, Themistian or Alexandrian theory of intellect. I identify key doctrines of these theories that are argumentatively and theoretically independent from Aristotelian hylomorphism and thus can be accepted by someone rejecting hylomorphism. Next, I argue that the textual evidence is inconclusive: depending on the reading of Spinoza's philosophy accepted, Spinoza's theory of intellect can or cannot be considered as an Averroistic theory.
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  6. Reconstructivism not dead. Introduction.Judit Szalai & Oliver Toth - 2022 - Hungarian Review of Philosophy 65 (1):5-8.
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  7. Memory, Recollection and Consciousness in Spinoza's Ethics.Oliver Toth - 2018 - Society and Politics 12 (2):50-71.
    Spinoza’s account of memory has not received enough attention, even though it is relevant for his theory of consciousness. Recent literature has studied the “pancreas problem.” This paper argues that there is an analogous problem for memories: if memories are in the mind, why is the mind not conscious of them? I argue that Spinoza’s account of memory can be better reconstructed in the context of Descartes’s account to show that Spinoza responded to these views. Descartes accounted for the preservation (...)
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  8. Is Spinoza’s theory of Finite Mind Coherent? – Death, Affectivity and Epistemology in the Ethics.Oliver Istvan Toth - 2017 - The Concept of Affectivity in Early Modern Philosophy.
    In this paper I examine the question whether Spinoza can account for the necessity of death. I argue that he cannot because within his ethical intellectualist system the subject cannot understand the cause of her death, since by understanding it renders it harmless. Then, I argue that Spinoza could not solve this difficulties because of deeper commitments of his system. At the end I draw a historical parallel to the problem from medieval philosophy.
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  9. The Concept of Affectivity in Early Modern Philosophy.Gábor Boros, Judit Szalai & Oliver Toth (eds.) - 2017 - Budapest, Hungary: Eötvös Loránd University Press.
    Collection of papers presented at the First Budapest Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy.
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  10. Personal Identity and Self-Interpretation & Natural Right and Natural Emotions.Gabor Boros, Judit Szalai & Oliver Toth (eds.) - 2020 - Budapest: Eötvös University Press.
    Collection of papers presented at the 2nd and 3rd Budapest Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy.
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