Bücher der Reihe Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy

Malebranche's Dialogues on Metaphysics and on Religion is in many ways the best introduction to his thought, and provides the most systematic exposition of his philosophy as a whole. In it, he presents clear and comprehensive statements of his two best-known contributions to metaphysics and epistemology, namely, the doctrines of occasionalism and vision in God; he also states his views on such central issues as self-knowledge, the existence of the external world and the problem of theodicy. His skilful handling of the dialogue form enables the reader to see how he responds to objections made to his earlier work The Search after Truth. This edition presents a translation of the text which is clear, readable and more accurate than any of its predecessors, together with an introduction that analyses Malebranche's central teachings and explains the importance of the Dialogues in the context of seventeenth-century philosophy.

Johann Georg Hamann is a major figure not only in German philosophy but also in literature and religious history. This volume presents a translation of a wide selection of his essays, including both famous and lesser-known works. The volume is completed by an introduction and suggestions for further reading.

When the New Organon appeared in 1620, part of a six-part programme of scientific inquiry entitled 'The Great Renewal of Learning', Francis Bacon was at the high point of his political career, and his ambitious work was groundbreaking in its attempt to give formal philosophical shape to a new and rapidly emerging experimentally-based science. Bacon combines theoretical scientific epistemology with examples from applied science, examining phenomena as various as magnetism, gravity, and the ebb and flow of the tides, and anticipating later experimental work by Robert Boyle and others. His work challenges the entire edifice of the philosophy and learning of his time, and has left its mark on all subsequent philosophical discussions of scientific method. This volume presents a new translation of the text into modern English by Michael Silverthorne, and an introduction by Lisa Jardine that sets the work in the context of Bacon's scientific and philosophical activities.

Giordano Bruno's notorious public death in 1600, at the hands of the Inquisition in Rome, marked the transition from Renaissance philosophy to the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century. In his philosophical works he addressed such delicate issues as the role of Christ as mediator and the distinction, in human beings, between soul and matter. This volume presents new translations of Cause, Principle and Unity, in which he challenges Aristotelian accounts of causality and spells out the implications of Copernicanism for a new theory of an infinite universe, and of two essays on magic, On Magic and A General Account of Bonding, in which he interprets earlier theories about magical events in the light of the unusual powers of natural phenomena.

Outlines of Scepticism is the fullest extant account of ancient scepticism and a work of major importance for the history of Greek philosophy. This volume presents the accurate and readable translation which was first published in 1994, together with a substantial new historical and philosophical introduction by Jonathan Barnes.

Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) lays the foundation for a general system of morals, and is a text of central importance in the history of moral and political thought. It presents a theory of the imagination which Smith derived from David Hume but which encompasses an idea of sympathy that in some ways is more sophisticated than anything in Hume's philosophy. By means of sympathy and the mental construct of an impartial spectator, Smith formulated highly original theories of conscience, moral judgment and the virtues. The enduring legacy of his work is its reconstruction of the Enlightenment idea of a moral, or social, science encompassing both political economy and the theory of law and government. This 2002 volume offers a new edition of the text with clear and helpful notes for the student reader, together with a substantial introduction that sets the work in its philosophical and historical context.

In this book, published in 1686, the scientist Robert Boyle attacked prevailing notions of the natural world which depicted 'Nature' as a wise, benevolent and purposeful being. His Free Enquiry represents one of the subtlest statements concerning the philosophical issues raised by the mechanical philosophy to emerge from the period of the scientific revolution.

These four early essays, key documents for understanding the development of Nietzsche's thought, are here presented in a new edition with an introduction that places them in their historical context and discusses their significance for Nietzsche's philosophy.

This classic study of human language remains one of the most interesting and important attempts to draw philosophical conclusions from comparative linguistics. This 1999 volume presents a translation by Peter Heath together with an introduction by Michael Losonsky that places Humboldt's work in its historical and philosophical context.

This edition of Logic or the Art of Thinking presents a new translation of this enormously influential Cartesian and Jansenist treatise, which inspired the modern transformation in logic and semantic theory by Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein and recent philosophers.

This work, first published in 1746 and offered here in a new translation, is a highly influential work in the history of philosophy of mind and language, and anticipates Wittgenstein's views on language and its relation to mind and thought.

This fully annotated edition presents an English translation of La Mettrie's uncompromisingly materialist treatise together with the most important of his other philosophical works translated in English, and the introduction examines his aims and the scandalous moral consequences which he drew from his materialism.

This 2002 volume includes the first translation into English of Schiller's Kallias Letters and Moritz's On the Artistic Imitation of the Beautiful, and translations of some of Hoelderlin's most important theoretical writings and works by Hamann, Lessing, Novalis and Schlegel.

In Foundations of Natural Right, Fichte applies his ideas to fundamental issues in political and legal philosophy. This volume offers a complete translation of the work into English, by Michael Baur, together with an introduction by Frederick Neuhouser that sets it in its philosophical and historical context.

This volume presents the first complete translation of Fichte Studies, a powerful, creative and sustained critique of Fichtean philosophy by the young philosopher-poet Friedrich von Hardenberg, who under the pen-name Novalis went on to become the most well-known and beloved of the early German Romantic writers. Anyone interested in the fate of German philosophy and literature immediately after Kant will find this collection of notes and aphorisms a treasure-trove of original contributions on the nature of self-consciousness, the relation of art to philosophy, and the nature of philosophical inquiry. There are also the beginnings of a strikingly contemporary-sounding semiotic theory. The text is translated by Jane Kneller, who also provides an introduction situating the Fichte Studies in the context of Novalis' life and work.

