'Majestic, ambitious' Literary Review _________________________________________________________________________________________ We are endlessly fascinated by the French. We are fascinated by their way of life, their creativity, sophistication and self-assurance, and even their insistence that they are exceptional. But how did France become the country it is today, and what really sets it apart? Journalist and historian Peter Watson sets out to answer these questions in The French Mind, a dazzling history of France that takes us from the seventeenth century to the present day through the nation's most influential thinkers. He opens the doors to the Renaissance salons that were a breeding ground for poets, philosophers and scientists, and tells the forgotten stories of the extraordinary succession of women who ran these institutions, fostering a culture of stylish intellectualism unmatched anywhere else in the world. It's a story that takes us into Bohemian cafes and cabarets, into chic Parisian high culture via French philosophies of food, fashion and sex, while growing unrest hastens the bloody birth of a republic. From the 1789 revolution to the country's occupation by Nazi Germany, Watson argues that a unique series of devastating military defeats helped shape the resilient, proud, innovative character of the French. This is a history of breathtaking ambition, propelled by the characters Watson brings to vivid life: the writers, revolutionaries and painters who loved, inspired and rivalled one another over four hundred years. It documents the shaping of a nation whose global influence, in art, culture and politics, cannot be overstated. _____________________________________________________________________ 'An encyclopaedic celebration of French intellectuals refusing to give up on universal principles, rooted in the Enlightenment and French Revolution, while remaining slim, bringing up well-behaved children and falling in love at every opportunity' The Times 'An engaging movement through time towards France's recent reckonings with extremism, exceptionalism and empire' TLS

While Kierkegaard is primarily known as a philosopher or religious thinker, his writings have also been used extensively by literary writers, critics and artists. This use can be traced in the work of major cultural figures not just in Denmark and Scandinavia but also in the wider world. They have been attracted to his creative mixing of genres, his complex use of pseudonyms, his rhetoric and literary style, and his rich images, parables, and allegories. The present volume documents this influence in the different language groups and traditions. Tome IV examines Kierkegaard's surprisingly extensive influence in the Anglophone world of literature and art, particularly in the United States. His thought appears in the work of the novelists Walker Percy, James Baldwin, Flannery O'Conner, William Styron, Don Delillo, and Louise Erdrich. He has also been used by the famous American literary critics, George Steiner and Harold Bloom. The American composer Samuel Barber made use of Kierkegaard in his musical works. Kierkegaard has also exercised an influence on British and Irish letters. W.H. Auden sought in Kierkegaard ideas for his poetic works, and the contemporary English novelist David Lodge has written a novel Therapy, in which Kierkegaard plays an important role. Cryptic traces of Kierkegaard can also be found in the work of the famous Irish writer James Joyce.

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Seventeenth-century philosophy scholars come together in this volume to address the Insiders--Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, and Hobbes--and Outsiders--Pierre Gassendi, Kenelm Digby, Theophilus Gale, Ralph Cudworth and Nicholas Malebranche--of the philosocial canon, and the ways in which reputations are created and confirmed. In their own day, these ten figures were all considered to be thinkers of substantial repute, and it took some time for the Insiders to come to be regarded as major and original philosophers. Today these Insiders all feature in the syllabi of most history of philosophy courses taught in western universities, and the papers in this collection, contrasting the stories of their receptions with those of the Outsiders, give an insight into the history of philosophy which is generally overlooked.

While Kierkegaard is primarily known as a philosopher or religious thinker, his writings have also been used extensively by literary writers, critics and artists worldwide who have been attracted to his creative mixing of genres, his complex use of pseudonyms, his rhetoric and literary style, and his rich images, parables, and allegories. The goal of the present volume is to document this influence in different language groups and traditions. Tome I explores Kierkegaard's influence on literature and art in the Germanophone world. He was an important source of inspiration for German writers such as Theodor Fontane, Thomas Mann, Rainer Maria Rilke, Alfred Andersch, and Martin Walser. Kierkegaard's influence was particularly strong in Austria during the generation of modernist authors such as Rudolf Kassner, Karl Kraus, Robert Musil, and Hermann Broch. Due presumably in part to the German translations of Kierkegaard in the Austrian cultural journal Der Brenner, Kierkegaard continued to be used by later figures such as the novelist and playwright, Thomas Bernhard. His thought was also appropriated in Switzerland through the works of Max Frisch and Friedrich DA1/4rrenmatt. The famous Czech author Franz Kafka identified personally with Kierkegaard's love story with Regine Olsen and made use of his reflections on this and other topics.

