József Simon PhD

simon

Associate Professor with habilitation

 

Contact information



Introduction

I started to teach at the Department in 2003 and was appointed as Associate Professor in 2015. I received my PhD at the University of Göttingen/Germany in 2005 with a dissertation on the critique of religions in Early Modern European philosophy. As participant in the Humboldt Fellowship Programme, I worked as associate researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the Freie Universität Berlin in 2006-2007. At the Department of Philosophy of the University of Szeged I hold general lectures on Mediaeval and Renaissance philosophy and special seminars on philosophical problems of the Scholastic, Renaissance and Early Modern period as well as of contemporary ethics.

 

Research profile

My research activity is devoted to Scholastic, Renaissance and Early Modern philosophies, with a special emphasis on the possible connections between the Middle Ages and Early Modernity (epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of religion). This essentially implies the central role of the philosophies of Duns Scotus, Thomas Aquinas, Machiavell and Descartes, and relating them to Aristotle’s, Plotinus’, Spinoza’s and Pufendorf’s thought. Most recently, some of my publications focus on the history of Natural Law Thinking in the 17th century, including the thought of Suárez, Grotius, Hobbes and Pufendorf. Beside these topics of the general European history of philosophy, I pay attention to local phenomena as well. I am the leader of the research group “The History of Hungarian Philosophy in Early Modern Period (1570-1720”; the project aims at delivering interpretations of philosophical texts that had emerged within the Hungarian (or wider East European) cultural context of the 16th and 17th centuries.

 

Publications in English and German

‘Challenges of Universalism. Theologico-Philosophical Considerations of Natural Law by Transylvanian Antitrinitarians in the Late Sixteenth Century’, in Hans Blom (ed.), Sacred Polities, Natural Law and the Law of Nations in the 16th-17th Centuries. Leiden: Brill, 2022, pp. 136-153.

 

‘Shame, Common Wealth and Religion in the Thought of Miklós Bethlen (1642-1716)’, in Boros-Szalai-Tóth (eds.), Natural Right and Natural Emotions (Budapest Seminars in Early Modern Philosophy, vol. 3), Budapest: Eötvös, 2020, pp. 167-179.

 

’Empfindung und Vernunft im Bessenyei György Társasága (Gesellschaft György Bessenyeis, Wien 1777)’, in Dieter, Breuer; Tüskés, Gábor; Lengyel, Réka (hrsg.), Aufgeklärte Sozietäten, Literatur und Wissenschaft in Mitteleuropa. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2019, pp. 161-174.

 

‘Philosophical Atheism and Incommensurability of Religions in Christian Francken’s Thought’, Hungarian Philosophical Review 61 (2017) / 2, pp. 57-67.

 

‘Metaphysical Certitude and Plurality of Religions: Christian Francken and the Problem of Philosophical Libertinism in Early Modern Eastern Europe’, Bruniana & Campanelliana. Ricerche filosofiche e materiali storico-testuali (Pisa-Roma) 19 (2013) / 1, pp. 165-178.

 

‘Aristotelismus, Nominalismus, Trinitätskritik – Die philosophischen Grundzüge der ‚Explicationes locorum Veteris et Novi Testamenti‘ von György Enyedi (1555-1597)’ in Ulrich Wien (hrsg.), Radikale Reformation – Die Unitarier in Siebenbürgen. Wien-Köln: Böhlau, 2013, pp. 227-240.

 

Die Religionsphilosophie Christian Franckens. Atheismus und radikale Reformation im Frühneuzeitichen Ostmitteleuropa (Wolfenbütteler Forschungen Bd. 117), Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2008, 224. p.

 

‘Sed cur nihilo minus athei vocantur?’, in Boros, Gábor (hrsg.), Der Einfluss des Hellenismus auf die Philosophie der frühen Neuzeit (Wolfenbütteler Forschungen Bd. 108). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2005, pp. 181-193.

 

‘Political Psychology and Natural Law in the Preface of Miklós Bethlen’s Autobiography’, in Gángó, Gábor-Haakonssen, Knud (eds.), Early-Modern Natural Law in Eastern Europe. Leiden, Brill, 2022. (upcoming)

 

‘Moral Indifference and Hypothetical Moral Necessity in Miklós Apáti’s ’Vita Triumphans Civilis’ (Amsterdam 1688)’ in Gángó, Gábor-Haakonssen, Knud (eds.), Early-Modern Natural Law in Eastern Europe. Leiden, Brill, 2022. (forthcoming)