"Modern" philosophy in the West is said to have begun with Bacon and Descartes. Their methodological and metaphysical writings, in conjunction with the discoveries that marked the seventeenth-century scientific revolution, are supposed to have interred both Aristotelian and scholastic science and the philosophy that supported it. But did the new or "modern" philosophy effect a complete break with what preceded it? Were Bacon and Descartes untainted by scholastic influences? The theme of this book is that the new and traditional philosophies have much more in common than the orthodox account...

Tom Sorell and Luc Foisneau present a volume of brand-new new essays which reconsider the significance of Thomas Hobbes's masterpiece after three and a half centuries. The world's leading Hobbes scholars and a few newcomers develop themes that have not received sufficient attention in previous work on Leviathan the place of the last of Hobbes's treatises in the scheme of Hobbes's political writings; Leviathan's claims about some of the passions with the greatest effects on politics; and the connections between biblical and political authorities. This is a book that anyone working on Hobbes...

Philosophy written in English is overwhelmingly analytic philosophy, and the techniques and predilections of analytic philosophy are not only unhistorical but anti-historical, and hostile to textual commentary. Analytic usually aspires to a very high degree of clarity and precision of formulation and argument, and it often seeks to be informed by, and consistent with, current natural science. In an earlier era, analytic philosophy aimed at agreement with ordinary linguistic intuitions or common sense beliefs, or both. All of these aspects of the subject sit uneasily with the use of historical...

Presenting an exploration of the ethical issues raised by health insurance this volume focuses on a wide range of areas, such as AIDS, genetic engineering, screening and underwriting, new disability legislation and the ethics of private and public health insurance. The text provides a survey of the key issues in health insurance, which should be valuable reading for students and teachers of Business Studies as well as health professionals of all kinds.

Written by scholars from five countries, this study discusses Hobbes' view of the nature of history and the works of history written by him.

Much of Thomas Hobbes's work can be read as historical commentary, taking up questions in the philosophy of history and the rhetorical possibilities of written history. This collection of scholarly essays explores the relation of Hobbes's work to history as a branch of learning.

Hobbes had distinctive views in metaphysics and epistemology, and wrote about such subjects as history, law, and religion. He also produced full-scale treatises in physics, optics, and geometry. All of these areas are covered in this Companion, most in considerable detail. The volume also reflects the multidisciplinary nature of current Hobbes scholarship by drawing together perspectives on Hobbes that are now being developed in parallel by philosophers, historians of science and mathematics, intellectual historians, political scientists, and literary theorists.

This unique collection of background material to Descartes' Meditations has been translated from the original French and Latin. The texts gathered here illustrate the kinds of principles, assumptions, and philosophical methods that were commonplace when Descartes was growing up. The selections are from Francisco Sanches, Christopher Clavius, Pierre de la Ramee (Petrus Ramus), Francisco Suarez, Pierre Charron, Eustachius a Sancto Paulo, Scipion Dupleix, Marin Mersenne, Pierre Gassendi, Francois de la Mother le Vayer, Charles Sorel, and Jean-Baptiste Morin.

Thomas Sorell seeks to rehabilitate views that are highly unpopular in analytic philosophy and often instantly dismissed. His book serves as an interpretation, if not outright revision, of unreconstructed Cartesianism and responds directly to the critique of contemporary philosophy. To identify what is defensible in Cartesianism, Sorell starts with a picture of unreconstructed Cartesianism which is characterized as realistic. Bridging the gap between history of philosophy and analytic philosophy, Sorell also demonstrates how some contemporary analytic philosophy is deeply Cartesian.

This book concerns not only capital punishment but also the use of philosophical theories of right and wrong. The author argues that such theories are not to be regarded as giving expert knowledge of right and wrong, still less expert guidance in the resolution of practical dilemmas. What they can do however is to improve moral rhetoric, raise the standard of persuasive speech for and against capital punishment, abortion, and euthanasia to name a few.