You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
A fully updated new edition of the prize-winning and now standard biography of the great seventeenth-century philosopher Spinoza.
Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715) was one of the leading French followers of Descartes and was one of the most influential philosophers in the seventeenth century. His metaphysical, epistemological, and theological doctrines - in particular, his occasionalism and the vision in God - were a focus of debate challenged by Arnauld, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, and others. Malebranche's synthesis of Augustinianism and an unorthodox Cartesianism undoubtedly stands as one of the grand systems of the period. In past work, Malebranche's account of the nature of ideas and their role in knowledge and perception has been greatly misunderstood by both his critics and commentators. In Malebranche and Ideas, Na...
"In this book the philosophers Steve Nadler and Lawrence Shapiro will explain why bad thinking happens to good people. Why is it, they ask, that so large a segment of public can go so wrong in both how they come to form the opinions they do and how they fail to appreciate the moral consequences of acting on them."--Publisher's description.
"The seventeenth-century Dutch-Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza has long been known--and vilified--for his heretical view of God and for the radical determinism he sees governing the cosmos and human freedom. Only recently, however, has he begun to be considered seriously as a moral philosopher. In his philosophical masterpiece, the Ethics, after establishing some metaphysical and epistemological foundations, he turns to the 'big questions' that so often move one to reflect on, and even change, the values that inform their life: What is truly good? What is happiness? What is the relationship between being a good or virtuous person and enjoying happiness and human flourishing? The guiding th...
Spinoza's Ethics, published in 1677, is considered his greatest work and one of history's most influential philosophical treatises. This volume brings established scholars together with new voices to engage with the complex system of philosophy proposed by Spinoza in his masterpiece. Topics including identity, thought, free will, metaphysics, and reason are all addressed, as individual chapters investigate the key themes of the Ethics and combine to offer readers a fresh and thought-provoking view of the work as a whole. Written in a clear and accessible style, the volume sets out cutting-edge research that reflects, challenges, and promotes the most recent scholarly advances in the field of Spinoza studies, tackling old issues and bringing to light new subjects for debate.
Complete biography of Spinoza based on detailed archival research.
How a famous painting opens a window into the life, times, and philosophy of René Descartes In the Louvre museum hangs a portrait that is considered the iconic image of René Descartes, the great seventeenth-century French philosopher. And the painter of the work? The Dutch master Frans Hals—or so it was long believed, until the work was downgraded to a copy of an original. But where is the authentic version, and who painted it? Is the man in the painting—and in its original—really Descartes? A unique combination of philosophy, biography, and art history, The Philosopher, the Priest, and the Painter investigates the remarkable individuals and circumstances behind a small portrait. Thr...
There is a popular and romantic myth about Rembrandt and the Jewish people. One of history's greatest artists, we are often told, had a special affinity for Judaism. With so many of Rembrandt's works devoted to stories of the Hebrew Bible, and with his apparent penchant for Jewish themes and the sympathetic portrayal of Jewish faces, it is no wonder that the myth has endured for centuries. Rembrandt's Jews puts this myth to the test as it examines both the legend and the reality of Rembrandt's relationship to Jews and Judaism. In his elegantly written and engrossing tour of Jewish Amsterdam—which begins in 1653 as workers are repairing Rembrandt's Portuguese-Jewish neighbor's house and com...
This Companion contains specially commissioned essays addressing Malebranche's thought comprehensively and systematically.
In the spring of 1672, the German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz arrived in Paris on a furtive diplomatic mission. That project was abandoned quickly, but Leibniz remained in Paris with a singular goal: to get the most out of the city's intellectual and cultural riches. He benefited, above all, from his friendships with France's two greatest philosopher-theologians of the period, Antoine Arnauld and Nicolas de Malebranche. The interactions of these three men would prove of great consequence not only for Leibniz's own philosophy but for the development of modern philosophical and religious thought. Despite their wildly different views and personalities, the three phil...