Charlie Huenemann

Charlie Huenemann is an American philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at Utah State University. His area of specialisation is the history of early modern philosophy and science, especially the period from 1600 to 1750, and he also researches the history of modern philosophy and science from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. He received his BA in Philosophy in 1987 and his MA in 1989 from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and his PhD in Philosophy in 1994 from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Huenemann joined Utah State University after completing his doctorate and has been a full professor there since 2009.

A major part of Huenemann’s research is devoted to the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza. He edited Interpreting Spinoza: Critical Essays in 2008 and, in Spinoza’s Radical Theology: The Metaphysics of the Infinite (2013), examines the relationship between metaphysics, theology, and naturalism in Spinoza’s thought. In that work, he argues that Spinoza’s project, despite its critique of miracles and of a personal conception of God, retains an important theological orientation and seeks to reconcile religion with a naturalistic picture of the world.

Huenemann’s scholarship is not confined to Spinoza; it also encompasses Descartes, Leibniz, Hume, and especially Friedrich Nietzsche. He has published on rationalism, metaphysics, epistemology, health and illness in Nietzsche’s philosophy, and the history of science and philosophy. His other works include Understanding Rationalism, which explains the rationalist tradition and the roles of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz within it.