Roger Ariew

Eric Watkins

This new anthology offers the key works of seven major philosophers along with a rich selection of associated texts by other leading thinkers of the period chosen to enhance the reader's understanding of modern philosophy and its relationship to the natural science of the time. A brief general introduction describes the intellectual climate in which the works to follow were conceived. Short chapter introductions give pertinent details about specific philosophers and their works. Texts are provided in their entirety or in substantive selections, including a new abridgement of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason commissioned especially for this volume. Alternatives to the 'main' texts -- for example, Kant's Prolegomena is also included -- give instructors flexibility while providing students with the best translations of the primary source materials at an eminently reasonable price. Roger Ariew is Professor of Philosophy and Eric Watkins is Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

An Anthology of Primary Sources

Modern Philosophy

René Descartes

Donald A. Cress

Among the strengths of this edition are reliable, accessible translations, useful editorial materials, and a straightforward presentation of the Objections and Replies, including the Objections from Caterus, Arnauld, and Hobbes, and Descartes' Replies, in their entirety. 'The Letter Serving as a Reply to Gassendi' -- in which several of Descartes' associates present Gassendi's best arguments and Descartes' replies -- conveys the highlights and important issues of their notoriously extended exchange. Roger Ariew's illuminating general Introduction discusses the Meditations and the intellectual environment surrounding its reception. Also included are a bibliography and chronology.

Meditations, Objections, and Replies

Roger Ariew argues here that Cartesian philosophy should be regarded as it was in Descartes's own day - as a reaction against, as well as indebted to, Scholastic philosophy. His book illuminates Cartesian philosophy by analyzing debates between Descartes and contemporary Schoolmen and surveying controversies arising in its first reception.

Descartes and the Last Scholastics

Douglas M. Jesseph

Theo Verbeek

Dennis Des Chene

Tad M. Schmaltz

The A to Z of Descartes and Cartesian Philosophy includes a chronology, an introduction, a bibliography, and cross-reference dictionary entries Descartes's writings, concepts, and findings, as well as entries on those who supported him, those who criticized him, those who corrected him, and those who together formed one of the major movements in philosophy, Cartesianism.

The A to Z of Descartes and Cartesian Philosophy

This anthology offers the key works of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz in their entirety or in substantial selections, along with a rich selection of associated texts by other leading thinkers of the period.

Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz and Associated Texts

Readings in Modern Philosophy, Vol. 1

Marjorie Grene

Before publishing his landmark Meditations in 1641, Rene Descartes sent his manuscript to many leading thinkers to solicit their objections to his arguments. He included these objections, along with his own detailed replies, as part of the first edition. This unusual strategy gave Descartes a chance to address criticisms in advance and to demonstrate his willingness to consider diverse viewpoints—critical in an age when radical ideas could result in condemnation by church and state, or even death. Descartes and his Contemporaries recreates the tumultuous intellectual community of seventeenth-century Europe and provides a detailed, modern analysis of the Meditations in its historical context. The book's chapters examine the arguments and positions of each of the objectors—Hobbes, Gassendi, Arnauld, Morin, Caterus, Bourdin, and others whose views were compiled by Mersenne. They illuminate Descartes' relationships to the scholastics and particularly the Jesuits, to Mersenne's circle with its debates about the natural sciences, to the Epicurean movements of his day, and to the Augustinian tradition. Providing a glimpse of the interactions among leading 17th-century intellectuals as they grappled with major philosophical issues, this book sheds light on how Descartes' thought developed and was articulated in opposition to the ideas of his contemporaries.

Descartes and His Contemporaries

The most widely read anthology for the study of modern philosophy, this volume provides key works of philosophers and other leading thinkers of the period, chosen to enhance the reader’s understanding of modern philosophy and its relationship to the natural sciences of the time. The third edition incorporates important contributions of women and minority thinkers into the canon of the modern period, while retaining all of the material of the previous edition. Included are works by Princess Elisabeth, Margaret Cavendish Duchess of Newcastle, Lady Anne Conway, Anton Wilhelm Amo, Lady Damaris Masham, Lady Mary Shepherd, and Emilie Marquise Du Châtelet.The 3rd edition of this masterfully edited anthology incorporates important contributions of women and minority thinkers into the canon of the modern period, while retaining all of the material of the previous edition. Included are works by Princess Elisabeth, Margaret Cavendish Duchess of Newcastle, Lady Anne Conway, Anton Wilhelm Amo, Lady Damaris Masham, Lady Mary Shepherd, and Emilie Marquise Du Châtelet.

Descartes among the Scholastics touches on topics shared by Cartesian and late scholastic philosophy: matter and form, causation, infinity, place, time, void, and motion; the substance of the heavens; principles of metaphysics (unity, principle of individuation, truth and falsity).

Descartes among the Scholastics

The ongoing renaissance in Descartes studies has been characterized by an attempt to understand the philosopher's texts against his own intellectual background. Roger Ariew here argues that Cartesian philosophy should be regarded as it was in Descartes's own day—as a reaction against, as well as an indebtedness to, scholastic philosophy. His book illuminates Cartesian philosophy by analyzing debates between Descartes and contemporary schoolmen and surveying controversies arising in its first reception. The volume touches upon many topics and themes shared by Cartesian and late scholastic philosophy: matter and form; infinity, place, time, void, and motion; the substance of the heavens; the object or subject of metaphysics; principles of metaphysics (being and ideas) and transcendentals (for example, unity, quantity, principle of individuation, truth and falsity). Part I exhibits the differences and similarities among the doctrines of Descartes and those of Jesuits and other scholastics in seventeenth-century France. The contrasts Descartes drew between his philosophy and that of others are the subject of Part II, which also examines some arguments in which he was involved and details the continued controversy caused by Cartesianism in the second half of the seventeenth century.

Descartes and the First Cartesians adopts the perspective that we should not approach René Descartes as a solitary thinker, but as a philosopher who constructs a dialogue with his contemporaries, so as to engage them and elements of his society into his philosophical enterprise. Roger Ariew argues that an important aspect of this engagement concerns the endeavor to establish Cartesian philosophy in the Schools, that is, to replace Aristotle as theauthority there. Descartes wrote the Principles of Philosophy as something of a rival to Scholastic textbooks, initially conceiving the project as a comparison of his philosophy and that of the Scholastics. Still,what Descartes produced was inadequate for the task. The topics of Scholastic textbooks mirrored the structure of the collegiate curriculum, divided as they typically were into logic, ethics, physics, and metaphysics. But Descartes produced at best only what could be called a general metaphysics and a partial physics. Ariew's original account establishes the significance of his philosophical enterprise in relation to the textbooks of the first Cartesians and in contrast with late Scholastictextbooks.

Descartes and the First Cartesians

Blaise Pascal

Roger Ariew masterfully renders the oddities of seventeenth-century French vocabulary and syntax in this eloquent and philosophically astute translation -- the first complete English translation based on the Sellier edition of Pascal's manuscript, widely accepted as the version closest to what Pascal intended. Ariew provides a general Introduction that discusses the the life and times of Pascal, a select bibliography of primary and secondary sources, a chronology of Pascal's life and works, concordances between the Sellier and Lafuma editions of the original, and an index.

Roger Ariew

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