Michael Allen Gillespie is an American philosopher and Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

. His areas of interest are

political philosophy Political philosophy or political theory is the philosophical study of government, addressing questions about the nature, scope, and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them. Its topics include politics, l ...

continental philosophy Continental philosophy is a term used to describe some philosophers and philosophical traditions that do not fall under the umbrella of analytic philosophy. However, there is no academic consensus on the definition of continental philosophy. Pri ...

history of philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

, and the origins of modernity. He has published on the relationship between theology and philosophy, medieval theology,

liberalism Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostility to autocracy, cultural distaste for c ...

, and a number of philosophers such as

Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, Prose poetry, prose poet, cultural critic, Philology, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philo ...

Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends a ...

Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th centur ...

and

Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aest ...

. In his later works, Gillespie has specialized on the relationship between religion and politics. His book "The Theological Origins of Modernity" and his article "The Antitrinitarian Origins of Liberalism" revealed the extent to which modern thought is indebted to Christianity, contributing to the breaking of the cliché that modernity is a decisive break from the Middle Ages.

Works

* The Theological Origins of Modernity, University of Chicago Press, 2008. * Socinianism and the Political Theology of Liberalism (a chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Political Theology. Ed. M. Kessler and S. Casey) * Hegel, Heidegger and the Ground of History * Nihilism before Nietzsche * Nietzsche's New Seas: Explorations in Philosophy, Aesthetics, and Politics (ed) * Ratifying the Constitution (ed.) * Homo Politics, Homo Economicus (ed.)

References

Sources

On Michael Allen Gillespie

Michael Gillespie at Duke University Website

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gillespie, Michael Allen Living people 21st-century American philosophers 20th-century American philosophers Continental philosophers Daseinsanalysis Existentialists Philosophy academics Heidegger scholars Duke University faculty Philosophers of nihilism 1951 births Harvard University alumni University of Chicago alumni