The Blackwell Guide to the Modern Philosophers

This guide brings together eighteen original interpretations of the modern philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche. The contributors succeed brilliantly in placing their figures within a rich historical, cultural, and philosophical context, noting some of the important ways in which their ideas and arguments were shaped by the intellectual currents of the time, and how they in turn shaped subsequent philosophical debate.

List of Contributors vii

Preface x

1 René Descartes (1596-1650) 1
Gary Hatfield

2 Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) 28
A. P. Martinich

3 Benedict de Spinoza (1632-77) 43
Don Garrett

4 Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715) 61
Steven Nadler

5 G. W. Leibniz (1646-1716) 78
Donald Rutherford

6 John Locke (1632-1704) 101
Martha Brandt Bolton

7 George Berkeley (1685-1753) 127
George Pappas

8 David Hume (1711-76) 148
David Fate Norton

9 Thomas Reid (1710-96) 179
Ernest Sosa and James Van Cleve

10 Jean – Jacques Rousseau (1712-88) 201
N. J. H. Dent

11 Immanuel Kant (1724-18047) 223
Patricia Kitcher

12 Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) 259
Ross Harrison

13 G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831) 278
Stephen Houlgate

14 Søren Kiekegaard (1813-55) 306
C. Stephen Evans

15 Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) 326
Christopher Janaway

16 John Stuart Mill (1806-73) 343
Wendy Donner and Richard Fumerton

17 Karl Marx (1818-83) 370
Terrell Carver

18 Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) 390
Richard Schacht

Select Bibliography 412

Index 415

"Steven Emmanuel has done an impressive job of assembling a distinguished group of authors who give us a very helpful guide to the modern philosophers. With an eye to bringing us 'up to speed' on the more recent scholarship, the contributors provide a timely, readable, and highly worthwhile collection." John Fischer, University of California, Riverside

"This is a wonderful resource! It provides a valuable service by drawing on experts for eminently clear and engaging narratives. I expect to refer to it often." M. Jamie Ferreira, University of Virginia

"This book is a worthy acquisition." R.H. Nash, Reformed Theological Seminary, Choice, January 2001

"A superb volume...Each essay is clearly written, with most or all jargon carefully explained. By far this book's greatest asset...is the extraordinary way in which Emmanuel gets the different authors to provide, as if in concert, a chronological development of the main ideas of the period. Emmanuel's beautiful volume can, I think, very richly supplement a student's exposure to the period for those figures whose work receives little or no space on the syllabus." Patrick Mooney, John Carroll University, THES, 1/6/01

Steven M. Emmanuel is Professor of Philosophy at Virginia Wesleyan College. He is author of Kierkegaard & the Concept of Revelation (1996). This guide brings together eighteen original interpretations of the modern philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche. The contributors succeed brilliantly in placing their figures within a rich historical, cultural, and philosophical context, noting some of the important ways in which their ideas and arguments were shaped by the intellectual currents of the time, and how they in turn shaped subsequent philosophical debate.

Each chapter focuses on the central ideas and arguments of an individual philosopher, with discussions ranging over a wide variety of topics, including morality, politics, religion, epistemology, metaphysics, aesthetics, logic, mathematics, and the natural sciences.

Combining the virtues of careful scholarship and lucid exposition, these essays achieve a balance between intellectual history and philosophical analysis that is rarely found in collections of this kind. Thus, although the volume is eminently suitable for a student audience, the essays will certainly be of great interest to scholars who work in the field of modern philosophy or whose work encompasses intellectual history.