Jacqueline Broad explores the writings of such women philosophers as Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway, Mary Astell and Catherine Trotter Cockburn. Broad demonstrates their relevance to current feminist scholarship. Her book is an accessible study of thinkers whose importance to the history of philosophy is increasingly recognized.

As well as being considered the greatest English political philosopher, Hobbes has traditionally been thought of as a purely secular thinker, highly critical of all religion. In this provocative new study, Professor Martinich argues that conventional wisdom has been misled. In fact, he shows that religious concerns pervade Leviathan and that Hobbes was really intent on providing a rational defense of the Calvinistic Church of England that flourished under the reign of James I. Professor Martinich presents a close reading of Leviathan in which he shows that, for Hobbes, Christian doctrine is not politically destabilizing and is consistent with modern science.

This volume offers, for the first time, accurate translations of a selection of writings from Nietzsche's late notebooks, dating from his last productive years between 1885 and 1889. Many of them have never before been published in English. They are translated by Kate Sturge from reliable texts in the Colli-Montinari edition, and edited by RÜdiger Bittner, whose introduction analyzes them in the context of Nietzsche's philosophy as a whole. This volume will be widely welcomed by all those working in Nietzsche studies.

This book explains the background and rationale of the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s notorious attack on Isaac Newton’s classic theory of white light and colors. Though the merits of Goethe’s color science, as advanced in his massive Zur Farbenlehre, have often been acknowledged, it has been almost unanimously proclaimed invalid as physics. How could Goethe have been so mistaken? In his book, Dennis Sepper shows that the condemnation of Goethe’s attacks on Newton has been based on erroneous assumptions about the history of Newton’s theory and the methods and goals of Goethe’s color science. By illuminating the historical background and the experimental, methodological, and philosophical aspects of Goethe’s work, the author shows that his color theory is in an important sense genuinely physical and that, as simultaneously poet, scientist, historian, and philosopher, Goethe managed to anticipate important twentieth-century research not only in the history and philosophy of science, but even in color science itself.

Edmund Burke (1730-1797) was one of the most profound, versatile, and accomplished thinkers of the eighteenth century. Born and educated in Dublin, he moved to London to study law, but remained to make a career in English politics, completing A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) before entering the political arena. A Member of Parliament for nearly thirty years, his speeches are still read and studied as classics of political thought, and through his best-known work, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) he has continued to exercise a posthumous influence as "the father of conservatism."
In this, the first of two volumes, F.P. Lock covers the years between 1730-1784, and describes Burke's Irish upbringing and education, early writing, and his parliamentary career throughout the momentous years of the American War of Independence. Lavishly illustrated, the book provides an authoritative account of the complexity and breadth of Burke's philosophical and political writing and examines its origins in his personal experiences and the political world of his day.

In this major study of the foundations of modern political theory, the eminent political philosopher Ross Harrison explains, analyzes, and criticizes the work of Hobbes, Locke and their contemporaries. He provides a complete account of the turbulent historical background that shaped the political, intellectual and religious content of this philosophy. The book explores the limits of political authority and the relationship of the legitimacy of government to the will of its people in non-technical, accessible prose.

Copleston, an Oxford Jesuit and specialist in the history of philosophy, first created his history as an introduction for Catholic ecclesiastical seminaries. However, since its first publication (the last volume appearing in the mid-1970s) the series has become the classic account for all philosophy scholars and students. The 11-volume series gives an accessible account of each philosopher's work, but also explains their relationship to the work of other philosophers.

This is the first book in English on the early works of the German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814). It examines the transcendental theory of self and world from the writings of Fichte's most influential period (1794-1800), and considers in detail recently discovered lectures on the Foundations of Transcendental Philosophy. Combining incomparable erudition, sensitive readings of some of the most difficult of philosophical texts, clarity in exposition and an acute awareness of historical context, this book takes its place as the ideal introduction to Fichte's thought.

