John Locke (1632-1704) is perhaps the greatest philosopher in the English language. A political activist in a revolutionary age, Locke's prolific correspondence opens up the cultural, social, intellectual, and political worlds of the later Stuart era. Spanning half a century, the letters trace the transition from Puritanism to the Enlightenment. A man of insatiable curiosity, Locke's letters encompass science (his correspondents include Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle), education, travel, religion, and the birth of the British empire.

Mary Wollstonecraft's Social and Aesthetic Philosophy examines Wollstonecraft's attempts to revise representations of women to give them a more active role in public life. Combining history of ideas with close textual reading, Bahar insists that Wollstonecraft's political claims cannot be separated from her desire to develop more convincing aesthetic representations of women.

This fresh orientation to Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" presents his central theme, the development of his Transcendental Idealism, as a ground-breaking response to perceived weaknesses in his predecessors' accounts of experiential knowledge.
Traces the central theme of the Critique, the development of Kant's Transcendental Idealism.
Offers new and original readings of the central arguments in both the Transcendental Aesthetic and the Transcendental Analytic.
Appraises the success and failure of Kant's project in the "Critique."

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was an outstanding contributor to many fields of human knowledge. The historiography of philosophy has tagged him as a "rationalist." But what does this exactly mean? Is he a "rationalist" in the same sense in Mathematics and Politics, in Physics and Jurisprudence, in Metaphysics and Theology, in Logic and Linguistics, in Technology and Medicine, in Epistemology and Ethics? What are the most significant features of his "rationalism," whatever it is?

For the first time an outstanding group of Leibniz researchers, some acknowledged as leading scholars, others in the beginning of a promising career, who specialize in the most significant areas of Leibniz's contributions to human thought and action, were requested to spell out the nature of his rationalism in each of these areas, with a view to provide a comprehensive picture of what it amounts to, both in its general drive and in its specific features and eventual inner tensions.

The chapters of the book are the result of intense discussion in the course of an international conference focused on the title question of this book, and were selected in view of their contribution to this topic. They are clustered in thematically organized parts. No effort has been made to hide the controversies underlying the different interpretations of Leibniz's "rationalism" - in each particular domain and as a whole. On the contrary, the editor firmly believes that only through a variety of conflicting interpretive perspectives can the multi-faceted nature of an oeuvre of such a magnitude and variety as Leibniz's be brought to light and understood as it deserves.

"Continuum's Guides for the Perplexed" are clear, concise and accessible introductions to thinkers, writers and subjects that students and readers can find especially challenging. Concentrating specifically on what it is that makes the subject difficult to fathom, these books explain and explore key themes and ideas, guiding the reader towards a thorough understanding of demanding material. Thomas Hobbes is one of the foremost British philosophers; his Leviathan stands as one of the most important single works in the history of political philosophy, and any student of philosophy will be required to develop a thorough knowledge and understanding of Hobbes. "Hobbes: A Guide for the Perplexed" is the ideal resource for any student wishing to really engage with, and develop a sound understanding of, the work of this major philosopher. The text systematically covers all those areas of philosophy where Hobbes is a key player: metaphysics; epistemology; moral philosophy; political philosophy; the philosophy of religion. It explores Hobbes' philosophical method in depth and offers a valuable account of the historical background to Hobbes' thought. Most valuably for the student reader, this book actively promotes philosophical inquiry and interpretation. In setting out the different interpretations of Hobbes, the text requires the reader to evaluate their respective merits on the basis of the evidence provided. "Hobbes: A Guide for the Perplexed", then, is both a philosophically rigorous introduction to Hobbes and an excellent primer in philosophical method, inquiry and debate.

The first study dedicated to the relationship between Alexander Pope and George Berkeley, this book undertakes a comparative reading of their work on the visual environment, economics and providence, challenging current ideas of the relationship between poetry and philosophy in early eighteenth-century Britain. It shows how Berkeley's idea that the phenomenal world is the language of God, learnt through custom and experience, can help to explain some of Pope's conservative sceptical arguments, and also his virtuoso poetic techniques.

