Michael Della Rocca

Michael Della Rocca (born 1962) is Sterling Professor of Philosophy at Yale University and a specialist in early modern philosophy, especially Spinoza, and in metaphysics.

Education and career
Della Rocca earned his B.A. at Harvard University and his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley under the supervision of Benson Mates. He joined the Yale faculty in 1991, and was promoted to Sterling Professor in 2021. Among his doctoral students is Yitzhak Melamed.

Philosophical work
His interpretation of Spinoza emphasizes the centrality of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Daniel Garber, another leading Spinoza scholar, has argued against this interpretation.

Books

 * Representation and the Mind-Body Problem in Spinoza (Oxford University Press, 1996)
 * Spinoza (Routledge, 2008)
 * The Parmenidean Ascent (Oxford University Press, 2020)