Heidi Ravven - Biography

Biography

Although originally trained as a historian of medieval and early modern philosophy at Brandeis University, Ravven is now an expert on ethics and philosophy, specializing on the 17th century philosopher, Baruch Spinoza, and on the medieval Jewish philosopher, Moses Maimonides. She has also published on Jewish feminism and on the philosopher G.W.F. Hegel. Her work on Spinoza has led her to explore how contemporary neuroscience, especially the neuroscience of the emotions, affects common notions of ethics.

With a four-year grant from the Ford Foundation, Ravven is currently writing a book called What Happened to Ethics: Searching for Ethics in a New America, in which she intends to explore how the philosopher Baruch Spinoza's ethics can provide a more humane ethical vision that could enable us to rethink American identity and values. She is investigating the history of the way standard philosophy and Western culture in general approaches ethics, its shortcomings, and how it could be improved.

Recently Ravven has argued that recent neuroscience largely confirms Spinoza's theory of the emotions and the ethical and political theories that Spinoza built upon that basis. Neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, systems theorists, and psychoanalysts have been eager to learn more about Spinoza. Ravven is published widely in interdisciplinary journals and has spoken at conferences around the world. As one of the founding members of the philosophical association, The Society for Empirical Ethics, Ravven has been helping to develop a dialogue between philosophers and neurobiologists and other scientists about ethics.