This study offers an overall interpretation of Hume's Treatise of Human Nature. I have emphasized throughout the dialectic between associationism and a theory of critical judgment - the "combat" of Book I -which con- tinues in Books II and III and with no apparent winner. A theory of critical judgment is fIrst worked out in Book I under what Hume calls "general rules." The theory explains how unreasonable judgments may be made reasonable and is made use of again in Book III to correct partial evalua- tions. Two sorts of general rules compete for prescriptive claims and two sides of human...

In the year 1985, presumed to mark the 850th anniversary of Maimonides' birth, the Sixth Jerusalem Philosophical Encounter was dedicated to Maim onides as philosopher. We did not enter into the other aspects of his work, rabbinical, legal, medical, etc., except in so far as the relation between his philosophy and his work in halakha (Jewish law) is itself a philosophical question. That no one is quite certain about Maimonides' date of birth is symbolic of the state of his philosophy as well. Maimonides' thought poses various enigmas, lends itself to contradictory interpretations and gives...

This volume brings together essays and reviews of Herbert H. Rowen, professor emeritus of Rutgers University, foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and one of the first important English-speaking historians of the Dutch Republic since John Lothrop Motley. Many of the essays, though published previously, have not been readily available, while several appear here for the first time.

For centuries readers have admired the writer who wields his pen like a sword - an Aristophanes, a Rabelais, a Montaigne, a Swift. Using ribaldry, satire and irony in varying proportions, such writers pierce the thick, comfortable hide of society and uncover, predictably, the corruption and hypocrisy that characterize the life of man in commercial society. Though a lesser talent than any of these literary giants, Bernard Mande ville is nevertheless a member of their class. The crucial year in the emergence of his reputation was 1723, the year in which he added his controversial Essay on...