This is a step-by-step guide to Kant's first work on moral philosophy. "Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals" is considered a standard text in the history of moral philosophy as well as a classic work of moral philosophy in its own right. This guide provides a paragraph-by-paragraph account of the main themes of Kant's moral philosophy and a clear statement of his overall philosophical aims and arguments. It is an essential toolkit for anyone approaching Kant for the first time.

Each Cambridge Companion to a philosophical figure is made up of specially commissioned essays by an international team of scholars, providing students and non-specialists with an introduction to a major philosopher. The series aims to dispel the intimidation that readers may feel when faced with the work of a challenging thinker. David Hume is now considered one of the most important philosophers of the Western world. Although best known for his contributions to the theory of knowledge, metaphysics, and philosophy of religion, Hume also influenced developments in the philosophy of mind, psychology, ethics, political and economic theory, political and social history, and aesthetic theory. The fifteen essays in this volume address all aspects of Hume's thought. The picture of him that emerges is that of a thinker who, though often critical to the point of skepticism, was nonetheless able to build on that skepticism a constructive, viable, and profoundly important view of the world. Also included in this volume are Hume's two brief autobiographies and a bibliography suited to those beginning their study of Hume. This second edition of one our most popular Companions includes six new essays and a new introduction, and the remaining essays have all been updated or revised.

Descartes is often accused of having fragmented the human being into two independent substances, mind and body, with no clear strategy for explaining the apparent unity of human experience. Deborah Brown argues that, contrary to this view, Descartes did in fact have a conception of a single, integrated human being, and that in his view this conception is crucial to the success of human beings as rational and moral agents and as practitioners of science. The passions are pivotal in this, and in a rich and wide-ranging discussion she examines Descartes' place in the tradition of thought about the passions, the metaphysics of actions and passions, sensory representation, and Descartes' account of self-mastery and virtue. Her study is an important and original reading not only of Descartes' account of mind-body unity but also of his theory of mind.

The Cambridge Companion to Hegel and Nineteenth-Century Philosophy examines Hegel within his broader historical and philosophical contexts. Covering all major aspects of Hegel's philosophy, the volume provides an introduction to his logic, epistemology, philosophy of mind, social and political philosophy, philosophy of nature and aesthetics. It includes essays by an internationally recognized team of Hegel scholars. The volume begins with Terry Pinkard s article on Hegel s life, a conspectus of his biography on Hegel. It also explores some new topics much neglected in Hegel scholarship: such as Hegel s hermeneutics and relationship to mysticism. Aimed at students and scholars of Hegel, this volume will be essential reading for anyone interested in nineteenth-century philosophy. The up-to-date bibliography includes the most important English-language literature on Hegel written in the last fifteen years."

Of all the thinkers of the century of genius that inaugurated modern philosophy, none lived an intellectual life more rich and varied than Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716). Maria Rosa Antognazza's pioneering biography provides a unified portrait of this unique thinker and the world from which he came. At the centre of the huge range of Leibniz's apparently miscellaneous endeavours, Antognazza reveals a single master project lending unity to his extraordinarily multifaceted life's work. Throughout the vicissitudes of his long life, Leibniz tenaciously pursued the dream of a systematic reform and advancement of all the sciences. As well as tracing the threads of continuity that bound these theoretical and practical activities to this all-embracing plan, this illuminating study also traces these threads back into the intellectual traditions of the Holy Roman Empire in which Leibniz lived and throughout the broader intellectual networks that linked him to patrons in countries as distant as Russia and to correspondents as far afield as China.