This anthology of readings in contemporary Western philosophy focuses on 19th-century philosophers who represent a variety of responses to the issue of their day: whether or not there was a knowable, nonhuman rational order upon which thinking persons could willfully choose to act. The selections are readable and accessible, yet remain faithful to the original works. Accompanying the text are drawings, diagrams, photographs, and a timeline; all of which allow the reader to really study the major philosophical thinkers of the 19th-century: Bentham, Wollstonecraft, Fichte, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Comte, Feuerbach, Mill, Kierkegaard, Marx, Peirce, James, and Nietzche. For anyone interested in owning a collection of works from the greatest philosophical thinkers in the 19th-century.

Paul L. Holmer (1916-2004) was one of the most significant American students of Kierkegaard of his generation. Although written in the 1950s and 1960s, Holmer's theological and philosophical engagement with Kierkegaard challenges much contemporary scholarly discussion. Unlike many, Holmer refuses reductionist readings that tie Kierkegaard to any particular "school." He likewise criticizes biographical readings of Kierkegaard, much in vogue recently, seeing Kierkegaard rather as an indirect communicator aiming at his reader's own ethical and religious capacities. Holmer also rejects popular existentialist readings of Kierkegaard, seeing him as an analyzer of concepts, while at the same time denying that he is a "crypto-analyst." In his important reading of Kierkegaard on "truth," Holmer pits Kierkegaard against those who see "truth" empirically, idealistically, or relativistically. His carefully textured account of Kierkegaard's conceptual grammar of "truth" in ethical and religious contexts addresses immediately current discussions of truth, meaning, reference, and realism versus antirealism, relativism, and hermeneutics. It will be of great interest to all interested in Kierkegaard and his importance for contemporary theology and philosophy.

Conceptualism is the view that cognizers can have mental representations of the world only if they possess the adequate concepts by means of which they can specify what they represent. By contrast, non-conceptualism is the view that mental representations of the world do not necessarily presuppose concepts by means of which the content of these representations can be specified, thus cognizers can have mental representations of the world that are non-conceptual. Consequently, if conceptualism is true then non-conceptualism must be false, and vice versa. This incompatibility makes the current debate over conceptualism and non-conceptualism a fundamental controversy since the range of conceptual capacities that cognizers have certainly has an impact on their mental representations of the world, on how sense perception is structured, and how external world beliefs are justified. Conceptualists and non-conceptualists alike refer to Kant as the major authoritative reference point from which they start and develop their arguments. The appeal to Kant attempts to pave the way for a robust answer to the question of whether or not there is non-conceptual content. Since the incompatibility of the conceptualist and non-conceptualist readings of Kant indicate a paradigm case, hopes have risen that the answer to the question of whether Kant is a conceptualist or a non-conceptualist might settle the contemporary controversy across the board. This volume searches for that answer. This book is based on a special issue of the International Journal of Philosophical Studies.

Although Soren Kierkegaard's death in the fall of 1855 foreshadowed a lasting split between conservative Christians and young contemporaries who saw him as a revolutionary thinker, it was not until the turn of the twentieth century and beyond the borders of his native Denmark that his lasting significance came to be felt. By transcending distinctions of genre, Kierkegaard brought traditionally separated disciplines to bear on deep human concerns and was able, through his profound self-insight, to uncover the strategies with which we try to deal with them. As a result, he is hailed today as no less than the father of modern psychology and existentialism.

