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These three early modern philosophers understood that minds
necessarily involve ideas and patterns of thinking that are not
conscious. Gil Morejon shows that in this way they sharply
distinguish themselves from other major early modern thinkers whose
conceptions of the mind tended to identify thinking with
consciousness, such as Descartes, Malebranche and Locke. This
understanding of the thinking mind as conscious remains popular
even today. By contrast, Leibniz, Spinoza and Hume argue instead
that thought is not, as such, a matter of consciousness. Morejon
explores the significance of this insight for their conceptions of
freedom and ethics. By systematically and creatively analysing the
major writings of these three thinkers and placing them in the
context of the history of Western philosophy, he shows that
together they provide us with a metaphysics of ideas that is
uniquely helpful for thinking through important problems in
contemporary political theory and philosophy of mind. In
particular, it allows us to understand how it is possible for
people to act against their own interests and in spite of their
consciously knowing better.
Francois Zourabichvili wrote two major contributions to Spinoza
scholarship. While Une physique de la pensee (PUF, 2002) concerns
Spinoza's epistemology and metaphysics of ideas, Spinoza's
Paradoxical Conservatism focuses on his political philosophy.
Zourabichvili's interpretation of Spinoza's political philosophy is
radically unlike the established tradition. In this book he
explores Spinoza's philosophical theory of change across three
different studies. First, within ethical transition, secondly
within the image of the infant in Spinoza's work and third dealing
with absolute monarchy which was dominant during Spinoza's time and
provided his polemical writings with a concrete target. The book's
challenging and carefully-argued claims will be of serious interest
to anyone working in political theory, early modern philosophy or
contemporary French thought.
Alexandre Matheron has worked and written substantially on Spinoza
since the publication of his influential 1969 masterpiece 'Individu
et communaute chez Spinoza' (Editions de Minuit) and he is
considered one of the most important interpreters of Spinoza's
philosophy in the 20th century. The 20 essays gathered here focus
on the themes of ontology, knowledge, politics and ethics in
Spinoza, his predecessors and his contemporaries. This is a crucial
collection for anyone seeking to understand 20th-century
continental Spinozism.
Examines the role of literature in representing and critiquing the
exclusion from law as an enduring tactic of state power Outlaws are
often viewed as historical figures of popular resistance, but there
is another side to legal exclusion. In offering readings from two
bodies of literature not normally read together -- the literature
of outlawry and the literature of espionage -- this book shows that
a substantial body of writing within these genres serves an
important purpose in representing and critiquing the longstanding
use of legal exclusion as a means of supporting state power.
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