Michael Allen Gillespie

Michael Allen Gillespie is an American philosopher and Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at Duke University. His areas of interest are political philosophy, continental philosophy, history of philosophy, and the origins of modernity. He has published on the relationship between theology and philosophy, medieval theology, liberalism, and a number of philosophers such as Nietzsche, Hegel, Heidegger and Kant.

In his late works, Gillespie has specialized on the relationship between religion and politics. His last book titled "The Theological Origins of Modernity" and his article "The Antitrinitarian Origins of Liberalism" revealed the extent to which modern thought is indebted to Christianity, contributing to the breaking of the cliché that modernity is a decisive break from the Middle Ages. In its preface, Gillespie puts forth the main objective of "The Theological Origins of Modernity":

"This book is an examination of the origins of modernity that is informed by this new scholarship and that seeks to demonstrate the importance of understanding the origins of modernity for coming to terms with the problems we now confront in our globalizing world. It is especially concerned to demonstrate the central role that religion and theology played in the formation of the idea of modernity."

After his last works on the relationship between theology and philosophy, in a survey titled "Political Theory Today: Results of a National Survey", carried out by the California Polytechnic State University, Gillespie was listed amongst the top twenty most influential philosophers of the next twenty years.

• The Theological Origins of Modernity
• Antitrinitarian Origins of Liberalism (notable article)
• Socinianism and the Political Theology of Liberalism (a chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Political Theology. Ed. M. Kessler and S. Casey)
• Hegel, Heidegger and the Ground of History
• Nihilism before Nietzsche
• Nietzsche's New Seas: Explorations in Philosophy, Aesthetics, and Politics (ed)
• Ratifying the Constitution (ed.)
• Homo Politics, Homo Economicus (ed.)
• The Problems of Modernity and the Possibilities of Human Thriving (notable article)
• The Inevitable Entanglement of Religion and Politics (notable article)