While the majority of Kierkegaard's work leading up to The Concept of Anxiety dealt with the intersection of faith and knowledge, here the renowned Danish philosopher turns to the perennial question of sin and guilt. First published in 1844, this concise treatise identified long before Freud anxiety as a deep-seated human state, one that embodies the endless struggle with our own spiritual identities. Ably synthesizing human insights with Christian dogma, Kierkegaard's "psychological deliberation" suggests that our only hope in overcoming anxiety is not through powder and pills but by embracing it with open arms. Indeed, for Kierkegaard, it is only through our experiences with anxiety that we are able to become truly aware of ourselves and the freedoms and limitations of our own existence.

While Kierkegaard's Danish prose is surprisingly rich, previous translations the most recent in 1980 have tended either to deaden its impact by being excessively literal or to furnish it with a florid tone foreign to its original directness. In this new edition, Alastair Hannay re-creates its natural rhythm in a way that will finally allow this overlooked classic not only to become as celebrated as Fear and Trembling, The Sickness unto Death, and Either/Or but also to earn a place as the seminal work of existentialism and moral psychology that it is."

Kierkegaard has always enjoyed a rich reception in the fields of theology and religious studies. This reception might seem obvious given that he is one of the most important Christian writers of the nineteenth century, but Kierkegaard was by no means a straightforward theologian in any traditional sense. He had no enduring interest in some of the main fields of theology such as church history or biblical studies, and he was strikingly silent on many key Christian dogmas. Moreover, he harbored a degree of animosity towards the university theologians and churchmen of his own day. Despite this, he has been a source of inspiration for numerous religious writers from different denominations and traditions. Tome III explores the reception of Kierkegaard's thought in the Catholic and Jewish theological traditions. In the 1920s Kierkegaard's intellectual and spiritual legacy became widely discussed in the Catholic Hochland Circle, whose members included Theodor Haecker, Romano Guardini, Alois Dempf and Peter Wust. Another key figure of the mid-war years was the prolific Jesuit author Erich Przywara. During and especially after World War II Kierkegaard's ideas found an echo in the works of several trend-setting Catholic theologians of the day such as Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri de Lubac and the popular spiritual author Thomas Merton. The second part of Tome III focuses on the reception of Kierkegaard's thought in the Jewish theological tradition, introducing the reader to authors who significantly shaped Jewish religious thought both in the United States and in Israel. These theologians represent a variety of religious and political backgrounds: the spiritual world of Hasidism, Modern Orthodox Judaism of Mithnaggedic origin, and Modern Religious Zionism.

First published in 1977 this volume challenges the accepted interpretations of Bentham's political thought and in particular the landmark criticism by John Stuart Mill and Elie Halevy, the author consulted the extensive manuscript collections left by Bentham to the University of London and the British museum in the preparation of this volume.

Kierkegaard's relation to the field of philosophy is a particularly complex and disputed one. He rejected the model of philosophical inquiry that was mainstream in his day and was careful to have his pseudonymous authors repeatedly disassociate themselves from philosophy. But although it seems clear that Kierkegaard never regarded himself as a philosopher, there can be no doubt that his writings contain philosophical ideas and insights and have been profoundly influential in a number of different philosophical traditions.The present volume attempts to document these different traditions of the philosophical reception of Kierkegaard's thought. Tome III traces Kierkegaard's influence on Anglophone philosophy. It has long been thought that Kierkegaard played no role in this tradition, which for years was dominated by analytic philosophy. In this environment it was common to dismiss Kierkegaard along with the then current European philosophers who were influenced by him. However, a closer look reveals that in fact there were several thinkers in the US, Canada and Great Britain who were inspired by Kierkegaard even during the heyday of analytic philosophy. Today it can be said that Kierkegaard has made some serious inroads into mainstream Anglophone philosophy, with many authors seeking inspiration in his works for current discussions concerning ethics, personal identity, philosophy of religion, and philosophical anthropology.

