The revival of ancient Greek scepticism in the 16th and 17th centuries was of the greatest importance in changing the intellectual climate in which modern science developed, and in developing the attitude that we now call "The scientific outlook." Many streams of thought came together contributing to various facets of this crucial development. One of the most fascinating of these is that of "constructive scepticism," the history of one of whose forms is traced in this study by Prof. Van Leeuwen. The sceptical crisis that arose during the Renaissance and Refor mation challenged the fundamental...

Dick Popkin and James Force have attended a number of recent conferences where it was apparent that much new and important research was being done in the fields of interpreting Newton's and Spinoza's contributions as biblical scholars and of the relationship between their biblical scholarship and other aspects of their particular philosophies.
This collection represents the best current research in this area. It stands alone as the only work to bring together the best current work on these topics. Its primary audience is specialised scholars of the thought of Newton and Spinoza as well...

'the oldest biography of Spinoza', La Vie de Mr. Spinosa, which in the manuscript copies is often followed by L'Esprit de M. Spinosa. Margaret Jacob, in her Radical Enlightenment, contended that the Traite was written by a radical group of Freemasons in The Hague in the early eighteenth century. Silvia Berti has offered evidence it was written by Jan Vroesen. Various discussions in the early eighteenth century consider many possi ble authors from the Renaissance onwards to whom the work might be attributed. The Trois imposteurs has attracted quite a bit of recent attention as one of the most...

Over the past twenty-five years - since the very large collection of Newton's papers became available and began to be seriously examined - the beginnings of a new picture of Newton has emerged. This volume of essays builds upon the foundation of its authors in their previous works and extends and elaborates the emerging picture of the new' Newton, the great synthesizer of science and religion as revealed in his intellectual context.

Thanks to the work of legions of scholars, the millenarian expectations within large segments of the population in Cromwellian England have been carefully examined. The widespread belief that England, with its messianic leader 1 Cromwell, heralded the millennium is well known. Less well examined, perhaps, has been the cultural conceptions of the role of millenarian and messianic ideas in the "long" eighteenth century. Especially during the stable Hanoverian era - until the American and French Revolutions - the common place millennial expectations of the English Civil War appeared to recede....

This is the first book to bring together studies of a wide variety of millenarians who were active in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in France, The Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, and eastern Europe.
The sheer variety of millenarian ideas and movements and their myriad of ebbs and flows and interactions teach us that millenarianism was a much more complex and influential factor than most studies have recognized. It was part and parcel of the growth of science, the progress of philosophy, and the genesis of political reform. This volume provides much food for thought for students...

Scepticism in the History of Philosophy is a dialogue between leading Latin American and North American scholars concerned with the history of scepticism from ancient times to present day philosophy. The volume contains interesting discussions by a wide range of philosophers and historians of philosophy.
The book should be of great interest to many philosophers who are interested in scepticism. It is unique in presenting in English the work of philosophers from Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Chile; philosophers not well known to the English speaking world.

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...