The Philosopher in Early Modern Europe: The Nature of a Contested Identity

by Edited by Conal Condren , Stephen Gaukroger , Ian Hunter

• ISBN13: 9780521123891
• ISBN10: 0521123895
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-01-07
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

In this groundbreaking collection of essays the history of philosophy appears in a new light, not as reason's progressive discovery of its universal conditions, but as a series of unreconciled disputes over the proper way to conduct oneself as a philosopher. By shifting focus from the philosopher as proxy for the universal subject of reason to the philosopher as a special persona arising from rival forms of self-cultivation, philosophy is approached in terms of the social office and intellectual deportment of the philosopher, as a personage with a definite moral physiognomy and institutional setting. In so doing, this collection of essays by leading figures in the fields of both philosophy and the history of ideas provides access to key early modern disputes over what it meant to be a philosopher, and to the institutional and larger political and religious contexts in which such disputes took place.

Table of Contents

List of contributors

Acknowledgements

Introduction

The persona of the natural philosopher

The university philosopher in early modern Germany

The persona of the philosopher and the rhetorics of office in early modern England

From Sir Thomas More to Robert Burton: the laughing philosopher in the early modern period

'Vaine philosophy': Thomas Hobbes and the philosophy of the Schools

The judicial persona in historical context: the case of

Persona and office: Althusius on the formation of magistrates and councillors

Descartes as sage: spiritual askesis in Cartesian philosophy

The natural philosopher and the virtues

Fictions of a feminine philosophical persona

John Locke and polite philosophy

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