Individuation and Identity in Early Modern Philosophy


Book Description

Major philosophers whose views are discussed in this book include Descartes, Malebranche, Spinoza, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Leibniz, Wolff, and Kant. In addition, the contributors of minor Cartesians, especially Regis and Desgabets, are analyzed in a separate chapter. Although the views of early modern philosophers on individuation and identity have been discussed before, these discussions have usually been treated as asides in a larger context.




Individuation and Identity in Early Modern Philosophy


Book Description

Philosophy in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries has traditionally been characterized as being primarily concerned with epistemological issues. This book is not intended to overturn this characterization but rather to balance it through an examination of equally important metaphysical, or ontological, positions held, explicitly or implicitly, by philosophers in this period. Major philosophers whose views are discussed in this book include Descartes, Malebranche, Spinoza, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Leibniz, Wolff, and Kant. In addition, the contributors of minor Cartesians, especially Regis and Desgabets, are analyzed in a separate chapter. Although the views of early modern philosophers on individuation and identity have been discussed before, these discussions have usually been treated as asides in a larger context. This book is the first to concentrate on the problems of individuation and identity in early modern philosophy and to trace their philosophical development through the period in a coherent way.




The Early Modern Subject


Book Description

The Early Modern Subject explores the understanding of self-consciousness and personal identity—two fundamental features of human subjectivity—as it developed in early modern philosophy. Udo Thiel presents a critical evaluation of these features as they were conceived in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He explains the arguments of thinkers such as Descartes, Locke, Leibniz, Wolff, and Hume, as well as their early critics, followers, and other philosophical contemporaries, and situates them within their historical contexts. Interest in the issues of self-consciousness and personal identity is in many ways characteristic and even central to early modern thought, but Thiel argues here that this is an interest that continues to this day, in a form still strongly influenced by the conceptual frameworks of early modern thought. In this book he attempts to broaden the scope of the treatment of these issues considerably, covering more than a hundred years of philosophical debate in France, Britain, and Germany while remaining attentive to the details of the arguments under scrutiny and discussing alternative interpretations in many cases.




The Early Modern Subject


Book Description

Udo Thiel presents a critical evaluation of the understanding of self-consciousness and personal identity in early modern philosophy. He explores over a century of European philosophical debate from Descartes to Hume, and argues that our interest in human subjectivity remains strongly influenced by the conceptual framework of early modern thought.




Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences


Book Description

This Encyclopedia offers a fresh, integrated and creative perspective on the formation and foundations of philosophy and science in European modernity. Combining careful contextual reconstruction with arguments from traditional philosophy, the book examines methodological dimensions, breaks down traditional oppositions such as rationalism vs. empiricism, calls attention to gender issues, to ‘insiders and outsiders’, minor figures in philosophy, and underground movements, among many other topics. In addition, and in line with important recent transformations in the fields of history of science and early modern philosophy, the volume recognizes the specificity and significance of early modern science and discusses important developments including issues of historiography (such as historical epistemology), the interplay between the material culture and modes of knowledge, expert knowledge and craft knowledge. This book stands at the crossroads of different disciplines and combines their approaches – particularly the history of science, the history of philosophy, contemporary philosophy of science, and intellectual and cultural history. It brings together over 100 philosophers, historians of science, historians of mathematics, and medicine offering a comprehensive view of early modern philosophy and the sciences. It combines and discusses recent results from two very active fields: early modern philosophy and the history of (early modern) science. Editorial Board EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Dana Jalobeanu University of Bucharest, Romania Charles T. Wolfe Ghent University, Belgium ASSOCIATE EDITORS Delphine Bellis University Nijmegen, The Netherlands Zvi Biener University of Cincinnati, OH, USA Angus Gowland University College London, UK Ruth Hagengruber University of Paderborn, Germany Hiro Hirai Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands Martin Lenz University of Groningen, The Netherlands Gideon Manning CalTech, Pasadena, CA, USA Silvia Manzo University of La Plata, Argentina Enrico Pasini University of Turin, Italy Cesare Pastorino TU Berlin, Germany Lucian Petrescu Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium Justin E. H. Smith University de Paris Diderot, France Marius Stan Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA Koen Vermeir CNRS-SPHERE + Université de Paris, France Kirsten Walsh University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada




The Concept of Affectivity in Early Modern Philosophy


Book Description

There is no need to argue for the relevance of affectivity in early modern philosophy. When doing research and conceptualizing affectivity in this period, we hope to attain a basicinterpretive framework for philosophy in general, one that is independent of and cutting across such unfruitful divisions as the time-honored interpretive distinction between “rationalists” and “empiricists”, which we consider untenable when applied to 17th-century thinkers. Our volume consists of papers based on the contributions to the First Budapest Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy, held on 14–15 October 2016 at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. When composing this volume, our aim was not to present a systematic survey of affectivity in early modern philosophy. Rather, our more modest goal was to foster collaboration among researchers working in different countries and different traditions. Many of the papers published here are already in implicit or explicit dialogue with others. We hope that they will generate more of an exchange of ideas in the broader field of early modern scholarship.




The Oxford Handbook of Descartes and Cartesianism


Book Description

An illustrious team of scholars offer a rich survey of the thought of Rene Descartes; of the development of his ideas by those who followed in his footsteps; and of the reaction against Cartesianism. Epistemology, method, metaphysics, physics, mathematics, moral philosophy, political thought, medical thought, and aesthetics are all covered.




Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, Volume IX


Book Description

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.




Historical Dictionary of Leibniz's Philosophy


Book Description

Historical Dictionary of Leibniz's Philosophy, Second Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 500 cross-referenced entries on Leibniz’s philosophy, written work, teachers, contemporaries, and philosophers influenced by him.




A Companion to Early Modern Philosophy


Book Description

This is a reference for early modern philosophy. Representing the most contemporary research in the history of early modern philosophy, it is organized by thinker rather than theme, and covers every important philosopher and philosophical movement of 16th- and 18th-century Europe.