18th Century Philosophy

David Hume (1711-1776) ranks among the greatest of philosophers and issues of religion lie at the heart of what most concerned him. Although the exact nature of Hume’s attitude to religion is a matter of some controversy, there is general agreement that his basic stance was critical, if not hostile, to the doctrines and dogmas of orthodox religious belief and practice. There remains, however, considerable disagreement about whether or not Hume believed that there is any truth or value in religion. According to some, Hume was a sceptic who regarded all conjectures relating to religious hypotheses to be beyond the scope of human understanding – he neither affirmed nor denied these conjectures. Others read Hume as embracing a highly refined form of “true religion”. On the other side of this spectrum, it is claimed that Hume was committed to atheism, although due to social conditions at the time, this had to be (thinly) concealed or masked. The aim of this article is to provide an overview of Hume’s core concerns and arguments on this subject and to provide the reader with a framework for interpreting and assessing his various contributions.

Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws principally argues that each society has its own customs and organisational systems which are socio-culturally specific to their politico-economic context, and therefore any attempt to impose a political or legal system that is not derived from these customs may lead to state failure generally or tyranny specifically.

Ein Gemeinplatz der modernen Ästhetik besteht darin, dass sich die Produktivität des Künstlers einem entfesselten Gebrauch seiner Einbildungskraft verdankt. Nach dieser Vorstellung kann der Künstler neue Werke hervorbringen, weil er sich der assoziativen Kraft seiner Einbildungskraft überlässt. Als eine historische Quelle für die Auffassung, dass der Künstler in der Verwendung seiner Einbildungskraft von zwingenden Regeln frei ist, wird dabei oft Kants Genietheorie des Künstlers angesehen. Kant wird damit als Opponent der Regelpoetik Gottscheds und Vorbereiter der Genieauffassung der Romantik wahrgenommen. Tatsächlich stellt die Auffassung, dass das künstlerische Genie seine Einbildungskraft frei von begrifflichen Zwängen ausübt, einen wichtigen Teil von Kants Theorie der schönen Kunst dar. Wie sich jedoch leicht feststellen lässt, schreibt Kant dem schöne Kunst hervorbringenden Genie keine absolute Freiheit im Gebrauch der Einbildungskraft zu. Im Folgenden beschäftige ich mich mit den Beschränkungen, denen die Einbildungskraft des Genies trotz der ihr zugeschriebenen Freiheit laut der Kunsttheorie der Kritik der Urteilskraft unterworfen ist.

There is a prima facie conflict between the values of love and autonomy. How can we bind ourselves to a person and still enjoy the fruits of self-determination? This chapter argues that the solution to this conflict lies in recognizing that love is the basis of autonomy: one must love a person in order to truly appreciate their autonomy. To make this case, this chapter defends a minimalist account of love, according to which love is an agreeable sensation that is experienced when considering the existence of another person. On this view, the lover does not desire anything from the beloved but works to attend to their presence. Love, then, puts us in a position to appreciate the beloved in their particular way of being. By accepting the presence of the beloved we gain a sense of their autonomy. The roots of this account of love are found in the writings of Damaris Cudworth Masham. This chapter draws on the work of Kieran Setiya, David Velleman, and Kyla Ebels-Duggan to elaborate on and defend Masham's views.

If the greatness of a philosophical work can be measured by the volume and vehemence of the public response, there is little question that Rousseau's Social Contract stands out as a masterpiece. Within a week of its publication in 1762 it was banished from France. Soon thereafter, Rousseau fled to Geneva, where he saw the book burned in public. At the same time, many of his contemporaries, such as Kant, considered Rousseau to be “the Newton of the moral world,” as he was the first philosopher to draw attention to the basic dignity of human nature. The Social Contract has never ceased to be read in the 250 years since it was written. Rousseau's “Social Contract”: An Introduction offers a thorough and systematic tour of this notoriously paradoxical and challenging text. David Lay Williams offers readers a chapter-by-chapter reading of the Social Contract, squarely confronting these interpretive obstacles, leaving no stones unturned. The conclusion connects Rousseau's text both to his important influences and those who took inspiration and sometimes exception to his arguments. The book also features a special extended appendix dedicated to outlining his famous conception of the general will, which has been the object of controversy since the Social Contract's publication.

Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason demonstrates that it is impossible to have knowledge of the thing in itself by means of either concepts or intuitions. The great student of Nishida Kitarō and Martin Heidegger, Japanese philosopher, Keiji Nishitani (1900–1990), does not seem to dispute Kant’s claim that the thing in itself cannot be known by means of reason or indeed by any act of consciousness whatever. But for Nishitani the Critique does not demonstrate that it is impossible to experience or obtain awareness of the thing in itself through purely non-subjective, non- representational, and non-conceptual means. In what follows, I recon- struct Nishitani’s formulation of the paradox of representation and show how his method of resolving the paradox provides an argument against Kant, that one can know the thing in itself by non-conceptual means. For Nishitani it appears that the impossibility of knowing the thing in itself by means of reason shows a new path forward. Rather than attempt to know the thing in itself by means of reason or subjectivity in general, we can still gain access to the thing in itself by transcending reason and subjectivity altogether. To state this even more generally: insofar as philosophy itself performs its rational work from the standpoint of subjectivity (whether implicitly or explicitly), we can apprehend the thing in itself by transcending the standpoint of philosophy. In Nishitani’s terms, the only way to know the thing in itself is by “breaking through self-consciousness” (Nishitani 1983, 16–17).

Tristram Shandy, de Laurence Sterne, et Jacques le Fataliste, de Denis Diderot, m'apparaissent aujourd'hui comme les deux plus grandes oeuvres romanesques du 18 e siècle, deux romans conçus comme un jeu grandiose. Ce sont deux sommets de la légèreté jamais atteints ni avant ni après. Le roman ultérieur se fit ligoter par l'impératif de la vraisemblance, par le décor réaliste, par la rigueur de la chronologie. Il abandonna les possibilités contenues dans ces deux chefsd'oeuvre, qui étaient en mesure de fonder une autre évolution du roman que celle que l'on connaît (oui, on peut imaginer aussi une autre histoire du roman européen…). 1 Cette affirmation de Milan Kundera dans L'Art du roman reste d'actualité, et elle nous pousse à affirmer que l'actualité de l'oeuvre de Diderot consiste justement dans le fait que sa littérature n'a malheureusement pas fondé une tradition. Ainsi, le retour à Diderot nous met devant des possibilités inexplorées par l'histoire littéraire, mais aussi devant certaines possibilités ouvertes par la pensée du XVIII e siècle que l'Histoire n'a pas pu réaliser. C'est-à-dire que la lecture de Diderot aujourd'hui nous rappelle les promesses de la Révolution française et de leur stupéfiante actualité. Tout commence et évolue de manière négative. D'abord, nous avons le titre qui nous présente les personnages, ensuite nous avons une petite introduction au récit, qui commence ainsi : Comment s'étaient-ils rencontrés ? Par hasard, comme tout le monde. Comment s'appelaient-ils ? Que vous importe ? D'où venaient-ils ? Du lieu le plus prochain. Où allaient-ils ? Est-ce que l'on sait où on va ? Que disaient-ils ? Le maître ne disait rien ; et Jacques disait que son capitaine disait que tout ce qui nous arrive de bien et de mal ici-bas était écrit là-haut. 2 Le narrateur joue avec le lecteur et présente les questions possibles qu'un lecteur se poserait devant un récit. D'abord il s'agit de savoir qui sont les personnages et comment ils se sont rencontrés. La réponse du narrateur donne le ton et présente la question qui sera celle de toute l'oeuvre. En posant les questions et en y répondant, le

The eighteenth-century German physicist, philosopher, and aphorist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) is well known for his objection to the substantial view of the self, but his thoughts on idealism and the relationship of his views to the positions of his philosophical predecessors are less familiar. I argue that Lichtenberg’s empiricism leads him to maintain a form of idealism according to which objects for us are only representations, and I show how this position relates to his linguistic idealism and his coherentist theory of truth. Seen in this light, Lichtenberg makes an important, if unacknowledged, contribution to the history of German philosophy distinct from later German idealism.

