Omri Boehm

As an undergraduate, Omri studied in the interdisciplinary program for outstanding students at Tel Aviv University (2000-3). He came to Yale in 2003 and has worked mostly on Kant and Early Modern philosophy (especially Spinoza and Descartes). In 2005-6 he visited the philosophy department in Heidelberg and in 2010 he will assume an  ‘Excellence Research Fellowship’ in LMU-Munich. Omri just defended his dissertation, entitled “Kant’s Critique of Spinoza.” From a historical point of view, the main argument is that Kant—contrary to the common assumption—reacts to Spinoza’s metaphysics throughout his career, most importantly in the Critique of Pure Reason. From a systematic point of view, the main interest is in the confrontation between Critical (Kantian) and Metaphysical Rationalism—especially in Kant’s attack on the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Several chapters are forthcoming (e.g. in BJHP and in The Oxford Handbook for Spinoza). Before coming to Yale Omri worked also on religion and the philosophy of religion. His book, The Binding of Isaac: a Religious Model of Disobedience (Continuum, 2007) combines biblical exegesis with chapters on Maimonides, Kierkegaard and Kant.

Sarah Protasi

Sara Protasi has received her BA in Philosophy from University of Rome “La Sapienza” in 2002, and her doctoral degree from University of Bologna  in June 2007 with a dissertation titled : ”True Love. The Normativity of a Passion”.  While being a graduate student, she has visited University of Michigan in Ann Arbor twice, for a bunch of months in 2005 and in 2006, working mainly with Peter Railton and Stephen Darwall. She has also held an appointment as visiting scholar at University of Chicago from September 2007 to August 2008, under the supervision of Martha Nussbaum. Her tour of American universities has temporarily found a rest stop at Yale University, which she attends as a second-year PhD student. Her philosophical interests lie in ethics broadly intended, and especially in the crusty parts at the borders (she holds the same doctrine with baked goods). She is also intent in developing only a partial competence in ancient philosophy, because she believes that all the fun lies in not knowing what those guys actually believed. Her only real hobby, besides those things that one has to say to look intellectual, is dance. She has been trained as a ballet dancer, and tried to learn everything else in the last ten years and at Yale is a proud member of A Different Drum Dance Company.

Christina Rulli

Tina is a fifth year graduate student in philosophy. She is writing her dissertation on The Argument for Adoption, a sustained attempt to argue that we ought to prioritize the interests of existing persons over those of potential persons, specifically focusing on our procreative choices. As is relevant to her dissertation, Tina is interested in the following issues in moral philosophy: population ethics, moral options and preferential treatment. Part of Tina's dissertation will involve an examination of the moral significance, if any, of the genetic relationship between parent and child. Tina also enjoys working on international ethics, bioethics, aesthetics and metaphysics. Tina received her B.A. in Philosophy and German from the University of Denver in 2003. She spent 1 year at the University of Tuebingen.

Personal website: http://pantheon.yale.edu/~clr47/

Anat Schechtman

My dissertation focuses on the (in)famous proof for the existence of God in the Third Meditation, proposing that Descartes there argues?in transcendental fashion?that grasping the infinite is a condition for the possibility of grasping the finite. In addition to Descartes and Kant, my philosophical interests lie in early modern philosophy in general, in certain questions in philosophy of mathematics, and to an amateurish extent in aesthetics and philosophy of art. I attended Tel Aviv University for my undergraduate studies, where I majored in philosophy and mathematics. For the last three years I have helped organize the Society of Early Modern Philosophy at Yale (www.yale.edu/sempy).