In this major new book, the internationally renowned thinker Jonathan Bennett offers a deeper understanding of what is going on in our own moral thoughts about human behavior. The Act Itself presents a conceptual analysis of descriptions of behavior on which we base our moral judgements, and shows that this analysis can be used as a means toward getting more control of our thoughts and thus of our lives.

This illuminating work explores six great thinkers of the early modern period: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. While not neglecting the historical setting of each, its focus is on the words they wrote. As in all of Bennett's works, it addresses philosophy as philosophy, not as museum exhibit, and it offers a close and demanding attention to textual details. For newcomers to the early modern scene, this clearly written work is an excellent introduction, and for those already in the know, it provides tools to argue with the great philosophers of the past, treating them...

'Mr Bennett, as was to be expected, has written a first-rate book on Kant's Analytic. It is vivid, entertaining, and extremely instructive. It will be found of absorbing interest both by those who already know the Critique and by those - if there are any such - who have a developed interest in philosophy, yet no direct acquaintance with Kant. These last it will surely drive to the text and, as surely, will drive them to approach it in a truly philosophical spirit. Bennett's Kant is not a giant immersed, or frozen, in time. He is a great contemporary - a little out of touch, admittedly, with...

"With an astonishing erudition . . . and in a direct no-nonsense style, Bennett expounds, compares, and criticizes Spinoza s theses. . . . No one can fail to profit from it. Bennett has succeeded in making Spinoza a philosopher of our time." --W. N. A. Klever, "Studia Spinoza""

This is a study of events and their place in our language and thought. The author discusses what kind of item an event is, how the language of events works and how these two themes are interrelated. He argues that most of the supposedly metaphysical literature on events is really about semantics of their names, and that the true metaphysic of events - known by Leibniz and rediscovered by Jaegwon Kim - has not been universally accepted because it has been obscured by a false semantic theory.

First published in 1976, this book presents a view of language as a matter of systematic communicative behaviour.