Insofern Erziehung auf die Zukunft gerichtet ist, bedarf sie der Hoffnung. Und wer nicht hofft, kann auch nicht erziehen. Doch die nicht selten euphorisch zu nennende Erwartung, dass man von einer wissenschaftlich begrundeten Erziehung auch eine entscheidende Weltverbesserung erhoffen konne, durfte wesentlich eine Erfindung der anhebenden Neuzeit gewesen sein. Die ubliche padagogische Ideengeschichte sieht in Comenius zumeist einen vormodernen Gegenpol zum technisch-zivilisatorischen Denken der Neuzeit - und ubersah damit notwendig wesentliche Kontinuitaten. Denn es war Comenius, der mit seiner pansophischen Systematik zuerst die Hoffnung verband, eine solcherart durchkonstruierte Erziehungsmaschine begrundet zu haben, dass eine wahrhaft pansophisch ausgerichtete Erziehung auch einen unfehlbaren Erziehungserfolg verburgen musse. Ein mentalitatsgeschichtlicher Zugang vermag dabei zu zeigen, wie sich die padagogischen Hoffnungen des Comenius entwickelt und zeitgleich mit der pansophischen Systematik ausgepragt haben. "Je durchdachter die Systematik wurde, desto unfehlbarer sollte auch die Erziehung werden." Mit einer vollkommen realisierten pansophischen Erziehung wurden sich also alle Hoffnungen auf eine Weltverbesserung "erfullen"; alles, was bis dahin zukunftsgerichtete Hoffnung war, wurde also mit der Pampaedia zur erfullten Gegenwart werden. Von der menschlichen "resignation" der Fruhschriften uber die gott-menschliche "cooperatio "der pansophischen Programmschriften fuhrt solcherart der Weg zur intendierten "omnipotentia "des Menschen, an welcher schliesslich auch die Erziehung teilhaben soll. Unter der Rucksicht der longue duree ist Comenius damit nicht nur "ein," sondern letztlich "der "Begrunder der padagogischen Moderne. Seit Comenius produziert wissenschaftlich-systematisches Denken immer neue Erziehungshoffnungen, die sich sodann durch gesellschaftliche Erwartungshaltungen selbstlaufend "re"-produzieren und die Nachfrage nach padagogischer Wissenschaftlichkeit wiederum steigern. Doch die Welt hat sich bis heute bekanntlich nicht verbessern lassen - trotz einer uber 350 Jahre alten Tradition wissenschaftlich begrundeter Padagogik

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.

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 study develops a detailed reading of the interrelations between aesthetics, ideology, language, gender and political economy in two highly influential works by Edmund Burke: his Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757), and the Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). Tom Furniss's close attention to the rhetorical labyrinths of these texts is combined with an attempt to locate them within the larger discursive networks of the period, including texts by Locke, Hume and Smith. This process reveals that Burke's contradictions and inconsistencies are symptomatic of a strenuous engagement with the ideological problems endemic to the period. Burke's dilemma in this respect makes the Reflections an audacious compromise which simultaneously defends the ancien regime, contributes towards the articulation of radical thought, and makes possible the revolution which we call English Romanticism.

Spectres of False Divinity presents a historical and critical interpretation of Hume's rejection of the existence of a deity with moral attributes. In Hume's view, no first cause or designer responsible for the ordered universe could possibly have moral attributes; nor could the existence (or non-existence) of such a being have any real implications for human practice or conduct. Hume's case for this 'moral atheism' is a central plank of both his naturalistic agenda in metaphysics and his secularizing program in moral theory. It complements his wider critique of traditional theism, and threatens to rule out any religion that would make claims on moral practice. Thomas Holden situates Hume's commitment to moral atheism in its historical and philosophical context, offers a systematic interpretation of his case for divine amorality, and shows how Hume can endorse moral atheism while maintaining his skeptical attitude toward traditional forms of cosmological and theological speculation.

Why was Leibniz so fascinated by Chinese philosophy and culture? What specific forms did his interest take? How did his interest compare with the relative indifference of his philosophical contemporaries and near-contemporaries such as Spinoza and Locke? In this highly original book, Franklin Perkins examines Leibniz's voluminous writings on the subject and suggests that his interest was founded in his own philosophy: the nature of his metaphysical and theological views required him to take Chinese thought seriously. Leibniz was unusual in holding enlightened views about the intellectual profitability of cultural exchange, and in a broad-ranging discussion Perkins charts these views, their historical context, and their social and philosophical ramifications. The result is an illuminating philosophical study which also raises wider questions about the perils and rewards of trying to understand and learn from a different culture.

Why must we believe that God is dead? Can we accept that traditional morality is just a 'useful mistake'? Did the principle of 'the will to power' lead to the Holocaust? What are the limitations of scientific knowledge? Is human evolution complete or only beginning? It is difficult to overestimate the importance of Friedrich Nietzsche for our present epoch. His extraordinary insights into human psychology, morality, religion and power seem quite clairvoyant today: existentialism, psychoanalysis, semiotics and postmodernism are plainly anticipated in his writings - which are famously enigmatic and often contradictory."Introducing Nietzsche" is the perfect guide to this exhilarating and oft-misunderstood philosopher.