In this book Peter Sedgwick puts forward a new case for viewing Nietzsche as an economic thinker, worthy to rank alongside Marx. Analysing Nietzsche's conception of economy, Sedgwick shows how it is taken by him to constitute the basic condition under which the 'human animal' developed. Economy, Nietzsche argues, endowed us with futurity: the ability to live with a view to long-term future possibilities rather than impulsively, as do other animals. Economy, in other words, is a defining aspect of human behaviour, underpinning the ways in which we estimate value, relate to others and attain self-understanding.

The concepts of alienation and its overcoming are central to Marx's thought. They underpin his critique of capitalism and his vision of future society. Marx's ideas are explained in rigorous and clear terms. They are situated in the context of the Hegelian ideas that inspired them and put into dialogue with contemporary debates.

This book offers an analysis of humor, comedy, and laughter as philosophical topics in the 19th Century. It traces the introduction of humor as a new aesthetic category inspired by Laurence Sterne's "Tristram Shandy" and shows Sterne's deep influence on German aesthetic theorists of this period. Through differentiating humor from comedy, the book suggests important distinctions within the aesthetic philosophies of G.W.F. Hegel, Karl Solger, and Jean Paul Richter. The book links Kant's underdeveloped incongruity theory of laughter to Schopenhauer's more complete account and identifies humor's place in the pessimistic philosophy of Julius Bahnsen. It considers how caricature functioned at the intersection of politics, aesthetics, and ethics in Karl Rosenkranz's work, and how Kierkegaard and Nietzsche made humor central not only to their philosophical content but also to its style. The book concludes with an explication of French philosopher Henri Bergson's claim that laughter is a response to mechanical inelasticity.

Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy is an annual series, presenting a selection of the best current work in the history of early modern philosophy. It focuses on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries -- the extraordinary period of intellectual flourishing that begins, very roughly, with Descartes and his contemporaries and ends with Kant. It also publishes papers on thinkers or movements outside of that framework, provided they are important in illuminating early modern thought.
The articles in OSEMP will be of importance to specialists within the discipline, but the editors also intend that they should appeal to a larger audience of philosophers, intellectual historians, and others who are interested in the development of modern thought.

This book presents a new introduction to Hume, guiding the student through the key concepts of Hume's work by examining the overall development of his ideas. David Hume is widely regarded as the greatest English thinker in the history of philosophy. His contributions to a huge range of philosophical debates are as important and influential now as they were in the eighteenth century. Covering all the key concepts of his work, "Starting with Hume" provides an accessible introduction to the ideas of this hugely significant thinker. Clearly structured according to Hume's central ideas, the book leads the reader through a thorough overview of the development of his thought, resulting in a more thorough understanding of the roots of his philosophical concerns. Offering comprehensive coverage of Hume's philosophical method, the book explores his contributions to philosophy of mind, causation, the foundation of ethics, natural virtues and philosophy or religion. Crucially the book introduces the major philosophical movements and thinkers whose work proved influential in the development of Hume's thought, including Nicolas Malebranche, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke. This is the ideal introduction for anyone coming to the work of this hugely important thinker for the first time. "Continuum's Starting with..." series offers clear, concise and accessible introductions to the key thinkers in philosophy. The books explore and illuminate the roots of each philosopher's work and ideas, leading readers to a thorough understanding of the key influences and philosophical foundations from which his or her thought developed. Ideal for first-year students starting out in philosophy, the series will serve as the ideal companion to study of this fascinating subject.

Romantic Organicism attempts to reassess the much maligned and misunderstood notion of organic unity. Following organicism from its crucial radicalization in German Idealism, it shows how both Coleridge and Wordsworth developed some of their most profound ideas and poetry on its basis. Armstrong shows how the tenets and ideals of organicism--despite much criticism--remain an insistent, if ambivalent, backdrop for much of our current thought, including the work of Derrida amongst others.

