Michael Allen Gillespie

Michael Allen Gillespie (born January 24, 1951) is an American philosopher and Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at Duke University. He completed his undergraduate work at Harvard University with an interdisciplinary major in philosophy and government. His graduate work was completed in Political Science at the University of Chicago. 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 later works, Gillespie has specialized on the relationship between religion and politics. His books "Nihilism Before Nietzsche," "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.