The Oxford Handbook Of British Philosophy In The Eighteenth Century

This is the first book to provide comprehensive coverage of the full range of philosophical writing in Britain in the eighteenth century. A team of experts provide new accounts of both major and lesser-known thinkers, and explores the diverse approaches in the period to logic and metaphysics, the passions, morality, criticism, and politics.

Twenty-six new essays by experts on seventeenth-century thought provide a critical survey of this key period in British intellectual history. These far-reaching essays discuss not only central debates and canonical authors from Francis Bacon to Isaac Newton, but also explore less well-known figures and topics from the period.

In this Handbook twenty-six leading scholars survey the development of philosophy between the middle of the sixteenth century and the early eighteenth century. The five parts of the book cover metaphysics and natural philosophy; the mind, the passions, and aesthetics; epistemology, logic, mathematics, and language; ethics and political philosophy; and religion. The period between the publication of Copernicus's De Revolutionibus and Berkeley's reflections on Newton and Locke saw one of the most fundamental changes in the history of our way of thinking about the universe. This radical transformation of worldview was partly a response to what we now call the Scientific Revolution; it was equally a reflection of political changes that were no less fundamental, which included the establishment of nation-states and some of the first attempts to formulate a theory of international rights and justice. Finally, the Reformation and its aftermath undermined the apparent unity of the Christian church in Europe and challenged both religious beliefs that had been accepted for centuries and the interpretation of the Bible on which they had been based. The Handbook surveys a number of the most important developments in the philosophy of the period, as these are expounded both in texts that have since become very familiar and in other philosophical texts that are undeservedly less well-known. It also reaches beyond the philosophy to make evident the fluidity of the boundary with science, and to consider the impact on philosophy of historical and political events—explorations, revolutions and reforms, inventions and discoveries. Thus it not only offers a guide to the most important areas of recent research, but also offers some new questions for historians of philosophy to pursue and to have indicated areas that are ripe for further exploration.

This is the first book to provide comprehensive coverage of the full range of philosophical writing in Britain in the nineteenth century. A team of experts provide new accounts of both major and lesser-known thinkers, and explores the diverse approaches in the period to logic and metaphysics, the passions, morality, criticism, and politics.

"The Oxford Handbook of British Philosophy of the 17th Century provides an advanced comprehensive overview of the issues that are informing research on the subject of British philosophy in the seventeenth century, while at the same time offering new directions for research to take. It covers the whole of the seventeenth century, ranging from Francis Bacon to John Locke and Isaac Newton. The book contains five parts: the introductory Part I examines the state of the discipline and the nature of its practitioners as the century unfolded; Part II discusses the leading natural philosophers and the philosophy of nature, including Bacon, Boyle, and Newton; Part III covers knowledge and the human faculty of the understanding; Part IV explores the leading topics in British moral philosophy from the period; and Part V concerns political philosophy. In addition to dealing with canonical authors and celebrated texts, such as Thomas Hobbes and his Leviathan, it discusses many less-well-known figures and debates from the period whose importance is only now being appreciated."--Publisher's description.

This fifth volume covers many of the most important philosophers and movements of the nineteenth century, including utilitarianism, positivism and pragmatism.

The Oxford Handbook of Berkeley is a compendious examination of a vast array of topics in the philosophy of George Berkeley (1685-1753), Anglican Bishop of Cloyne, the famous idealist and most illustrious Irish philosopher. Berkeley is best known for his denial of the existence of material substance and his insistence that the only things that exist in the universe are minds (including God) and their ideas; however, Berkeley was a polymath who contributed to a variety of different disciplines, not well distinguished from philosophy in the eighteenth century, including the theory and psychology of vision, the nature and functioning of language, the debate over infinitesimals in mathematics, political philosophy, economics, chemistry (including his favoured panacea, tar-water), and theology. This volume includes contributions from thirty-four expert commentators on Berkeley's philosophy, some of whom provide a state-of-the-art account of his philosophical achievements, and some of whom place his philosophy in historical context by comparing and contrasting it with the views of his contemporaries (including Mandeville, Collier, and Edwards), as well as with philosophers who preceded him (such as Descartes, Locke, Malebranche, and Leibniz) and others who succeeded him (such as Hume, Reid, Kant, and Shepherd).

The early modern period is arguably the most pivotal of all in the study of the mind, teeming with a variety of conceptions of mind. Some of these posed serious questions for assumptions about the nature of the mind, many of which still depended on notions of the soul and God. It is an era that witnessed the emergence of theories and arguments that continue to animate the study of philosophy of mind, such as dualism, vitalism, materialism, and idealism. Covering pivotal figures in philosophy such as Descartes, Hobbes, Kant, Leibniz, Cavendish, and Spinoza, Philosophy of Mind in the Early Modern and Modern Ages provides an outstanding survey of philosophy of mind of the period. Following an introduction by Rebecca Copenhaver, sixteen specially commissioned chapters by an international team of contributors discuss key topics, thinkers, and debates, including: Hobbes, Descartes’ philosophy of mind and its early critics, consciousness, the later Cartesians, Malebranche, Cavendish, Locke, Spinoza, Descartes and Leibniz, perception and sensation, desires, mental substance and mental activity, Hume, and Kant. Essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy of mind, enlightenment philosophy, and the history of philosophy, Philosophy of Mind in the Early Modern and Modern Ages is also a valuable resource for those in related disciplines such as religion, history of psychology, and history of science.