Table of Contents

Notes on the Contributors
Abbreviations
Introduction
Part I: Metaphysics and Natural Philosophy
1: Peter R. Anstey: Essences and Kinds
2: Tad M. Schmaltz: From Causes to Laws
3: Emily Grosholz: Space and Time
4: Helen Hattab: The Mechanical Philosophy
5: Justin E. H. Smith: Machines, Souls, and Vital Principles
Part II: The Mind, the Passions, and Aesthetics
6: R. W. Serjeantson: The Soul
7: Pauline Phemister: Ideas
8: Philippe Hamou: Qualities and Sensory Perception
9: Gabor Boros: The Passions
10: Alexander Rueger: Aesthetics
Part III: Epistemology, Logic, Mathematics and Language
11: José R. Maia Neto: Sceptisism
12: Desmond M. Clarke: Hypotheses
13: Jaap Maat: Language and Semiotics
14: Mary Tiles: Form, Reason, and Method
15: Jean-François Gauvin: Instruments of Knowledge
16: Stephen Gaukroger: Picturability and Mathematical Ideals of Knowledge
Part IV: Ethics and Political Philosophy
17: P. J. E. Kail: Virtue and Vice
18: Stephen Darwall: Egoism and Morality
19: Catherine Wilson: Realism and Relativism in Ethics
20: Paul Russell: The Free Will Problem
21: Eileen O'Neill: The Equality of Men and Women
22: Ian Hunter: Natural Law as Political Philosophy
23: Ursula Goldenbaum: Sovereignty and Obedience
Part V: Religion
24: Steven Nadler: Conceptions of God
25: Desmond M. Clarke: The Epistemology of Religious Belief
26: Philip Milton: Religious Toleration

About the Author

Desmond M. Clarke is Professor (emeritus) of Philosophy at University College Cork, and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. He is general editor (with Karl Ameriks) of Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy; his recent monographs include Descartes's Theory of Mind OUP, 2003) and Descartes: A Biography (CUP, 2006). His translations include a two-volume edition of Descartes for Penguin.
Catherine Wilson is Regius Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen. She is the author of Epicureanism at the Origins of Modernity (OUP2008), Descartes's Meditations: An Introduction (CUP, 2003), and the recently reprinted The Invisible World: Early Modern Philosophy and the Invention of the Microscope (Princeton 2009). She was editor of History of Philosophy Quarterly from 1998 to 2003.

Reviews

provides admirable coverage of a wide range of topics... a wonderful guide to the general contours of philosophical thinking in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, valuable for advanced undergraduates through to seasoned scholars of early modern thought... There are many excellent essays that will bear intellectual fruit through multiple readings... It would be a valuable resource for any philosopher or historian of the early modern period.
*Karen Detlefsen, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews*

a well-organized collection of clearly and engagingly written papers by leading scholars in the field ... It lives up to the editors hope of providing a broader, more inclusive picture of early modern philosophy and of suggesting new questions for historians of philosophy to pursue.
*Andreea Mihali, Philosophy in Review*