"Coleridge and the Crisis of Reason" examines Coleridge's understanding of the Pantheism Controversy - the crisis of reason in German philosophy - and reveals the context informing Coleridge's understanding of German thinkers. It challenges previous accounts of Coleridge's philosophical engagements, forcing a reconsideration of his reading of figures such as Schelling, Jacobi and Spinoza. This exciting new study establishes the central importance of the contested status of reason for Coleridge's poetry, accounts of the imagination and later religious thought.

Markus Gabriel re-assesses the contributions of Hegel and Schelling to post-Kantian metaphysics and the contributions of these great German Idealist thinkers to contemporary thought. "Transcendental Ontology in German Idealism: Schelling and Hegel" sheds remarkable light on a question central to post-Kantian philosophy: after the Copernican Revolution in philosophy, what can philosophy say about the world or reality as such? What remains of ontology's task after Kant? This is a question often overlooked in contemporary scholarship on German Idealism. Markus Gabriel offers a refreshing reinvigoration of a range of questions concerning scepticism, corporeality, freedom, the question of being, the absolute and the modal status of our determinations and judgments, all crucial to our understanding of the truly radical nature of post-Kantian philosophy. Gabriel's assessment of the experiments undertaken in post-Kantian ontology reaffirms Schelling's and Hegel's place at the heart of contemporary metaphysics. This book shows how far we still have to go in mining the thought of Hegel and Schelling and how exciting, as a result, we can expect twenty-first century philosophy to be. Continuum Studies in Philosophy presents cutting-edge scholarship in all the major areas of research and study. The wholly original arguments, perspectives and research findings in titles in this series make it an important and stimulating resource for students and academics from a range of disciplines across the humanities and social sciences.

This book presents an extended dialogue in essay form between specialists in the work of Moses Mendelssohn, and experts in important trends in related late-seventeenth and eighteenth century thought. The first group of contributors explores themes in Mendelssohn's metaphysics and aesthetics, presenting both their internal argumentative coherence and their historical context. The second outlines the context of Mendelssohn's views on specific topics, and describes his contribution to the discussion of them.

The essays are organized in four sections. The first pairs two essays on Mendelssohn's theory of language and writing. The second section offers three essays addressing a number of topics in Mathematics and philosophy in Mendelssohn. A group of eight essays follows, dealing with Metaphysics in a historical context. The fourth section presents five essays discussing Mendelssohn's Aesthetics in a historical context.

"Moses Mendelssohn's Metaphysics and Aesthetics" arises from a conference held in Amsterdam in 2009, which gathered numerous authorities to address the central theme. Taken together, these eighteen essays present a sophisticated portrait of Mendelssohn, packed with detail and rich in complexity."

Spinoza's political thought has been subject to a significant revival of interest in recent years. As a response to difficult times, students and scholars have returned to this founding figure of modern philosophy as a means to help reinterpret and rethink the political present. Spinoza's Authority Volume I: Resistance and Power in Ethics makes a significant contribution to this ongoing reception and utilization of Spinoza's political thought by focusing on his posthumously published Ethics. By taking the concept of authority as an original framework, this books asks: How is authority related to ethics, ontology, and epistemology? What are the social, historical and representational processes that produce authority and resistance? And what are the conditions of effective resistance? Spinoza's Authority features a roster of internationally established theorists of Spinoza's work, and covers key elements of Spinoza's political philosophy, including: questions of authority, the resistance to authority, sovereign power, democratic control, and the role of Spinoza's "multitudes".

Spinoza believed that there was only one substance in reality, which he called 'God or nature'. A number of leading contemporary philosophers have defended monism, this strange and beautiful idea that the cosmos is the source of all being. This book explores both the historical roots of the monism in Spinoza, and its flowering in the 21st century.