Philosophy begins with wonder, according to Plato and Aristotle. Yet Plato and Aristotle did not expand a great deal on what precisely wonder is. Does this fact alone not raise curiosity in us as to why this passion or concept is important? What is wonder's role in science, philosophy, or theology except to end thinking or theorizing as soon as one begins? The primary purpose of this book is to show how seventeenth- and eighteenth-century developments in natural theology, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, and the philosophy of science resulted in a complex history of the passion of wonder-a history in which the elements of continuation, criticism, and reformulation are equally present. Philosophy Begins in Wonder provides the first historical overview of wonder and changes the way we see early modern Europe. It is intended for readers who are curious-who wonder-about how modern philosophy and science were born. The book is for scholars and educated readers alike.

The most comprehensive collection of essays on Descartes' scientific writings ever published, this volume offers a detailed reassessment of Descartes' scientific work and its bearing on his philosophy. The 35 essays, written by some of the world's leading scholars, cover topics as diverse as optics, cosmology and medicine, and will be of vital interest to all historians of philosophy or science.

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Kierkegaard has long been known as a philosopher and theologian, but his contributions to psychology, anthropology and sociology have also made an important impact on these fields. In many of the works of his complex authorship, Kierkegaard presents his intriguing and unique vision of the nature and mental life of human beings individually and collectively. The articles featured in the present volume explore the reception of Kierkegaard's thought in the social sciences. Of these fields Kierkegaard is perhaps best known in psychology, where The Concept of Anxiety and The Sickness unto Death have been the two most influential texts. With regard to the field of sociology, social criticism, or social theory, Kierkegaard's Literary Review of Two Ages has also been regarded as offering valuable insights about some important dynamics of modern society..

Jeremy Bentham, the father of utilitarianism, not only created a philosophical system which sought a rational solution to the problems of ethics, but was also concerned with the practical application of his theories to social reforms, administration, education and the law. This reissued volume represents a comprehensive collection of essays on Bentham's work from J. S. Mill to the year of the book's first publication in 1974. The wide range of Bentham's concern and the varied reactions he provoked are well represented by the essays in this volume. It begins with Mill's famous appraisal of the virtues and deficiencies of the theory that had so much influence on his own, followed by the criticisms of perhaps the ablest of Bentham's (and Mill's) contemporary opponents, William Whewell. Bentham's psychology and analysis of human motivation is dealt with by John Watson, and in the editor's own essay on the thorny problem of the justification of the principle of utility, the whole question of the link between specific human desires and the general desire for pleasure is examined as a psychological as well as a logical problem. The seldom-considered subject of Bentham's logic and the way in which he anticipates in some respects the work of Frege and Wittgenstein is considered by H. L. A. Hart, who has also contributed a paper on the question of sovereignty. Bentham's Political Fallacies is examined by Professor Burns, and the Constitutional Code and its projection of Bentham's ideal republic as considered by Thomas Peardon makes interesting reading in the light of David Robert's analysis of the impact Bentham had on the Victorian administrative state. Finally, there is Wesley C. Mitchell's interesting paper on the notorious felicific calculus. The editor has written an extensive introduction which will prove useful not only to those unfamiliar with Bentham's writings but to those acquainted with only one aspect of his work. Philosophers, jurists and political scientists should all find something of interest in this collection.

"A highly readable account of Nietzsche's ongoing influence. It is a useful guide, accurate and well-organized. Highly recommended." - Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews "A superb achievement. The author's coverage of the phenomenon of Nietzscheanism is admirably comprehensive and hugely instructive. Students and teachers alike will find lucid and informative accounts of the nature and impact of Nietzsche's ideas on seminal movements in twentieth-century thought such as existentialism, poststructuralism and naturalism, as well as helpful treatments of important topics such as Nietzsche and posthumanism and Nietzsche and politics." -Keith Ansell-Pearson, University of Warwick "This is a terrific book, very highly recommended: an indispensable guide to the most productive areas of Nietzsche's influence. Students and researchers alike will appreciate its scope and currency." - Duncan Large, Swansea University "A clear, concise guide to Nietzsche's extraordinarily rich and varied impact on philosophy in the twentieth century. Understanding Nietzscheanism will be welcomed by students and scholars alike." - Nicholas Martin, University of Birmingham A comprehensive and hugely instructive survey of the nature and impact of Nietzsche's thought across the twentieth century.