This is the second of two collections of correspondence written by early modern English women philosophers. In this volume, Jacqueline Broad presents letters from three influential thinkers of the eighteenth century: Mary Astell, Elizabeth Thomas, and Catharine Trotter Cockburn. Broad provides introductory essays for each figure and explanatory annotations to clarify unfamiliar language, content, and historical context for the modern reader. Her selections make available many letters that have never been published before or that live scattered in various archives, obscure manuscripts, and rare books. The discussions range in subject from moral theology and ethics to epistemology and metaphysics; they involve some well-known thinkers of the period, such as John Norris, George Hickes, Mary Chudleigh, John Locke, and Edmund Law. By centering epistolary correspondence, Broad's anthology works to reframe early modern philosophy, the foundation for so much of twentieth-century philosophy, as consisting of collaborative debates that women actively participated in and shaped. Together with its companion volume, Women Philosophers of Eighteenth-Century England: Selected Correspondence is an invaluable primary resource for students, scholars, and those undertaking further research in the history of women's contributions to the formation and development of early modern thought.

Herder is a figure of considerable importance in the history of philosophy and the history of ideas. His far-reaching influence encompasses philosophy--Hegel, Schleiermacher, Nietzsche, literature--Goethe, Schiller and linguistics--von Humboldt. This volume presents a comprehensive selection of his writings in a new translation, with an introduction that sets them in their philosophical and historical context.

The Hegel Lectures Series
Series Editor: Peter C. Hodgson
Hegel's lectures have had as great a historical impact as the works he himself published. Important elements of his system are elaborated only in the lectures, especially those given in Berlin during the last decade of his life. The original editors conflated materials from different sources and dates, obscuring the development and logic of Hegel's thought. The Hegel Lectures series is based on a selection of extant and recently discovered transcripts and manuscripts. Lectures from specific years are reconstructed so that the structure of Hegel's argument can be followed. Each volume presents an accurate new translation accompanied by an editorial introduction and annotations on the text, which make possible the identification of Hegel's many allusions and sources.
Hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion represent the final and in some ways the decisive element of his entire philosophical system. His conception and execution of the lectures differed significantly on each of the occasions he delivered them, in 1821, 1824, 1827, and 1831. The older editions introduced insoluble problems by conflating these materials into an editorially constructed text. The present volumes establish a critical edition by separating the series of lectures and presenting them as independent units on the basis of a complete re-editing of the sources by Walter Jaeschke. The English translation has been prepared by a team consisting of Robert F. Brown, Peter C. Hodgson, and J. Michael Stewart, with the assistance of H. S. Harris. Now widely recognized as the definitive English edition, it is being reissued by Oxford in the HegelLectures Series. The three volumes include editorial introductions, critical annotations on the text, textual variants, and tables, bibliography, and glossary.
"The Consummate Religion" is Hegel's name for Christianity, which he also designates "the Revelatory Religion." Here he offers a speculative interpretation of major Christian doctrines: the Trinity, creation, humanity, estrangement and evil, Christ, the Spirit, the spiritual community, church and world. These interpretations have had a powerful and controversial impact on modern theology.

This is the first book-length study of two of Descartes's most innovative successors; Robert Desgabets and Pierre-Sylvain Regis; and of their highly original contributions to Cartesianism. Relating their work to that of fellow Cartesians such as Malebranche and Arnauld, the book establishes the important though neglected role played by Desgabets and Regis in the theologically and politically charged reception of Descartes in early-modern France. This major contribution to the history of Cartesianism is of interest to historians of early-modern philosophy and historians of ideas.

Scholars in the early seventeenth century who studied ancient Greek scientific theories often drew upon philology and history to reconstruct a more general picture of the Greek past. Gassendi's training as a humanist historiographer enabled him to formulate a conception of the history of philosophy in which the rationality of scientific and philosophical inquiry depended on the historical justifications which he developed for his beliefs. Professor Joy examines this conception and analyzes the nature of Gassendi's historical training, especially its relationship to his career as a physicist and astronomer. She shows how he rehabilitated Epicurean atomism by bringing together the arguments of the Greek atomists and those of his contemporaries. In doing so, he produced an account of the natural world which made it an object of empirical study and mechanical explanation.

