Research areas
Is life worth living? Do the goods outweigh the evils of human existence? Could it ever be said for any being that it would be better for it never to have been? And if so – what does that mean for the ethics of creation? My research examines the way in which these and other questions have been answered by philosophers from the seventeenth century up to the present day. In my book Dark Matters: Pessimism and the Problem of Suffering (Princeton University Press, 2021), I show how these questions spring from the early modern debate on the problem of evil, while the various ways in which they have been answered define the competing philosophical traditions known as optimism and pessimism.
My research is inspired by a double background in history and philosophy. During my studies of philosophy at Erasmus University Rotterdam, I became fascinated by early modern philosophy and the works of the seventeenth-century French philosopher Pierre Bayle in particular, and so he became the focus of both my PhD studies at the University of Oxford and my first book, Bayle, Jurieu, and the Dictionnaire Historique et Critique (Oxford University Press, 2016). After completing my doctorate, I spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher at the Lichtenberg Kolleg in Göttingen before coming to St Andrews in 2017, as a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the School of History.
My main research interests include: early modern and modern philosophy (Bayle, Malebranche, Leibniz, King, Voltaire, Rousseau, Hume, Kant, Schopenhauer), the problem of evil, theodicy (and antitheodicy), pessimism, biblical criticism, environmental ethics, digital ethics, and the ethics of reproduction.
Selected publications
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Dark matters: pessimism and the problem of suffering
van der Lugt, M., 16 Nov 2021, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 450 p.Research output: Book/Report › Book
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Open access
Les mots et les choses: the obscenity of Pierre Bayle
van der Lugt, M., 1 Oct 2018, In: Modern Language Review. 113, 4, p. 714-741 28 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
The left hand of the Enlightenment: truth, error, and integrity in Bayle and Kant
van der Lugt, M., 26 Feb 2018, (E-pub ahead of print) In: History of European Ideas. 44, 3, p. 277-291 15 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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A taste of paradise: early modern encounters with the Islamic afterworld
van der Lugt, M., 31 Jan 2017, In: De Achttiende Eeuw. Vol. 48, Nos. 1-2Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
The body of Mahomet: Pierre Bayle on war, sex, and Islam
van der Lugt, M., 1 Jan 2017, In: Journal of the History of Ideas. 78, 1, p. 27-50Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Bayle, Jurieu and the Dictionnaire historique et critique
van der Lugt, M., 17 Mar 2016, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 319 p. (Oxford historical monographs)Research output: Book/Report › Book
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Bayle’s absent presences: Descartes and other guests in the Dictionnaire Historique et Critique.
van der Lugt, M., 2013, In: Romance Studies. Vol. 31, , Nos. 3-4, p. pp. 189-199.Research output: Contribution to journal › Book/Film/Article review › peer-review
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“I will utter dark sayings of old”: John Toland, pantheism and pathos of secrecy.
van der Lugt, M., 2012, In: De Achttiende Eeuw. Vol. 44, No. 1 , p. pp. 103-130.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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The Foreground and Background of Consciousness: An Introspective Argument Against Introspection
van der Lugt, M., 2011, In: Erasmus Student Journal of Philosophy. No. 1, p. pp. 6-16.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review