Anthropology, History, and Education, first published in 2007, contains all of Kant's major writings on human nature. Some of these works, which were published over a thirty-nine year period between 1764 and 1803, had never before been translated into English. Kant's question 'What is the human being?' is approached indirectly in his famous works on metaphysics, epistemology, moral and legal philosophy, aesthetics and the philosophy of religion, but it is approached directly in his extensive but less well-known writings on physical and cultural anthropology, the philosophy of history, and education which are gathered in the present volume. Kant repeatedly claimed that the question 'What is the human being?' should be philosophy's most fundamental concern, and Anthropology, History, and Education can be seen as effectively presenting his philosophy as a whole in a popular guise.

Diotima's Children is a re-examination of the rationalist tradition of aesthetics which prevailed in Germany in the late seventeenth and eighteenth century. It is partly an historical survey of the central figures and themes of this tradition But it is also a philosophical defense of some of its leading ideas, viz., that beauty plays an integral role in life, that aesthetic pleasure is the perception of perfection, that aesthetic rules are inevitable and valuable. It shows that the criticisms of Kant and Nietzsche of this tradition are largely unfounded. The rationalist tradition deserves re-examination because it is of great historical significance, marking the beginning of modern aesthetics, art criticism, and art history.

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.

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. The original lecture series 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. Lectures on the Proofs of the Existence of God Hegel lectured on the proofs of the existence of God as a separate topic in 1829. He also discussed the proofs in the context of his lectures on the philosophy of religion (1821-31), where the different types of proofs were considered mostly in relation to specific religions. The text that he prepared for his lectures in 1829 was a fully formulated manuscript and appears to have been the first draft of a work that he intended to publish and for which he signed a contract shortly before his death in 1831. The 16 lectures include an introduction to the problem of the proofs and a detailed discussion of the cosmological proof. Philipp Marheineke published these lectures in 1832 as an appendix to the lectures on the philosophy of religion, together with an earlier manuscript fragment on the cosmological proof and the treatment of the teleological and ontological proofs as found in the 1831 philosophy of religion lectures. Hegel's 1829 lectures on the proofs are of particular importance because they represent what he actually wrote as distinct from auditors' transcriptions of oral lectures. Moreover, they come late in his career and offer his final and most seasoned thinking on a topic of obvious significance to him, that of the reality status of God and ways of knowing God. These materials show how Hegel conceived the connection between the cosmological, teleological, and ontological proofs. All of this material has been newly translated by Peter C. Hodgson from the German critical editions by Walter Jaeschke. This edition includes an editorial introduction, annotations on the text, and a glossary and bibliography.

Unlike most of the other great philosophers Leibniz never wrote a magnum opus, so his philosophical correspondence is essential for an understanding of his views. This collection of essays by pre-eminent figures in the field of Leibniz scholarship is a most thorough account of Leibniz's philosophical correspondencee. It both illuminates Leibniz's philosophical views and pays due attention to the dialectical context in which the relevant passages from the letters occur. The result is a book of enormous value to all serious students of early-modern philosophy and the history of ideas.

The nineteenth century is a period of stunning philosophical originality, characterised by radical engagement with the emerging human sciences. Often overshadowed by twentieth century philosophy which sought to reject some of its central tenets, the philosophers of the nineteenth century have re-emerged as profoundly important figures.

The Routledge Companion to Nineteenth Century Philosophy is an outstanding survey and assessment of the century as a whole. Divided into seven parts and including thirty chapters written by leading international scholars, the Companion examines and assesses the central topics, themes, and philosophers of the nineteenth century, presenting the first comprehensive picture of the period in a single volume:

• German Idealism
• philosophy as political action, including young Hegelians, Marx and Tocqueville
• philosophy and subjectivity, including Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche
• scientific naturalism, including Darwinism, philosophy of race, experimental psychology and Neo-Kantianism
• utilitarianism and British Idealism
• American Idealism and Pragmatism
• new directions in Mind and Logic, including Brentano, Frege and Husserl.

