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Understanding the details of his theory of relations and abstraction further illuminates his theory of universals.Some of the features of Aristotle's theory of abstraction developed in this book include: abstraction is a relation;

This book provides the first comprehensive account of Hume's conception of objects in Book I of the Treatise. It discusses hotly debated claims in recent literature, such as why some causal relations are justified, and why Hume is not a "skeptical realist".

This book offers a comprehensive overview of David Hume's writings on religion, paying particular attention to the inter-relationships between the various works. It presents an analysis of Hume's place in the history of atheism.

Aristotle's modal syllogistic is his study of patterns of reasoning about necessity and possibility. This volume provides a simple interpretation of Aristotle's modal syllogistic using standard predicate logic, making it accessible to a wide range of readers.

Remembered mainly as a logician and mathematician, Leibniz also endeavored to resolve political and religious conflicts of his day by bringing opponents into negotiation. The book sheds new light on the familiar, yet incomplete image of Leibniz, providing further reason for cherishing and cultivating the heritage of a truly great man.

This volume contains essays that examine infinity in early modern philosophy. These domains include mathematics, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, science, and theology. Coverage begins with an introduction that outlines the overall importance of infinity to early modern philosophy.

This volume brings together a number of original articles by leading Leibniz scholars to address the meaning and significance of Leibniz's notions of compossibility and possible worlds. In order to avoid the conclusion that everything that exists is necessary, or that all possibles are actual, as Spinoza held, Leibniz argued that not all possible substances are compossible, that is, capable of coexisting. In Leibniz's view, the compossibility relation divides all possible substances into disjoint sets, each of which constitutes a possible world, or a way that God might have created things. For Leibniz, then, it is the compossibility relation that individuates possible worlds; and possible worlds form the objects of God's choice, from among which he chooses the best for creation. Thus the notions of compossibility and possible worlds are of major significance for Leibniz's metaphysics, his theodicy, and, ultimately, for his ethics. Given the fact, however, that none of the approaches to understanding Leibniz's notions of compossibility and possible words suggested to date have gained universal acceptance, the goal of this book is to gather a body of new papers that explore ways of either refining previous interpretations in light of the objections that have been raised against them, or ways of framing new interpretations that will contribute to a fresh understanding of these key notions in Leibniz's thought.

This book centres on Samuel Pufendorf¿s (1632¿1694) moral and political philosophy, a subject of recently renewed interest among intellectual historians, philosophers and legal scholars in the English-speaking world. Pufendorf¿s significance in conceptualizing sociability in a way that ties moral philosophy, the theory of the state, political economy, and moral psychology together has already been acknowledged, but this book is the first systematic investigation of the moral psychological underpinnings of Pufendorf¿s theory of sociability in their own right. Readers will discover how Pufendorf¿s psychological and social explanation of sociability plays a crucial role in his natural law theory. By drawing attention to Pufendorf¿s scattered remarks and observations on human psychology, a new interpretation of the importance of moral psychology is presented. The author maintains that Pufendorf¿s reflection on the psychological and physical capacities of human nature also matters for his description of how people adopt sociability as their moral standard in practice. We see how, since Pufendorf¿s interest in human nature is mainly political, moral psychological formulations are important for Pufendorf¿s theorizing of social and political order. This work is particularly useful for scholars investigating the multifaceted role of passions and emotions in the history of moral and political philosophy. It also affords a better understanding of what later philosophers, such as Smith, Hume or Rousseau, might have find appealing in Pufendorf¿s writings. As such, this book will also interest researchers of the Enlightenment, natural law and early modern philosophy.

This volume contains essays that examine infinity in early modern philosophy. These domains include mathematics, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, science, and theology. Coverage begins with an introduction that outlines the overall importance of infinity to early modern philosophy.

This anthology is about the signal change in Leibniz¿s metaphysics with his explicit adoption of substantial forms in 1678-79. This change can either be seen as a moment of discontinuity with his metaphysics of maturity or as a moment of continuity, such as a passage to the metaphysics from his last years. Between the end of his sejour at Paris (November 1676) and the first part of the Hanover period, Leibniz reformed his dynamics and began to use the theory of corporeal substance. This book explores a very important part of the philosophical work of the young Leibniz.Expertise from around the globe is collated here, including Daniel Garber¿s work based on the recent publication of Leibniz's correspondence from the late 1690s, examining how the theory of monads developed during these crucial years. Richard Arthur argues that the introduction of substantial forms, reinterpreted as enduring primitive forces of action in each corporeal substance, allows Leibniz to found the reality of the phenomena of motion in force and thus avoid reducing motion to a mere appearance.Amongst other themes covered in this book, Pauline Phemister¿s paper investigates Leibniz¿s views on animals and plants, highlighting changes, modifications and elaborations over time of Leibniz¿s views and supporting arguments and paying particular attention to his claim that the future is already contained in the seeds of living things. The editor, Adrian Nita, contributes a paper on the continuity or discontinuity of Leibniz¿s work on the question of the unity and identity of substance from the perspective of the relation with soul (anima) and mind (mens).