Schleiermacher is known to English readers primarily as a theologian and hermeneuticist, but many German scholars have argued that it is in fact his philosophical work in ethics that constitutes his most outstanding intellectual achievement. This 2002 edition also includes a historical and philosophical introduction and notes on further reading.

In the New Essays on Human Understanding, Leibniz argues chapter by chapter with John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, challenging his views about knowledge, personal identity, God, morality, mind and matter, nature versus nurture, logic and language, and a host of other topics. The work is a series of sharp, deep discussions by one great philosopher of the work of another. Leibniz's references to his contemporaries and his discussions of the ideas and institutions of the age make this a fascinating and valuable document in the history of ideas. The work was originally written in French, and the version by Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett, based on the only reliable French edition (published in 1962), first appeared in 1981 and has become the standard English translation. It has been thoroughly revised for this series and provided with a new and longer introduction, a chronology on Leibniz's life and career and a guide to further reading.

Malebranche is now recognised as a major figure in the history of philosophy, occupying a crucial place in the Rationalist tradition of Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz. This volume presents The Search after Truth and the Elucidations which accompanied its third edition; together they constitute a complete expression of his mature thought.

This volume, first published in 1999, presents a large selection of Melanchthon's orations and textbook prefaces translated into English. They address subjects as diverse as moral philosophy, astronomy and mathematics, and illuminate the relationship between Renaissance and Reformation thought.

This book presents a selection of texts by the most celebrated philosophers of the classical period of Islam, including Farabi, Ghazali (Avicenna) and Ibn Rushd (Averroes). An introduction situates the text in their philosophical and historical contexts, and the volume also includes helpful notes on further reading.

Margaret Cavendish's 1668 edition of Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, presented here in a 2001 edition, holds a unique position in early modern philosophy. Cavendish rejects the Aristotelianism which was taught in the universities in the seventeenth century, and the picture of nature as a grand machine which was propounded by Hobbes, Descartes and members of the Royal Society of London, such as Boyle. She also rejects the views of nature which make reference to immaterial spirits. Instead she develops an original system of organicist materialism, and draws on the doctrines of ancient Stoicism to attack the tenets of seventeenth-century mechanical philosophy. Her treatise is a document of major importance in the history of women's contributions to philosophy and science.

The Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, first published in 1779, is the one of the most influential works in the philosophy of religion and the most artful instance of philosophical dialogue since the dialogues of Plato. This edition presents it together with several of Hume's other, shorter writings about religion.

This volume presents Clarke's controversial and influential work together with some important supplementary texts, and with a historical introduction which examines Clarke's views and relates them to the Newtonian circle of which he was the most gifted and influential representative.

Nietzsche regarded 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' as his most important work, and it has had an enormous influence on subsequent culture. This edition offers a new translation, which captures the text's poetic brilliance, together with an introduction which discusses many of the most important interpretative issues raised by the work.

Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise (1670) is one of the most important philosophical works of the early modern period. It is presented here in a translation of great clarity and accuracy by Michael Silverthorne and Jonathan Israel, with a substantial historical and philosophical introduction by Jonathan Israel.

Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason is a key element of the system of philosophy which Kant introduced with his Critique of Pure Reason, and a work of major importance in the history of Western religious thought. It represents a great philosopher's attempt to spell out the form and content of a type of religion that would be grounded in moral reason and would meet the needs of ethical life. It includes sharply critical and boldly constructive discussions on topics not often treated by philosophers, including such traditional theological concepts as original sin and the salvation or 'justification' of a sinner, and the idea of the proper role of a church. This volume presents it and three short essays that illuminate it in new translations by Allen Wood and George di Giovanni, with an introduction by Robert Merrihew Adams that locates it in its historical and philosophical context.

This edition of The Birth of Tragedy, one of the seminal philosophical works of the modern period, presents a new translation by Ronald Speirs and an introduction by Raymond Geuss that sets the work in its historical and philosophical context.

Designed for intermediate to advanced students, this edition of Kant's Metaphysics of Morals contains a lightly revised version of Mary Gregor's highly regarded translation. Readers' understanding and engagement are facilitated by its informative and accessible introduction, extensive further reading essay, and translation and editorial notes.

This volume presents the distinguished translation of Daybreak by R. J. Hollingdale, with a new introduction that sets the main themes of the work in their intellectual and philosophical contexts. The edition is completed by a chronology, notes and a guide to further reading.

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, based on lectures that he gave in Athens in the fourth century BCE, is one of the most significant works in moral philosophy, and has profoundly influenced the whole course of subsequent philosophical endeavour. It is soundly located within a philosophical tradition, but its argument differs markedly from those of Plato and Socrates in its emphasis on the exercise - as opposed to the mere possession - of virtue as the key to human happiness, offering seminal discussions of ethical issues that are practical in their intent. Topics covered include the role of luck in human wellbeing, moral education, responsibility, courage, justice, moral weakness, friendship and pleasure. This accessible new translation by Roger Crisp follows the Greek text closely and also provides a non-Greek-reader with the flavour of the original. The volume also includes a historical and philosophical introduction and notes on further reading.