This book centres on Samuel Pufendorf's (1632-1694) moral and political philosophy, a subject of recently renewed interest among intellectual historians, philosophers and legal scholars in the English-speaking world. Pufendorf's significance in conceptualizing sociability in a way that ties moral philosophy, the theory of the state, political economy, and moral psychology together has already been acknowledged, but this book is the first systematic investigation of the moral psychological underpinnings of Pufendorf's theory of sociability in their own right. Readers will discover how Pufendorf's psychological and social explanation of sociability plays a crucial role in his natural law theory. By drawing attention to Pufendorf's scattered remarks and observations on human psychology, a new interpretation of the importance of moral psychology is presented. The author maintains that Pufendorf's reflection on the psychological and physical capacities of human nature also matters for his description of how people adopt sociability as their moral standard in practice. We see how, since Pufendorf's interest in human nature is mainly political, moral psychological formulations are important for Pufendorf's theorizing of social and political order. This work is particularly useful for scholars investigating the multifaceted role of passions and emotions in the history of moral and political philosophy. It also affords a better understanding of what later philosophers, such as Smith, Hume or Rousseau, might have find appealing in Pufendorf's writings. As such, this book will also interest researchers of the Enlightenment, natural law and early modern philosophy.

This book claims that continental philosophy gives us a new understanding of digital technology, and software in particular; its main thesis being that software is like a text, so it involves a hermeneutic process. A hermeneutic understanding of software allows us to explain those aspects of software that escape a strictly technical definition, such as the relationship with the user, the human being, and the social and cultural transformations that software produces. The starting point of the book is the fracture between living experience and the code. In the first chapter, the author argues that the code is the origin of the digital experience, while remaining hidden, invisible. The second chapter explores how the software can be seen as a text in Ricoeur's sense. Before being an algorithm, code or problem solving, software is an act of interpretation. The third chapter connects software to the history of writing, following Kittler's suggestions. The fourth chapter unifies the two parts of the book, the historical and the theoretical, from a Kantian perspective. The central thesis is that software is a form of reflective judgment, namely, digital reflective judgement.

Two decades ago, Schelling first resurfaced in Zizek's Indivisible Remainder, and the same argumentative move of redeploying Schellingian themes for contemporary ends has continued to play a significant role in critical theory since (Markus Gabriel, Iain Hamilton Grant, Jean-Luc Nancy). All the articles in this volume attempt to take seriously the idea of Schelling as a contemporary philosopher: Schelling is read in dialogue with key figures in the canon of European philosophy and critical theory (Alain Badiou, Emilie du Chatelet, Gilles Deleuze, Paul de Man, Quentin Meillassoux, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Gilbert Simondon, Slavoj Zizek), as well as in light of recent trends in analytic philosophy (Brandomian pragmatism, powers-based metaphysics and semantic naturalism) - and such readings are not meant merely to highlight Schellingian influences or resonances in contemporary thinking but rather to challenge and interrogate current orthodoxies by insisting upon the contemporaneity of Schellingian speculation. That is, the aim is both to evaluate and constructively build upon this repeated return to Schelling: to probe, to diagnose and to experiment on the latent Schellingianisms of the present and the future. This book was originally published as a special issue of Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities.

Exceptional Crime in Early Modern Spain accounts for the representation of violent and complex murders, analysing the role of the criminal, its portrayal through rhetorical devices, and its cultural and aesthetic impact. Proteic traits allow for an understanding of how crime is constructed within the parameters of exception, borrowing from pre-existent forms while devising new patterns and categories such as criminography, the "star killer", the staging of crimes as suicides, serial murders, and the faking of madness. These accounts aim at bewildering and shocking demanding readers through a carefully displayed cult to excessive behaviour. The arranged "economy of death" displayed in murder accounts will set them apart from other exceptional instances, as proven by their long-standing presence in subsequent centuries.

Hegel and the Future of Systematic Philosophy critically rethinks and extends Hegel's project for systematic philosophy without foundations, engaging the most important contemporary debates concerning logic, epistemology, metaphysics, nature, mind, economic justice, political freedom, globalization, and literary theory.

Henry Sidgwick's The Methods of Ethics challenges comparison, as no other work in moral philosophy, with Aristotle's Ethics in the depth of its understanding of practical rationality, and in its architectural coherence it rivals the work of Kant. In this historical, rather than critical study, Professor Schneewind shows how Sidgwick's arguments and conclusions represent rational developments of the work of Sidgwick's predecessors, and brings out the nature and structure of the reasoning underlying his position.