Stanford Humanities Center
Josefine Klingspor received her PhD in Philosophy from Yale University in 2024. She works in early modern philosophy, with a particular interest in early modern metaphysics. The overarching aim of her current research is to understand the theoretical reasons for and significance of the evolution of Spinoza’s metaphysics. Klingspor also has a strong interest in medieval philosophy and the philosophy of disability.
SHC Project
Spinoza on Metaphysical Constitution
Spinoza is a monist, someone according to whom, in some strong sense, all is one. A perennial issue for the monist is how to understand the relationship between the one thing of which the world fundamentally consists and the many things existing in the world, or as Spinoza would put it, between substance and modes. Klingspor's current project aims to deepen our understanding of this relationship by elucidating Spinoza's relation of metaphysical constitution, his view that substance "constitutes" the essences of modes.