Satire was core to the work of Thomas Hobbes although his critics also used it as a weapon to ridicule him. Condren uses Hobbes as an example to demonstrate that an examination of the persona is needed to advance our understanding of a writer's philosophy. He demonstrates that satire and philosophy were closely linked during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, offering a new perspective on the nature of philosophy during this period.

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.

This concise overview of the perception of Islam in eight of the most important German thinkers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries allows a new and fascinating investigation of how these thinkers, within their own bodies of work, often espoused contradicting ideas about Islam and their nearest Muslim neighbors. Exploring a variety of 'neat compartmentalizations' at work in the representations of Islam, as well as distinct vocabularies employed by these key intellectuals (theological, political, philological, poetic), Ian Almond parses these vocabularies to examine the importance of Islam in the very history of German thought. Almond further demonstrates the ways in which German philosophers such as Hegel, Kant, and Marx repeatedly ignored information about the Muslim world that did not harmonize with the particular landscapes they were trying to paint ? a fact which in turn makes us reflect on what it means when a society possesses 'knowledge' of a foreign culture.

First published in 1905, this reissued edition of The Philosophical Works of Francis Bacon is an edited collection based upon the definitive seven volume edition of 1857, translated and prefaced by Robert Leslie Ellis and James Spedding. Of great historical, philosophical and scientific interest, this collection brings together translations of Bacon's most important works, including the Novum Organum, the De Augmentis Scientarium, the Parasceve, and the De Principiis atque Originibus, as well as works originally written in English, such as the Valerius Terminus and the Filum Labyrinthi. The reissue offers a comprehensive and provocative collection of the key writings of the man we now consider to be the father of Empiricism who popularised inductive methodologies for scientific inquiry. All works include prefaces by Robert Leslie Ellis and James Spedding, and the collection includes an introductory note from the editor John M. Robertson.

First published in 1905, this reissued edition of The Philosophical Works of Francis Bacon is an edited collection based upon the definitive seven volume edition of 1857, translated and prefaced by Robert Leslie Ellis and James Spedding.

Of great historical, philosophical and scientific interest, this collection brings together translations of Bacon 's most important works, including the Novum Organum, the De Augmentis Scientarium, the Parasceve, and the De Principiis atque Originibus, as well as works originally written in English, such as the Valerius Terminus and the Filum Labyrinthi. The reissue offers a comprehensive and provocative collection of the key writings of the man we now consider to be the father of Empiricism who popularised inductive methodologies for scientific inquiry. All works include prefaces by Robert Leslie Ellis and James Spedding, and the collection includes an introductory note from the editor John M. Robertson.

"Kant's Critique of Pure Reason" remains one of the landmark works of Western philosophy. Most philosophy students encounter it at some point in their studies but at nearly 700 pages of detailed and complex argument it is also a demanding and intimidating read. James O'Shea's short introduction to "CPR" aims to make it less so. Aimed at students coming to the book for the first time, it provides step by step analysis in clear, unambiguous prose. The conceptual problems Kant sought to resolve are outlined, and his conclusions concerning the nature of the faculty of human knowledge and possibility of metaphysics, and the arguments for those conclusions, are explored. In addition he shows how the "Critique" fits into the history of modern philosophy and how transcendental idealism affected the course of philosophy. Key concepts are explained throughout and the student is provided with an excellent route map through the various parts of the text.

"Kant's Critique of Pure Reason" remains one of the landmark works of Western philosophy. Most philosophy students encounter it at some point in their studies but at nearly 700 pages of detailed and complex argument it is also a demanding and intimidating read. James O'Shea's short introduction to "CPR" aims to make it less so. Aimed at students coming to the book for the first time, it provides step by step analysis in clear, unambiguous prose. The conceptual problems Kant sought to resolve are outlined, and his conclusions concerning the nature of the faculty of human knowledge and possibility of metaphysics, and the arguments for those conclusions, are explored. In addition he shows how the "Critique" fits into the history of modern philosophy and how transcendental idealism affected the course of philosophy. Key concepts are explained throughout and the student is provided with an excellent route map through the various parts of the text.