Estudio del proceso ilustrado que fue transformando la percep- ción mítica de los fenómenos volcánicos en la incipiente ciencia vulcanológica. La observación directa en Filipinas y la acumulación de datos empíricos de diferente naturaleza (relaciones de sucesos, testimonios de erupciones, expediciones científicas e historiografía) permitió el desarrollo de la ciencia española al mismo tiempo que alimentó las bases estéticas de lo sublime filipino. Se edita como anexo Carta dirigida al señor D. Rafael María de Aguilar sobre el volcán de Albay por Manuel Sánchez Valladares. Nueva Cáceres, 1800.

An analysis is made of the process that in 18th century tranformed the mythical perception of volcanic phenomena into the incipient science of Volca- nology. Direct observation in the Philippine Archipelago and the collection of diffe- rent kinds of empirical data (accounts of events, testimonies of eruptions, scientific expeditions and historiography) allowed Spanish Science to evolve at the same time that the aesthetical roots on the Philippine Sublime were estblished. In the appendix there is an edition of the Carta dirigida al señor D. Rafael María de Aguilar sobre el volcán de Albay por Manuel Sánchez Valladares, Nueva Cáceres, 1800.

Au XVIIIe siècle, le philosophe n’est pas seulement en son cabinet ou en tribune, il est aussi sur les planches. Loué, célébré, mais aussi vilipendé ou moqué, il occupe une place prépondérante. Parmi les figures de philosophes convoquées figure celle de Socrate. Si le Socrate de Voltaire n’est pas sa meilleure tragédie, si La Mort de Socrate de Billardon de Sauvigny et Le Procès de Socrate de Collot d’Herbois ont eu un temps les honneurs de la scène, le Socrate de Linguet, La Maison de Socrate le sage de Mercier, le Socrate de Pastoret de Calian et La Mort de Socrate de Bernardin de Saint-Pierre ne seront pas joués. Retour sur une figure, son traitement et ses enjeux dans le théâtre philosophique mais aussi antiphilosophique des Lumières.

Hume refers to women as imaginative, compassionate, conversable, and delicate. While his appraisals of women seem disparate, I argue that they reflect a position about the distinctive role that Hume takes women to have in shaping and enforcing moral norms. On his view, I maintain, women provide us with the ideal model of a moral judge. I claim that Hume sees a tight connection between moral competency and those traits he identifies as feminine. Making this case requires getting clear on a number of concepts in Hume's philosophical toolbox-sympathy, compassion, imagination, etc.-and their relation to one another. The primary quality of a good moral judge, according to Hume, is a delicacy of taste. I show that Hume thinks of delicacy as a feminine skill that can only be developed in men imperfectly, thereby making women the ideal moral judges.

Miklós Szentkuthy — born Miklós Pfisterer, in 1908 — introduced himself to Budapest’s literary circles in 1934 with a self-published novel, Prae, and he remained a provocative figure until his death in 1988. Szentkuthy is still referred to as the “sacred monster” of Hungarian letters, and the expression is apt. His huge output — foremost, the “Romanesque cathedral” that is the Breviary — is at once speculative and manneristic, hyper-erotic and hyper-religious, bleary eyed and clear-sighted.       

Szentkuthy’s ambition was medieval: to produce a catalogus rerum, “an index of all entities.” His method is “Hellenistic-rococo”: he writes spirited variations on the letter of the canon. His syntax and affect are irreverently modernist, yet there is nothing programmatic about his avant-gardism, and what he wrote of Casanova holds true of him as well: “the muck of literary program is not allowed to dirty his white cuffs.” In the Marginalia, “metaphysical facts,” “factual truths,” and deliriums are calculated to transect “with the epic grace of an apoplectic fit.” It is not accidental, then, that he was thrilled by the expression of the15th-century polymath, Nicolas of Cusa — echoed by Romantics like Novalis and Coleridge — that the essence of all things is a coincidentia oppositorum: a “coincidence of opposites.” Szentkuthy is, himself, such a coincidence. ...