This volume brings together a number of original articles by leading Leibniz scholars to address the meaning and significance of Leibniz¿s notions of compossibility and possible worlds. In order to avoid the conclusion that everything that exists is necessary, or that all possibles are actual, as Spinoza held, Leibniz argued that not all possible substances are compossible, that is, capable of coexisting. In Leibniz¿s view, the compossibility relation divides all possible substances into disjoint sets, each of which constitutes a possible world, or a way that God might have created things. For Leibniz, then, it is the compossibility relation that individuates possible worlds; and possible worlds form the objects of God¿s choice, from among which he chooses the best for creation. Thus the notions of compossibility and possible worlds are of major significance for Leibniz¿s metaphysics, his theodicy, and, ultimately, for his ethics. Given the fact, however, that none of the approaches to understanding Leibniz¿s notions of compossibility and possible words suggested to date have gained universal acceptance, the goal of this book is to gather a body of new papers that explore ways of either refining previous interpretations in light of the objections that have been raised against them, or ways of framing new interpretations that will contribute to a fresh understanding of these key notions in Leibniz¿s thought.

Feminist work in the history of philosophy has come of age as an innovative field in the history of philosophy. This volume marks that accomplishment with original essays by leading feminist scholars who ask basic questions: What is distinctive of feminist work in the history of philosophy?

The fact that nine years earlier one treatise could be attached to a work outside the corpus may indicate that the Hebrew collection of nine treatises was formed during those nine years, or mar even indicate that Narboni him self collected the various treatises.

The middle years of the nineteenth century saw two crucial develop ments in the history of modern logic: George Boole's algebraic treat ment of logic and Augustus De Morgan's formulation of the logic of relations.

Among Anglo-American philosophers, interest in mysticism has typically been limited to the question of whether or not mystical and religious experi ences provide evidence for, or knowledge of, the existence and nature of God.

This book reveals a thread that runs through Leibniz's metaphysics: from his logical notion of possible individuals to his notion of actual, nested ones. The book provides an original approach to the questions of individuation and relations in Leibniz, offering a novel account of Leibniz's notion of Nested Individuals.

This book discusses three linguistic projects carried out in the seventeenth century: the artificial languages created by Dalgamo and Wilkins, and Leibniz's uncompleted scheme.

During the seventies, there was a revival of systematic philosophy in general and of ontology in particular. In this way, we hope to present the difficult but instruc tive work of the 'subtle master' ('doctor subtilis') in such a way as to make it attractive to other scholars and students in theology and philoso phy.

This is the first collection of original essays entirely devoted to a detailed study of the Pyrrhonian tradition. They discuss whether the Pyrrhonist is an ethically engaged agent, whether he can claim to search for truth, and other thorny questions concerning ancient Pyrrhonism;

This book locates Christine de Pizan's argument that women are virtuous members of the political community within the context of earlier discussions of the relative virtues of men and women.

In the great libraries of Europe and the United States, hidden in fading manuscripts on forgotten shelves, lie the works of medieval Hebrew logic.

Berkeley's philosophy has been much studied and discussed over the years, and a growing number of scholars have come to the realization that scientific and mathematical writings are an essential part of his philosophical enterprise.

In his Metaphysics, Aristotle claims that he is seeking to establish a science of being. Being, at the most general level, is divided by Aristotle into the following four types: 1. Accidental being 2. Being as truth 3. Potential/actual being l 4. Per se being Per se (kath hauto) being can also be translated as "being in its own right" or "intrinsic being". This type of being has been referred to by Aristotle in different ways. The list of per se beings includes substance, quantity, quality, place, time, etc. , and this is also the list ofcategories. At Meta. ix. l, 1045b28 Aristotle calls this list the "categories of being" (hai kategoriai tou ontos). At Meta. vi. 2, 1026a36 and ix. 1O, 1051a33-b2 per se being is called "being with reference to the figures ofpredication" (ta schemata tes kategorias, or "figures ofcategories,,). 2 Of these four types of being, accidental being is briefly treated in Meta. vi. 2-3 and there Aristotle claims that the study of accidental being can be dismissed on the grounds that accidental being is indeterminate and cannot be 3 the object ofknowledge. He also does not pay much attention to being as truth and treats it briefly in two short texts: Meta. viA and ix. 1O.

In recent decades, there has been much controversy over the basic ontological commitments of the philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. This volume brings together papers from many of the leading scholars of Leibniz's thought, all of which deal with the cluster of questions surrounding Leibniz's philosophy of body.

This study explores the theoretical relationship between Aristotle's theory of syllogism and his conception of demonstrative knowledge. The problem of the relationship between Aristotle's logic and his theory of proof is commonly approached from the standpoint of whether the theory of demonstration presupposes the theory of syllogism.

This volume explores the attention awarded in the English-speaking world to German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.

In the present book, Pauline Phemister argues against traditional Anglo-American interpretations of Leibniz as an idealist who conceives ultimate reality as a plurality of mind-like immaterial beings and for whom physical bodies are ultimately unreal and our perceptions of them illusory.

Over the past twenty years the transition from the late Middle Ages to the early modern era has received increasing attention from experts in the history of philosophy.

This volume explores key aspects of the transmission of learning and the transformation of thought from the late Middle Ages to the early modern period. The volume will be of interest to scholars who work on medieval and early modern philosophy, theology, and intellectual history.