The Routledge Companion to Nineteenth Century Philosophy is essential reading for students of philosophy, and for anyone interested in this period in related disciplines such as politics, history, literature and religion.

The period from Kant to Hegel is one of the most intense and rigorous in modern philosophy. The central problem at the heart of it was the development of a new standard of theoretical reflection and of the principle of rationality itself. The essays in this volume, published in 2000, consider both the development of Kant's system of transcendental idealism in the three Critiques, the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, and the Opus Postumum, as well as the reception and transformation of that idealism in the work of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel.

In this rich and detailed study of early modern women's thought, Jacqueline Broad explores the complexity of women's responses to Cartesian philosophy and its intellectual legacy in England and Europe. She examines the work of thinkers such as Mary Astell, Elisabeth of Bohemia, Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway and Damaris Masham, who were active participants in the intellectual life of their time and were also the respected colleagues of philosophers such as Descartes, Leibniz and Locke. She also illuminates the continuities between early modern women's thought and the anti-dualism of more recent feminist thinkers. The result is a more gender-balanced account of early modern thought than has hitherto been available. Broad's clear and accessible exploration of this still-unfamiliar area will have a strong appeal to both students and scholars in the history of philosophy, women's studies and the history of ideas.

This is a comprehensive study in English of Bruno Bauer, a leading Hegelian philosopher of the 1840s. Inspired by the philosophy of Hegel, Bauer led an intellectual revolution that influenced Marx and shaped modern secular humanism. In the process he offered a republican alternative to liberalism and socialism, criticized religious and political conservatism and set out the terms for the development of modern mass and industrial society. Based on in-depth archival research this book traces the emergence of republican political thought in Germany before the revolutions of 1848. Professor Moggach examines Bauer's republicanism and his concept of infinite self-consciousness. He also explores the more disturbing aspects of Bauer's critique of modernity, such as his anti-Semitism. This book will be eagerly sought out by professionals in political philosophy, political science and intellectual history.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) is now recognized as one of the fathers of modern philosophy and political theory. In his own time he was as famous for his work in physics, geometry, and religion. He associated with some of the greatest writers, scientists, and politicians of his age including Ben Jonson, Galileo and King Charles II. A. P. Martinich has written the most complete and accessible biography of Hobbes available. The book takes full account of the historical and cultural context in which Hobbes lived, drawing on both published and unpublished sources. It will be a great resource for philosophers, political theorists, and historians of ideas. The clear, crisp prose style will also ensure that the book appeals to general readers with an interest in the history of philosophy, the rise of modern science, and the English Civil War. A. P. Martinich is a Professor of Philosophy and the author or editor of nine books, including The Philosophy of Language (1996), Philosophical Writing (1997), and The Two Gods of Leviathan (Cambridge University Press, 1992).

Jon Stewart's study is a major re-evaluation of the complex relations between the philosophies of Kierkegaard and Hegel. The standard view on the subject is that Kierkegaard defined himself as explicitly anti-Hegelian, indeed that he viewed Hegel's philosophy with disdain. Jon Stewart shows convincingly that Kierkegaard's criticism was not of Hegel but of a number of contemporary Danish Hegelians. Kierkegaard's own view of Hegel was in fact much more positive to the point where he was directly influenced by some of Hegel's work. Any scholar working in the tradition of Continental philosophy will find this an insightful and provocative book with implications for the subsequent history of philosophy in the twentieth century. The book will also appeal to scholars in religious studies and the history of ideas.

Thomas Hobbes is widely acknowledged as the most important political philosopher to have written in English. Originally published in 2007, Taming the Leviathan is a wide-ranging study of the English reception of Hobbes's ideas. In the first book-length treatment of the topic for over forty years, Jon Parkin follows the fate of Hobbes's texts (particularly Leviathan) and the development of his controversial reputation during the seventeenth century, revealing the stakes in the critical discussion of the philosopher and his ideas. Revising the traditional view that Hobbes was simply rejected by his contemporaries, Parkin demonstrates that Hobbes's work was too useful for them to ignore, but too radical to leave unchallenged. His texts therefore had to be controlled, their lessons absorbed and their author discredited. In other words the Leviathan had to be tamed. Taming the Leviathan significantly revised our understanding of the role of Hobbes and Hobbism in seventeenth-century England.