Famously, in the second Critique, Kant claims that our consciousness of the moral law provides us with sufficient grounds for the attribution of freedom to ourselves as noumena or things-in-themselves. This much should be uncontroversial. What is much more controversial is the precise kind of cognitive relation to things-in-themselves that Kant believes is possible from a practical point of view. Traditionally, interpreters have tended to regard such “practical cognition” of things-in-themselves as (at best) a poor step-cousin of its theoretical counterpart – as a sort of mere “rational faith” unworthy of serious comparison with genuine theoretical knowledge or cognition. But this seriously underestimates the degree to which Kant believes we can achieve “practical cognition” of things-in-themselves from a practical point of view – or at least, it does so insofar as we focus on our practical self-understanding as noumenally free agents. At least in this case, far from representing an impoverished cousin of theoretical cognition and theoretical knowledge, our practical awareness of ourselves as free possesses all of the central marks of cognition and knowledge in Kant’s sense of these two terms – albeit on distinctively practical grounds.

Речь К.Г. Лангера, профессора Императорского Московского университета в 1764–1774 гг., — первая оригинальная публикация по политической науке в Московском университете. Проблемное и предметное поле и междисциплинарные связи этой дисциплины автор определил на основе анализа европейских трудов по политике, праву, географии, истории и экономике. Речь отразила процесс становления политической науки в XVI–XVIII вв. в Европе, преимущественно в немецких университетах, и оказала влияние на ее преподавание Московском университете.
The Speech on the limits and the most important representatives of political science by K. Langer, a professor of the Imperial Moscow University in 1764–1774, is the first original publication on political science in the Moscow University. The scholar has defined political science based on an analysis of European works on politics, law, geography, history and economics. The Speech reflected the process of development of political science in 16th–18th centuries in Europe, mostly in German universities, and influenced on teaching political science in the Moscow University.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Fundamental Political Writings includes the Social Contract, Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts, Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, and “Preface to Narcissus.” Each text has been newly translated, and includes a full complement of explanatory notes. The editors’ introduction offers students diverse points of entry into some of the distinctive possibilities and challenges of each of these fundamental texts, as well as an introduction to Rousseau’s life and historical situation, from his early years in Geneva to his final years in relative solitude. Each text is accompanied by images from the original editions. The volume also includes annotated appendices that help students to explore the origins and influences of Rousseau’s work, including excerpts from Hobbes, Pascal, Descartes, Mandeville, Diderot, Voltaire, Madame de Staël, Benjamin Constant, Joseph de Maistre, Kant, Hegel, and Engels.

This essay uncovers to what extent the foundational principles of physics
have endured since The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence through
contemporary developments in Relativity and Quantum mechanics (QM).
Clarke’s arguments reflect Newton’s experiments, which proved
differences between absolute and relative motion. Leibniz’s focus on
relations and events foreshadows Einstein’s concepts of spacetime, which
does not exist on its own, and simultaneity, which is observer dependent.
Though spacetime is curved in the General Theory of Relativity (GR),
unlike the homogenous and symmetric space assumed by the two 18thcentury
philosophers, it is the curvature that facilitates the bodily
movements that Leibniz knew were not produced via force from a distance.
Ultimately, I show that Leibniz’s relationism and Principle of Sufficient
Reason, both pivotal in debating Clarke, will be instrumental in guiding the
unification of GR with QM, which models networks of particles
probabilistically — improving our understanding of the origins and
trajectory of our universe.

Critics accuse Rousseau's works of promoting a passive and dangerous nostalgia in the face of the demands of moral judgment, critical thought, and political negotiation. In Émile and its source texts, however, Rousseau presents two modern heroes who follow their nostalgic pleasure to perceive their freedom of will and present duty to act – to achieve what Kant calls "enlightenment." In "Lettres morales," Rousseau advises Sophie d'Houdetot to act in response to her "voluptuous" remorse for lost, adolescent enjoyment of moral virtue. In Émile, the titular character realizes his autonomy in his nostalgic regret. He must pursue the pastoral dream of independent agrarian community despite understanding the inevitable failure of the political conditions necessary for community. In both cases, Rousseau raises, for non-ideal political theory, important "counter-nostalgic" passions that motivate moral action in compromised socio-political conditions.

