An intuitive way to think about potencies is that x has the potency to φ if it is possible but not necessary that x manifests φ. Baruch de Spinoza’s (1632–1677) philosophy stands in direct conflict with this line of thought as it defends the necessitarian view that everything which is possible is actual such that there are no unrealized possibilities strictly speaking. For all this, Spinoza continues using the term ‘potency’ and leaves his readers puzzled as to why he even ascribes a considerable explanatory role to the concept. This project investigates paths to reconcile the demands of ‘potencies’ and ‘necessitarianism’ within Spinoza’s philosophy. According to the hypothesis I am going to examine, a promising strategy consists in combining ‘essentialist’ and ‘dynamic’ readings of Spinoza’s philosophy. This suggests that potencies are grounded in ‘individual essences’ and ‘substance causation.’ If my hypothesis can be validated, we are in a better position to understand the interrelationship of two key concepts of Spinoza’s philosophy. Additionally, my conciliatory interpretation of Spinoza’s notion of a ‘potency’ in the context of his necessitarian framework might also offer a philosophical lesson to contemporary debates about potencies whose participants mostly assume that potencies rule out necessitarianism in the first place.

Translations

 
Siger von Brabant, De necessitate et contingentia causarum. Über die Notwendigkeit und Kontingenz der Ursachen. Latin-German edition. Translated and introduced by Daniel Bella. Freiburg: Herder, 2025.
https://www.herder.de/theologie-pastoral/shop/p2/92692-de-necessitate-et-contingentia-causarum-ueber-die-notwendigkeit-und-kontingenz-der-ursachen-ge/ 
 
Articles
 
„Möglichkeit im Medium? Das posse fieri zwischen Aktivität und Passivität.“ In I campi della Sapienza: A partire dal De venatione sapientiae di Nicola Cusano, edited by Salvatore Carannante and Greta Venturelli, 33–45. Milan: Mimesis, 2025.
 
Co-authored with Milan Stürmer, “Whitehead’s Ethics: Fill in the Blanks.” In Whitehead at Harvard: 1925–1927, edited by Joseph Petek and Brian G. Henning, 153–73, Edinburgh: EUP, 2025.
 
“Agreement or Contrariety? A Dialogue.” Journal of Spinoza Studies 2, no. 2 (2023): 6–13. https://doi.org/10.21827/jss.2.2.41288 
 
Co-authored with Milan Stürmer, “Whitehead’s Ethics: Fill in the Blanks.” Process Studies 52, no. 2 (2023): 179–200. https://doi.org/10.5406/21543682.52.2.03 
 
Co-authored with Milan Stürmer, “Inheriting Cosmopolitics: Pericles, Whitehead, Stengers.” Theory, Culture & Society40, no. 3 (2023): 3–21. https://doi.org/10.1177/02632764221092300 
 
Review of Göst Gantner: Möglichkeit. Über einen Grundbegriff der praktischen Philosophie und kritischen Gesellschaftstheorie (Bielefeld: transcript 2021). Zeitschrift für philosophische Literatur 10, no. 1 (2022): 1–6. https://doi.org/10.21827/zfphl.10.1.38188 
 
“Modifikation und Modulation. Zwei alternative Strukturbegriffe der Geschichtsphilosophie?” lointain 3 (2022): 35–46.
 
“Affektive Lernziele in der Schreibdidaktik? Überlegungen zu einem vernachlässigten Bereich.” Journal für Schreibwissenschaft 21, no. 1 (2021): 63–71.
 
“Spontaneität als Widerschein. Sonnemanns Cusanus-Interpretation im Lichte seiner Kritik an der Geschichte als Prozess.” In ‘Denn das Wahre ist das Ganze nicht…’ Beiträge zur Negativen Anthropologie Ulrich Sonnemanns, edited by Tobias Heinze and Martin Mettin, 321–44. Berlin: Noefelis, 2021.
Open access download: https://neofelis-verlag.de/media/pdf/32/09/f3/OA_9783958080751.pdf 
 
Review of Eva Debray, Frédéric Lordon, and Kim Sang Ong-Van-Cung, Spinoza et les passions du social (Paris: Éditions Amsterdam). Zeitschrift für philosophische Literatur 8, no. 2 (2020): 30–37. https://doi.org/10.21827/zfphl.8.3.35883  
 
“Die Gaben des Fremden. Xenien für einen Gast aus Elea.” In Fremdheit. Xenologische Ansätze und ihre Relevanz für die Bildungsfrage, edited by Giovanni Tidona, 143–52. Heidelberg: Mattes, 2018.
 
“Zum Verhältnis von Wirklichkeit und Möglichkeit in der Blochschen‘ Philosophie.” Bloch-Almanach 34: 127–48.
 

Presentations (selected)

 With Milan Stürmer, “Both British and Emergentist: Whitehead’s Account of Diachronic Emergence,” Transitions in Emergence, University of Namur, May 2026.

Comment on “An Ontology of Relations,” Overcoming the Subject: Transindividuality and Social Philosophy, workshop with Vittorio Morfino, Goethe University Frankfurt, December 2025.
 
“A proper concept? Revisiting Spinoza’s usage of ‘propria’,” conference of the European Society for Early Modern Philosophy, University of Hagen, September 2025.
 
“Fundamental Parts or Fundamental Wholes? Spinoza’s Changing View on ‘Infinite Modes’,” The NYC Early Modern Workshop in Berlin, Humboldt University Berlin, June 2025.
 
„The Cunning of Force: Simone Weil’s Enlarged Understanding of Spinoza’s ‘Power Puzzle’,” Spinoza and Simone Weil: Influences and Interconnections, University of Oxford, May 2025.
 
“‘The Positive Side of Potentiality‘: zu Whiteheads Auseinandersetzung mit Spinozas Substanzmonismus,” Geschichte und Gegenwart der Prozessmetaphysik, lecture series, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, April 2025.
 
“Negativity in the Making? Rereading Spinoza’s Tool Analogy,” Spinoza and Negativity, KU Leuven, September 2024.
Watch here: https://youtu.be/3b8Vqt5oN8w?si=IjnFWP-vWI_ibWih
 
“Lux, Lumen, Lucerna: Searching for Reflexions of Cusanus’ Light Metaphor in 17th Century Thought,” Jungcusaner-Tagung, Bologna, September 2024.
 
“[Process and Reality pp. 283–321.]” Whitehead’s Footnotes workshop, Wuppertal, July 2024.
 
“Ex nihilo nihil? The Linkage between Causality and the Charge of Atheism in Some Early Refutations of Spinoza’s TTP,” Early Career Workshop with Michael Della Rocca, University of Hamburg, August 2023.
 
With Milan Stürmer, “Substantial Agreements: Cartesian recurrences between 1924 and 1927,” International Whitehead Conference, Munich, July 2023.
 
With Milan Stürmer, “Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism: An alternative thread?” Threads of Emergenceworkshop, UWE Bristol, May 2023.
 
“dynamis-potentia-posse? –Die Explikation des Begriffsfelds der ‘dynamis’ durch das Verb ‘können’ bei Nikolaus von Kues”, Dynamis – interdisziplinäre Erkundung eines Begriffsfelds workshop, Erich Auerbach Institute for Advanced Studies, Cologne, January 2023.