Brian Lightbody

Professor, Philosophy

B.A. McMaster
B.A. Brock
M.A. Brock
Ph.D. Dominican University College, Ottawa

Office: GLN-B 343
905-688-5550, x5313
blightbody@brocku.ca

Office hours

Areas of specialization: 
Action Theory, 19-20th century Continental Philosophy, Philosophical Genealogy, Nietzsche, Foucault and Epistemology

Areas of competence:
Bioethics, Logic, Philosophy of History, Ethic

Research Interests

  • Nietzsche and Naturalism
  • Metaphors and Fallacies
  • The Philosophy of Emotions

Recent teaching activities:
Foucault, Introduction to Philosophy, Bioethics, Logic

Publications

Books (Monographs):

  • Lightbody, Brian. A Genealogical Analysis of Nietzschean Drive Theory (London: U.K. Palgrave Macmillan), 2023.
  • Lightbody, Brian. Nietzsche’s Will to Power Naturalized: Translating the Human into Nature and Nature into the Human. (Lanham Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, Lexington Books), 2017, 230 p.
  • Lightbody, Brian. Dispersing the Clouds of Temptation. Turning Away From Weakness of Will and Turning Towards the Sun. (Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick Press, A Division of Wipf and Stock Publishers), 2015. 142 P.
  • Lightbody, Brian. The Problem of Naturalism: Analytic Perspectives, Continental Virtues. (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, a division of Rowman and Littlefield), 2013. 146p.
  • Lightbody, Brian. Philosophical Genealogy: An Epistemological Reconstruction of Nietzsche and Foucault’s Philosophical Genealogy (New York: American University Studies Series V. Vol. 9, Peter Lang USA, Publishers Inc) Vol. 2, 2011. 176p.
  • Lightbody, Brian. Philosophical Genealogy: An Epistemological Reconstruction of Nietzsche and Foucault’s Genealogical Method (New York: American University Studies V. Vol. 8, New York: Peter Lang Press, USA, Publishers Inc.), Vol. 1, 2010. 203p.


Books: Co-edited Volumes:

  • DeRoo, Neal and Lightbody, Brian. Editors. The Logic of Incarnation. James K. A. Smith’s Critique of Postmodern Religion.(Eugene: Oregon, Pickwick Publications (a division of Wipf and Stock Publishers), 2008, 232p.

Books Chapters:

  • Lightbody, Brian. “Indecidability and ‘Undecidability’: Does Derrida’s Ethics Depend on Levinas’ Notion of the Third?” (Chapter Four of The Logic of Incarnation. James K.A. Smith’s Critique of Postmodern Religion) pp. 71-84.

Refereed Articles:

  • Lightbody, Brian. “A Being on Facebook but Not a Being of Facebook: Using New Social Media Technologies to Promote the Virtues of Jacque Ellul.” Ellul Forum, Volume 55, September, 2014.
  • Lightbody, Brian and Berman, Michael. “The Metaphoric Fallacy to a Deductive Inference”. Informal Logic: Reasoning and Argumentation in Theory and Practice, Vol. 30, No. 2, 2010, pp. 185-193.
  • Lightbody, Brian. “Can We Truly Love That Which is Fleeting? The Problem of Time in Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization.” The Florida Philosophical Review, Volume X Number 1 Summer 2010, pp. 25-42.
  • Lightbody, Brian. “Nietzsche, Perspectivism, Anti-Realism: An Inconsistent Triad”, The European Legacy: Towards New Paradigms, Vol. 15 issue 4, 2010, pp. 425-438.
  • Lightbody, Brian. “Charting the Future Course for a Truly Humanistic Science: Husserl, the Epoche, and the Life-World,” Essays in the Philosophy of Humanism (A Journal of the American Humanist Association), 17 (1), 61-71, spring-summer, 2009.
  • Lightbody, Brian. “Responding to the Call: Philosophy as Human Wonderment,” Essays in the Philosophy of Humanism (A Journal of the American Humanist Association), 16(1), Spring-Summer 2008, pp. 27-37.
  • Lightbody, Brian. “Theseus vs. The Minotaur: Finding the Common Thread in the Foucault Chomsky-Debate” Studies in Social and Political Thought, Issue 8, Spring 2003, 67-83.
  • Lightbody, Brian.  “Artificial and Unconscious Selection in Nietzsche’s Genealogy: Expectorating the Poisoned Pill of the Lamarckian Reading.” Genealogy, 34.3 June, 2019.
  • Lightbody, Brian. “Letting the Truth Out: Children, Naïve Truth and Deflationsim” Kriterion: Journal of Philosophy 34 (1) May, 2019, 1-26
  • Lightbody, Brian. “Twilight of the Genealogy or A Genealogy of Twilight? Saving Nietzsche’s Internalization Hypothesis from Naïve Determinism.” Philosophical Readings, Volume 3, Sept 2021 183-194.
  • Lightbody, Brian. “The Passive Body and States of Nature: An Examination of the Methodological Role State of Nature Theory Plays in Williams and Nietzsche.” Special Issue: Philosophical Genealogy from Nietzsche to Williams Genealogy 5 (2), 38, 2021, 1-15.
  • Lightbody, Brian. “The Relations of Affect and the Spiritual: Towards a Foucauldian Genealogy of Spirituality.” Philosophy Today, 65.1, Winter 2021, 163-181
  • Lightbody, Brian. “Socratic Appetites as Plotinian Reflectors: A New Interpretation of Plotinus’s Socratic Intellectualism.” The Journal of Ancient Philosophy, Vol. 14 No.1, 2020, pp. 91-115.
  • Lightbody, Brian. “Hermeneutics vs. Genealogy: Brandom’s Cloak or Nietzsche’s Quilt?” The European Legacy, Vol. 25. Issue 6, 2020, pp.635-652.
  • Lightbody, Brian. “On Becoming Fearful Quickly: A Reinterpretation of Aristotle’s Somatic Model of Socratean Akrasia.” The Journal of Ancient Philosophy, Vol. 17 Issue 2, 2023, 134-161.
  • Lightbody, Brian. “Reconstructing Philosophical Genealogy from the Ground Up: What Truly is Philosophical Genealogy and What Purpose Does It Serve?” Genealogy 98, 7 (4) 1-20, 2023.
  • Lightbody, Brian. “Critical Review Essay of Lawrence Hatab’s Genealogy of Morality: An Introduction and David Owen’s Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morality.” New Nietzsche Studies 11 (3) 135-152, 2021 (2024).