The creation of the class of speculative philosophy at the Berlin Academy in the 1740s is remarkable for at least two reasons: on the one hand, it is the only major academy at the time to include the study of disciplines like metaphysics, logic, and moral philosophy, which were grouped together under the name of speculative philosophy. Other comparable institutions, such as the London and Paris Academies, did not comprise these domains of thought, for they were normally studied in the universities. At its inception in 1700, the Berlin Academy was similar to other such institutions and was exclusively concerned with the experimental sciences, mathematics and belles-lettres. Its founder, Leibniz, did not see a reason for including philosophy and metaphysics, although, as we know, he was more than inclined to such fields of research, to which he made significant contributions. 1 The changes made by Frederick II and the new generation of academicians are thus innovative even for the Berlin Academy. On the other hand, the use of the expression speculative philosophy raises many questions: speculating about metaphysics and practical philosophy was often perceived at the time in a pejorative way. For instance, Hume, as many others in the eighteenth century, most often associates speculative 1 On Leibniz's views about academies, see : Eberhard Knobloch, 'Die Leibniz'sche Akademiekonzeption', in Leibniz heute lesen, hrsg. von Herta Nagl-Docekal (Berlin-Boston, 2018), 143-160. Hans Poser, Leibniz' Philosophie, hrsg. von Wenchao Li (Hamburg, 2016), 408-445 knowledge with abstract and uncertain opinion. 2 Speculation was thus conceived of as a useless and even damaging sort of reasoning for philosophy in general, and this would certainly be the case in the context of an academy tasked with increasing our knowledge and contributing to the common good. Some scholars have mentioned the particularity of the class of speculative philosophy, but no studies have sought to explain this unique theoretical situation in any detailed manner. 3 In this paper, I would like to address the following matters: first, I will examine the notion of speculative philosophy in the eighteenth century in order to show the originality of the Berlin Academy's position. There are good reasons for maintaining that the academicians of the 1740s proposed a quite novel definition of speculative philosophy. A comparison with other conceptions, above all those of Boyle, Locke and Wolffian thinkers such as Baumgarten and Meier, will help us to understand its originality. This point is especially important for understanding the evolution of such a notion in the history of German institutions and universities during the second half of the eighteenth century. Second, I would like to analyse some key mémoires in which academicians attempted to determine the nature and relevance of speculative philosophy in their institution. An important source is Maupertuis, who, as president, explains his views on the division of classes and on the advantages of undertaking such research in an academy. But there are other subsequent contributions, in particular those of Formey, who, as secretary, wrote papers on these questions. These considerations were raised at distinct periods and express different ways of

Achim Vesper Durch Schönheit zur Freiheit? Schillers Auseinandersetzung mit Kant (Brief 1 und Folgen) Mit Blick auf die Gesamtargumentation der Briefe über die Ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen hat der erste Brief vorbereitenden Charakter. Er macht aber nicht nur mit Stil und Darstellungsweise der Briefe bekannt (so Matuschek 2009, 152-155), sondern stellt auch den Gegenstand der Schrift und ihr übergeordnetes philosophisches Ziel vor. Dabei fällt auf, wie eng Schiller sein eigenes Projekt mit demjenigen Kants verbindet. Im ersten Brief führt Schiller aus, warum und auf welche Weise er an Kant anzuschließen beabsichtigt. Ausgehend vom ersten Brief stelle ich Schillers Auseinandersetzung mit Kant in den Briefen in ihren Grundlinien dar.

The concept of inner sense plays a prominent role in Kant’s attempts to define the character and scope of anthropology. Moreover, Kant denounces the terminological confusion between inner sense and apperception as a source of paralogisms. Who were his targets? In recent years, scholars have pointed to the existence of a German tradition on inner sense (perhaps independent from Locke) as a plausible source for Kant’s elaboration. However, some specific aspects of the German treatment of inner sense have been so far completely overlooked. This paper focuses on Jungius, Leibniz, Wolff, and Lambert, to show that they all referred to inner sense or inner experience as a privileged source of knowledge, immune to error and free from the ontological limits of the external senses. In this tradition, inner sense was ascribed with the epistemological function of providing a foundation not only for psychology but also for logic and metaphysics. Such a radical empowerment of the role of inner sense, which culminated in Lambert’s work, is the most plausible target of Kant’s criticism. Relegating the contribution of inner sense to the fields of anthropology and empirical psychology was part of Kant’s effort to purify logic and metaphysics from any reference to inner experience or sensation.

