Roger Woolhouse (1940 – 2011) bestudeerde vooral Leibniz en Locke, en ook Descartes en Spinoza, maar…

Roger Woolhouse was an English philosopher, Reader in Philosophy at the University of York, an expert on empiricism and rationalism and a biographer of John Locke. He has taught previously at the Universities of California, Pennsylvania, Princeton and Wales. [wiki] He was an eminent scholar, known especially for his work on Locke and Leibniz, who taught at the University of York from 1969 until his retirement in 2001. He died in 2011 and his obituaries can be read in The Times and The Yorkshire Post. [Cf. Roger Woolhouse Prize]

Na zijn dood werd eind juni, begin juli 2012 aan ‘zijn’ University of York een Roger Woolhouse Memorial Conference georganiseerd [cf. en zie poster hierboven]. Onder de sprekers was- voor zover mij bekend - geen Spinoza scholar aan te treffen. Uit de Introduction van Paul Lodge & Tom Stoneham (Eds.), Locke and Leibniz on Substance [Routledge, 2015] dat uit deze Memorial Conference ontstond, cf. books.google, dat de meeste sprekers spraken over de filosofen met wie ook Woolhouse zich het meest had besig gehouden: Leibniz en Locke.
Maar hij heeft zich ook enigszins bezig gehouden met Spinoza, zoals blijkt uit zijn

Roger Woolhouse, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz: The Concept of Substance in Seventeenth Century Metaphysics. London [e.a.], Routledge; [1 edition] 1993. Reprint Taylor & Francis, 2002 & Routledge, USA/Canada, 2002 - 224 pagina's  - Amazon – books.google

Rene Descartes (1596-1650), 'the father of philosophy,' set the scene for much philosophy from the seventeenth century to the present day. In particular, bis metaphysicalscheme with its distinction between extended substance and thinking substance, and his mechanical conception of the physical world greatly infiuenced the work ofthe two great mainland Euro}>E!an philosophers who followed him: Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677) and Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716). This book introduces and explains the metaphysics of these three thinkers on the assemptions that they are best understood via the concept of substance.

Reger Woolhouse provides a systematic treatment of the central metaphysical views of these important and interrelated philosophers, considering their area of agreement and disagreement. Going beyond the conventional classification of the three as 'The Rationalists,' he explores their accounts of what is real and how these lie at the heart of their philosophies. In particular, he shows how they provided conceptual foundations for the seventeenth-century science of mechanies. [Van hier]

This book introduces student to the three major figures of modern philosophy known as the rationalists. It is not for complete beginners, but it is an accessible account of their thought. By concerning itself with metaphysics, and in particular substance, the book relates an important historical debate largely neglected by the contemporary debates in the once again popular area of traditional metaphysics. in philosophy. [Philpapers]

Maar hoe zit ‘t met ‘zijn’ Spinoza?

Charles Huenemann wijst er in een eindnoot [#5] in zijn “The Middle Spinoza,” [in: Olli I. Koistinen, & John Biro, Spinoza: Metaphysical Themes. Oxford University Press, 2002] op dat

“Roger Woolhouse (1993) offers an interpretation of Spinoza according to which God is not extended but an essence grounding extended things. On this I think Woolhouse must be wrong. Clearly, when Spinoza claims that "God is an extended thing" (2p2) and when he argues at length for the conceivability of a divine extended substance (1p15s), he means to be declaring something with which an orthodox Cartesian would not agree.” Cf. books.google

Margaret D. Wilson echter dankt Woolhouse in een eindnoot [#62] bij haar "Spinoza's theory of knowledge" [in: Don Garrett (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza. Cambridge University Press, 1996 – books,google]: ”I am grateful to Roger Woolhouse for pointing out a problem in an earlier draft, with regard to my treatment of 2p17s. (I have made changes in response to his criticism; but may well not have fully accommodated it.) [..].
Als je Roger Woolhouse in zijn Starting with Leibniz [Bloomsbury Publishing, 2010] Leibniz niet hoort tegenspreken in zijn uitleg over het verschil in intellect tussen God en mens (met de beeldspraak over de blaffende hond en 't sterrembeeld hond) [of i daar Woolhouse zelf aan het woord?]  dan vraag ik me af of hij 2p/17s helemaal begrepen heeft. [cf. books.google].

Verder zijn van Woolhouse: Leibniz: Philosophical Texts (OUP, 1998) en Leibniz's 'New System' (OUP, 1997).

In zijn Roger Woolhouse, Locke: A Biography. Cambridge University Press, 2007 - Goodreads – books.google – komt de naam van Spinoza helemaal niet voor. Ook Wim Klever wijst hierop in zijn LOCKE’S DISGUISED SPINOZISM [PDF}, waarin hij schrijft: “Symptomatic [voor de veronachtzaming van Spinoza in Locke] is the recent comprehensive and voluminous biography of Roger Woolhouse, in which Spinoza’s name does not appear in the text or in the index of names.”
Ook Christopher Olaf Blum in zijn bespreking van 1-1-2008 in First Principles, verbaast zich mét argumenten over het ontbreken van Spinoza in deze biografie. [Cf. ook in Modern Age. A Conservative Review, Fall 2008 - Vol. 50, No. 4]