The Cambridge Companion To Malebranche

This Companion contains specially commissioned essays addressing Malebranche's thought comprehensively and systematically.

The most comprehensive account of the full range of Leibniz's thought.

Publisher Description

Although best known for his contributions to the theory of knowledge, metaphysics, and philosophy of religion, Hume also influenced developments in the philosophy of mind, psychology, ethics, political and economic theory, political and social history, and aesthetic theory. The fifteen essays in this volume address all aspects of Hume's thought. The picture of him that emerges is that of a thinker who, though often critical to the point of scepticism, was nonetheless able to build on that scepticism a constructive, viable, and profoundly important view of the world. Also included in this volume are Hume's two brief autobiographies and a bibliography suited to those beginning their study of Hume. This second edition of one our most popular Companions includes six new essays and a new introduction, and the remaining essays have all been updated or revised.

Descartes occupies a position of pivotal importance as one of the founding fathers of modern philosophy; he is, perhaps the most widely studied of all philosophers. In this authoritative collection an international team of leading scholars in Cartesian studies present the full range of Descartes' extraordinary philosophical achievement. His life and the development of his thought, as well as the intellectual background to and reception of his work, are treated at length. At the core of the volume are a group of chapters on his metaphysics: the celebrated 'Cogito' argument, the proofs of God's existence, the 'Cartesian circle' and the dualistic theory of the mind and its relation to his theological and scientific views. Other chapters cover the philosophical implications of his work in algebra, his place in the seventeenth-century scientific revolution, the structure of his physics, and his work on physiology and psychology.

Blaise Pascal (1623 1662) occupies a position of pivotal importance in many domains: philosophy, mathematics, physics, religious polemics and apologetics. In this volume a team of leading scholars presents the full range of Pascal's achievement and surveys the intellectual background of his thought and the reception of his work. New readers and nonspecialists will find this the most convenient and accessible guide to Pascal currently available. Advanced students and specialists will find a conspectus of recent developments in the interpretation of Pascal.

George Berkeley is one of the greatest and most influential modern philosophers. In defending the immaterialism for which he is most famous, he redirected modern thinking about the nature of objectivity and the mind's capacity to come to terms with it. Along the way, he made striking and influential proposals concerning the psychology of the senses, the workings of language, the aim of science, and the scope of mathematics. In this Companion volume, a team of distinguished authors not only examines Berkeley's achievements, but also his neglected contributions to moral and political philosophy, his writings on economics and development, and his defense of religious commitment and religious life.

Universally regarded as the greatest French political theorist and philosopher of education of the Enlightenment, and probably the greatest French social theorist tout court, Rousseau was an important forerunner of the French Revolution, though his thought was too nuanced and subtle ever to serve as mere ideology. This 2001 volume systematically surveys the full range of Rousseau's activities in politics and education, psychology, anthropology, religion, music and theater.