This study explores the theme of freedom in the philosophy of Hegel and Nietzsche. First, Will Dudley sets Hegel's Philosophy of Right within a larger systematic account and deploys the Logic to interpret it. He demonstrates that freedom involves not only the establishment of certain social and political institutions but also the practice of philosophy itself. Then, he reveals how Nietzsche's discussions of decadence, nobility and tragedy lead to an analysis of freedom that critiques heteronomous choice and Kantian autonomy, and ultimately issues a positive conception of liberation.

In this study of Robert Boyle's epistemology, Jan W. Wojcik reveals the theological context within which Boyle developed his views on reason's limits. After arguing that a correct interpretation of his views on 'things above reason' depends upon reading his works in the context of theological controversies in seventeenth-century England, Professor Wojcik details exactly how Boyle's three specific categories of things which transcend reason - the incomprehensible, the inexplicable, and the unsociable - affected his conception of what a natural philosopher could hope to know. Also covered in detail is Boyle's belief that God had deliberately limited the human intellect in order to reserve a full knowledge of both theology and natural philosophy for the afterlife.

In Of Liberty and Necessity James A. Harris presents the first comprehensive account of the free will problem in eighteenth-century British philosophy. Harris proposes new interpretations of the positions of familiar figures such as Locke, Hume, Edwards, and Reid. He also gives careful attention to writers such as William King, Samuel Clarke, Anthony Collins, Lord Kames, James Beattie, David Hartley, Joseph Priestley, and Dugald Stewart, who, while well-known in the eighteenth century, have since been largely ignored by historians of philosophy. Through detailed textual analysis, and by making precise use of a variety of different contexts, Harris elucidates the contribution that each of these writers makes to the eighteenth-century discussion of the will and its freedom.
In this period, the question of the nature of human freedom is posed principally in terms of the influence of motives upon the will. On one side of the debate are those who believe that we are free in our choices. A motive, these philosophers believe, constitutes a reason to act in a particular way, but it is up to us which motive we act upon. On the other side of the debate are those who believe that, on the contrary, there is no such thing as freedom of choice. According to these philosophers, one motive is always intrinsically stronger than the rest and so is the one that must determine choice. Several important issues are raised as this disagreement is explored and developed, including the nature of motives, the value of "indifference" to the will's freedom, the distinction between "moral" and "physical" necessity, the relation between the will and the understanding, and the internal coherence of the concept offreedom of will.
One of Harris's primary objectives is to place this debate in the context of the eighteenth-century concern with replicating in the mental sphere what Newton had achieved in the philosophy of nature. All of the philosophers discussed in Of Liberty and Necessity conceive of themselves as "experimental" reasoners, and, when examining the will, focus primarily upon what experience reveals about the influence of motives upon choice. The nature and significance of introspection is therefore at the very center of the free will problem in this period, as is the question of what can legitimately be inferred from observable regularities in human behavior.

This account of the basic theme of Vico's mature philosophy explores the question of whether philosophical theories can ever be more than an intellectual expression of the underlying beliefs of an age. The first complete English translation of the 1725 text, Vico's The First New Science ia now accessible to a broad, new readership. It is accompanied by a glossary, bibliography, chronology of Vico's life and expository introduction.

This account of the basic theme of Vico's mature philosophy explores the question of whether philosophical theories can ever be more than an intellectual expression of the underlying beliefs of an age. The first complete English translation of the 1725 text, Vico's The First New Science ia now accessible to a broad, new readership. It is accompanied by a glossary, bibliography, chronology of Vico's life and expository introduction.

