Starting with Richard Popkin's essay of 1963, 'Scepticism in the Enlightenment', a new investigation into philosophical scepticism of the period was launched. The late Giorgio Tonelli and the late Ezequiel de Olaso examined in great detail the kinds of scepticism developed during the Enlightenment, and the kind of answer to scepticism that was developed by Leibniz. Their original researches and interpretations are of great value and importance. As a result of their work Popkin modified his original claims, as shown in the last two articles in this volume. The book contains an...

In the early 1980s the late Charles B. Schmitt and I discussed the fact that so much new research and new interpretations were taking place concerning various areas of modem skepticism that we, as pioneers, ought to organize a conference where these new findings and outlooks could be presented and discussed. Charles and I had both visited the great library at Wolfenbiittel, and were most happy when the Herzog August Bibliothek agreed to host the first conference on the history of skepticism, in 1984 (published as Skepticism from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, ed. R. H. Popkin and...

Some scholars in the history of ideas have had a growing interest in examining Leibniz's many discussions ofvarious aspects of religion, Christian, Jewish and far eastern. Leibniz, with his voracious interest and concern for so many aspects of human intellectual and spiritual life, read a wide variety of books on the various religions of mankind. He also was in personal contact with many of those who espoused orthodox and non-orthodox views. He annotated his copies of many books on religious subjects. And he was working on schemes for reuniting the various Catholic and Protestant churches in...

Journeys to a Graveyard examines the descriptions provided by eight Russian writers of journeys made to western European countries between 1697 and 1880. The descriptions reveal the mentality and preoccupations of the Russian social and intellectual elites during this period. The travellers' perceptions of western European countries are treated here as an ambivalent response to a civilization with which Russia was belatedly coming into close contact as a result of the imperial ambition of the Russian state and the westernization of the Russian elites. The travellers perceived the most...

Attracting philosophers, politicians, artists as well as the educated reader, Edmund Burke s Philosophical Enquiry, first published in 1757, was a milestone in western thinking. This edited volume will take the 250th anniversary of the Philosophical Enquiry as an occasion to reassess Burke s prominence in the history of ideas. Situated on the threshold between early modern philosophy and the Enlightenment, Burke s oeuvre combines reflections on aesthetics, politics and the sciences. This collection is the first book length work devoted primarily to Burke s Philosophical...

Emilie du Chatelet was one of the most influential philosophers of the Enlightenment. Her writings on natural philosophy, physics and mechanics had a decisive impact on the important scientific debates of the 18th century.

Most notably, she took a novel and distinctive position in one of the fundamental scientific discourses of the day, the controversy between Newton and Leibniz.

The contributors to this volume focus on du Chatelet's synthesis of Newtonian and Leibnitian philosophy. The contributions presented here combine to confirm the work of this exceptional...

This volume examines the New Science of the 17th century in the context of Baroque culture, analysing its emergence as an integral part of the high culture of the period. The collected essays explore themes common to the new practices of knowledge production and the rapidly changing culture surrounding them, as well as the obsessions, anxieties and aspirations they share, such as the foundations of order, the power and peril of mediation and the conflation of the natural and the artificial. The essays also take on the historiographical issues involved: the characterization of culture in...

1.i THE HISTORY OF BRITISHAPOCALYPTICTHOUGHT The study of early modern Britain between the Reformation of the 1530s and the Wars of the Three Kingdoms of the 1640s has undergone a series of historiographical revisions. The dramatic events during that century were marked by a religious struggle that produced a Protestant nation, divided internally, yet clearly opposed to Rome. Likewise the political environment instilled a sense of responsible awareness regarding the administration of the realm and the defense 1 of constitutional liberty. Whig Historians from the nineteenth century described 2...

A friend of Galileo and author of the renowned utopia The City of the Sun, Tommaso Campanella (Stilo, Calabria,1568- Paris, 1639) is one of the most significant and original thinkers of the early modern period. His philosophical project centred upon the idea of reconciling Renaissance philosophy with a radical reform of science and society. He produced a complex and articulate synthesis of all fields of knowledge - including magic and astrology. During his early formative years as a Dominican friar, he manifested a restless impatience towards Aristotelian philosophy and its followers. As a...

Anna Maria van Schurman was in more than one aspect an unconventional woman in her own lifetime. As a gifted scholar in many foreign and ancient languages, as well as in philosophy and theology, she corresponded with other learned men and women all over Europe. She achieved international renown for her own defence of scholarly activity of women. Life and work of this Dutch femme savante of the 17th Century has thus far been studied by theologians, philosophers, literary scholars, historians, pedagogues and art historians, each concentrating on specific aspects of Van Schurman's...