Early Modern Philosophy Mind, Matter, and Metaphysics

by Mercer, Christia; O'Neill, Eileen

• ISBN13: 9780195177602
• ISBN10: 0195177606
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-04-14
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Scholarship in the history of modern philosophy has changed dramatically in the last hundred years. Early in the twentieth century, philosophers such as Bertrand Russell and others regularly wrote on historical topics and figures, albeit from the perspective of their own contemporary concerns.But gradually, interest in the historical Descartes, Kant, and other figures fell off as more analytical approaches came to dominate. This lasted until the late 1960's, which saw a profound renaissance in historical scholarship. Philosophers rediscovered the vitality of seventeenth- andeighteenth-century philosophy, using both analytical approaches--which look at historical problems through a contemporary conceptual lens--and historical approaches, which reconstruct the views of philosophers from within their conceptual framework. There is now a vital, international community engaged in this scholarship. This volume showcases the best work now being written on a wide range of issues in early modern philosophy--a period in which numerous philosophical problems that continue to engage us today were first identified by Locke,Berkeley, Kant, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Descartes. Collectively the articles exemplify the diversity of methodological perspectives currently being employed by some of the most distinguished, internationally recognized experts in the field.

Author Biography

Christia Mercer is Gustave M. Berne Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University.
Eileen O'Neill is Professor of Philosophy at University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Table of Contents

Editions and Abbreviations	xi
Contributors	xix
Introduction	3	(6)
Christia Mercer
Eileen O'Neill
Dreamers and Madmen	9	(15)
Janet Broughton
The Second Meditation and Objections to Cartesian Dualism	24	(22)
Michael Ayers
Back to the Ontological Argument	46	(19)
Edwin Curley
The Mind-Body Union, Interaction, and Subsumption	65	(21)
Louis E. Loeb
The Strange Hybridity of Spinoza's Ethics	86	(17)
Catherine Wilson
``A Free Man Thinks of Nothing Less Than of Death'': Spinoza on the Eternity of the Mind	103	(16)
Daniel Garber
Reflections on the Masham-Leibniz Correspondence	119	(8)
Robert C. Sleigh, Jr.
Self-Determination	127	(15)
Vere Chappell
Locke and the Nature of Matter	142	(19)
Roger S. Woolhouse
God and Matter in Locke: An Exposition of Essay 4.10	161	(22)
Jonathan Bennett
Berkeley, God, and Explanation	183	(23)
Douglas M. Jesseph
Occasionalism and Strict Mechanism: Malebranche, Berkeley, Fontenelle	206	(25)
Lisa Downing
Kant on Causality: What Was He Trying to Prove?	231	(31)
Beatrice Longuenesse
Kant on Science and Experience	262	(15)
Michael Friedman
Bibliography	277	(10)
Index	287