University of Dallas

Dr. Joshua S. Parens 

Professor

Department of Philosophy
Location: Braniff 322
Office Phone: 972-721-5241
Email: parens@udallas.edu

Expertise

Islamic and Jewish Medieval Philosophy
Early Modern Philosophy
Metaphysics
Political Philosophy
Spinoza

Education

Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1992
M.A., University of Chicago, 1988
B.A., St. John's College, 1984

Recent Courses

Phi 1301 Philosophy & the Ethical Life
Phi 2323 Philosophy of Man
Phi 3311 Philosophy of Being
Phi 3327 Early Modern Philosophy
Phi 3351 Junior Seminar
Phi 4141 Senior Thesis
Phi 4338 Philosophy of Religion
Phi 4341 Senior Seminar: Mind/Body Problems
Phi 5331 Philosophy of Law
Phi 5360 Islamic Political Philosophy
Phi 5360 Islamic Political Thought
Phi 5360 Selected Texts: Islamic Political Philosophy
Phi 6310 Text Seminar: Aristotle's Metaphysics
Phi 6310 Text Seminar: Plato's Protagoras and Philebus
Phi 6310 Text Seminar: Plato's Trilogy
Phi 6322 Aristotle (the Metaphysics)
Phi 6377 Maimonides (the Guide of the Perplexed)
Phi 6377 Philosophy of Mind
Phi 7333 Text Seminar: Maimonides
Phi 7333 Text Seminar: Maimonides (the Guide of the Perplexed)
Phi 7344 Early Modern Philosophy
Phi 7344 Text Seminar: Machiavelli, Bacon, Descartes
Phi 7344 Spinoza (the Ethics)
Phi 7355 Text Seminar: Heidegger & Aristotle
IPS 8321 Plato & Aristotle
IPS 8342 Hobbes and Rousseau

Spring 2013 Course

Phi 5311-01 Philosophy of Law

Spring 2013 Office Hours

Monday 1:00–3:00 p.m.
Tuesday 10:00–11:00 a.m.
Friday 2:00–3:00 p.m.

Representative Publications

Books:

Maimonides and Spinoza: Their Conflicting Views of Human Nature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012.

(Edited in collaboration with Joseph C. Macfarland:) Medieval Political Philosophy: A Sourcebook. 2nd edition. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011.

An Islamic Philosophy of Virtuous Religions: Introducing Alfarabi. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 2006.

Metaphysics as Rhetoric: Alfarabi's "Summary of Plato's Laws." Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1995.

Articles:

"Maimonidean Ethics Revisited: Development and Asceticism in Maimonides?" Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 12:3 (2003): 33–62.

"Multiculturalism and the Problem of Particularism," American Political Science Review 88:1 (1994): 169–181.

"Theory and Practice in Medieval Aristotelianism," Polity 26 (1993): 317–330.