The Long Quarrel: Past and Present in the Eighteenth Century examines how the intellectual clashes emerging from the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns continued to reverberate until the end of the eighteenth century. This extended Quarrel was not just about the value of ancient and modern, but about historical thought in a broader sense. The tension between ancient and modern expanded into a more general tension between past and present, which were no longer seen as essentially similar, but as different in nature. Thus, a new kind of historical consciousness came into being in the Long Quarrel of the eighteenth century, which also gave rise to new ideas about knowledge, art, literature and politics. Contributors are: Jacques Bos, Anna Cullhed, Hakon Evju, Vera Fasshauer, Andrew Jainchill, Anton M. Matytsin, Iain McDaniel, Larry F. Norman, David D. Reitsam, Jan Rotmans, Friederike Vosskamp, and Christine Zabel.

This collection brings together two of Schopenhauer's most respected works, wherein the philosopher shares his views on life and what he believes to be follies of human behavior. Writing with incisive poise and a great sense of humor, Schopenhauer introduces the various ideas present in his pessimistic philosophy. Holding the usual goals of life - money, position, material and sexual pleasures - in low regard, he explains how the cultivation of one's individuality and mind are far better pursuits, albeit those that most people neglect. Rather than simply criticize the state of humanity, Schopenhauer uses wit and lively argument to convince the reader of the value in his outlook. The practice of an ordinary life and career is thereby demonstrated as spiritually draining, in contrast to concentration upon a wise mind and strong body, plus a moderated or even ascetic approach to material things.

The Bible is the crucible within which were forged many of the issues most vital to philosophy during the early modern age. Different conceptions of God, the world, and the human being have been constructed (or deconstructed) in relation to the various approaches and readings of the Holy Scriptures. This book explores several of the ways in which philosophers interpreted and made use of the Bible. It aims to provide a new perspective on the subject beyond the traditional opposition "faith versus science" and to reflect the philosophical ways in which the Sacred Scriptures were approached. Early modern philosophers can thus be seen to have transformed the traditional interpretation of the Bible and emphasized its universal moral message. In doing so, they forged new conceptions about nature, politics, and religion, claiming the freedom of thought and scientific inquiry that were to become the main features of modernity. Contributors include Simonetta Bassi, Stefano Brogi, Claudio Buccolini, Simone D'Agostino, Antonella Del Prete, Diego Donna, Matteo Favaretti Camposampiero, Guido Giglioni, Franco Giudice, Sarah Hutton, Giovanni Licata, Edouard Mehl, Anna Lisa Schino, Luisa Simonutti, Pina Totaro, and Francesco Toto.

Anxiety looms large in historical works of philosophy and psychology. It is an affect, philosopher Bettina Bergo argues, subtler and more persistent than our emotions, and points toward the intersection of embodiment and cognition. While scholars who focus on the work of luminaries as Freud, Levinas, or Kant often study this theme in individual works, they seldom draw out the deep and significant connections between various approaches to anxiety. This volume provides a sweeping study of the uncanny career of anxiety in nineteenth and twentieth century European thought. Anxiety threads itself through European intellectual life, beginning in receptions of Kant's transcendental philosophy and running into Levinas' phenomenology; it is a core theme in Schelling, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. As a symptom of an interrogation that strove to take form in European intellectual culture, Angst passes through Schelling's romanticism into Schopenhauer's metaphysical vitalism, before it is explored existentially by Kierkegaard. And, in the twentieth century, it proves an extremely central concept for Heidegger, even as Freud is exploring its meaning and origin over a thirty year-long period of psychoanalytic development. This volume opens new windows onto philosophers who have never yet been put into dialogue, providing a rigorous intellectual history as it connects themes across two centuries, and unearths the deep roots of our own present-day "age of anxiety."