This volume is the first to assemble the writings that Kant published to popularize, summarize, amplify and defend the doctrines of his masterwork, the 1781 Critique of Pure Reason. The Prolegomena is often recommended to students, but the other texts are also important representatives of Kant's intellectual development. The series includes copious linguistic notes and a glossary of key terms. The editorial introductions and explanatory notes reveal much about the critical reception given Kant by the metaphysicians of his day as well as his own efforts to derail his opponents.

In the crucible of intellectual change that took place in the seventeenth century, the role of Samuel Hartlib was of immense significance. Hartlib (originally from Elbing) settled in England permanently from the late 1620s until his death in 1662. His aspirations formed a distinctive and influential strand in English intellectual life during those revolutionary decades. This volume reflects the variety of the theoretical and practical interests of Hartlib's circle and presents them in their continental context.

Henry More (1614-87) was the greatest English metaphysical theologian and the most perplexing; he was also perhaps the most distinguished member of the group of divines known as the Cambridge Platonists. An admirer of Galileo, Descartes and Boyle, he rejected their detailed applications of mechanical philosophy to the explanation of natural phenomena. He was an experimenter, yet also a cabalist, and one of the few writers whom Newton acknowledged as having influenced his ideas. First published in 1990, this thorough and accessible biography is the first book-length treatment of this remarkable character. Hall illuminates More's important contributions to science, particularly his work on space and time which influenced Newton, and gives fascinating insights into his spiritual philosophy and his preoccupation with witchcraft. The depth of Professor Hall's scholarship makes the book an exceptional account of the turbulent world of the Scientific Revolution.

The dominant moral philosophy of nineteenth century Britain was utilitarianism, beginning with Bentham and ending with Sidgwick. Though once overshadowed by his immediate predecessors in that tradition (especially John Stuart Mill), Sidgwick is now regarded as a figure of great importance in the history of moral philosophy. Indeed his masterpiece, The Methods of Ethics (1874) has been described by John Rawls as the "most philosophically profound" of the classical utilitarian works. In this volume a distinguished group of philosophers reassesses the full range of Sidgwick's work, not simply his ethical theory, but also his contributions as a historian of philosophy, a political theorist, and a reformer.

In this important essay, Joseph Mali argues that Vico’s New Science must be interpreted according to Vico’s own clues and rules of interpretation, principally his claim that the ‘master-key’ of his New Science is the discovery of myth. Following this lead Mali shows how Vico came to forge his new scientific theories about the mythopoeic constitution of consciousness, society, and history by reappraising, or ‘rehabilitating’ the ancient and primitive mythical traditions which still persist in modern times. He further relates Vico’s radical redefinition of these traditions as the ’true narrations’ of all religious, social, and political practices in the ‘civil world’ to his unique historical depiction of Western civilisation as evolving in a-rational and cyclical motions. On this account, Mali elaborates the wider, distinctly ‘revisionist’, implications of Vico’s New Science for the modern human sciences. He argues that inasmuch as the New Science exposed the linguistic and other cultural systems of the modern world as being essentially mythopoeic, it challenges not only the Christian and Enlightenment ideologies of progress in his time, but also the main cultural ideologies of our time.

Hume's discussion of the idea of space in his Treatise on Human Nature is fundamental to an understanding of his treatment of such central issues as the existence of external objects, the unity of the self, and the relation between certainty and belief. Marina Frasca-Spada's rich and original study examines this difficult part of Hume's philosophical writings and connects it to eighteenth-century works in natural philosophy, mathematics and literature. Her analysis points the way to a reassessment of the central current interpretative questions in Hume studies.

Towards the end of his life, Descartes published the first four parts of a projected six-part work, The Principles of Philosophy. This was intended to be the definitive statement of his complete system of philosophy, dealing with everything from cosmology to the nature of human happiness. Stephen Gaukroger examines the system, and reconstructs the last two parts, "On Living Things" and "On Man", from Descartes' other writings. He relates the work to the tradition of late Scholastic textbooks which it follows, and also to Descartes' other philosophical writings.