Since the word “idealism” came into use in the 18th century, Berkeley and Kant have been considered leading exponents of this diverse, sometimes contradictory cluster of doctrines. While it is commonly argued by contemporary scholars that Kant’s transcendental idealism and Berkeley’s immaterialism represent vastly incompatible systems of thought, I contend that this “received view” harbors a serious misunderstanding of both philosophers. In spite of Kant’s ardent protests to the contrary, I argue that (as an interpretative framework) the received view radically underdetermines important convergences in the Kantian and Berkelean treatments of idealism, skepticism, and the nature of space and time. In this paper, I address these convergences with the aim of bringing Kant and Berkeley closer together.

Just how prescient was Edmund Burke about the problems of modern democracy?  Written for the bicentenary of his death in 1797, this book argues that he had a remarkable grasp of the shortcomings of the ideas promoted by the French Revolution, which still dominate much of our political thinking.  "As for the rights of man, I did implore the Director General to leave them alone" -- T. S. Eliot to Mrs. J. J. Hawkes of UNESCO, 22 Oct 1947.

This odd expression, ‘Epicuro-Cartesianism’, is used by La Mettrie himself to describe his system. It refers, obviously, to a blending of Epicureanism and Cartesianism. But what does this mean? Three senses can be distinguished, of which one is probably more significant than the rest:(1) An infusion of subversive Epicurean elements of materialism into a more orthodox Cartesian mechanist framework; (2) An attempt to graft Epicurean, that is, hedonistic moral teaching onto a Cartesian philosophyof science and metaphysics; (3) A decisive transformation of the world of early modern rationalist metaphysics by bringing in the new ‘data’ from the life sciences, primarily medicine and the nascent biology.
    Epicureanism simply served as the convenient form in which to cast this new data (moving away from substantial forms in the Aristotelian sense to a new medically driven materialism). It is the third sense which I will emphasize, although it does not exclude the first two. La Mettrie is generally given short shrift in Anglo-Saxon histories of philosophy, which usually make the ‘textbook’ jump from Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz to Kant and Hegel. Unfortunately, the vivid nature of La Mettrie’s most famous title, L’Homme Machine, has led to his being included in the pantheon of mechanistic materialist thinkers, to the present days. Yet careful research has shown, over the past twenty years, that La Mettrie was anything but a mechanist in our sense (or in Descartes’ sense); the ‘machine’ in question is an anatomical machine, not reproducible artificially. Furthermore, the exact nature of his appropriation of Cartesianism is debatable. I will thus try and describe this important stage of interpretation of the ‘classical’ rationalist systems, which produced a concise materialist system quite different from those generally considered as canonical in Anglo-Saxon histories of philosophy, such as the genuinely mechanistic system of Hobbes.

In this essay I reassess Willem Jacob 's Gravesande's Newtonianism. I draw attention to 's Gravesande's a-causal rendering of physics that went against Newton's causal understanding of natural philosophy and to his attempt to establish a solid foundation for the certainty of Newton's natural philosophy, which he considered as a powerful antidote against the theological aberrations of Descartes and especially Spinoza. I argue that, although 's Gravesande clearly took inspiration from Newton's natural philosophy, he was running his own scientific and intellectual agenda and that he was combining Newtonian and non-Newtonian elements.

This paper demonstrates how Herder's unique position (in the 18th century) on moral philosophy is rooted in his understanding of the soul-body relationship. He rejects both Mendelssohn's conception of the soul as separate from the body and striving for an eternal perfection and his associated belief in a moral philosophy that consists of universal, rational principles. Herder construes the soul as deeply bound up with the body, and knowledge, including of morality, as rooted in the lower, sensuous regions of the soul. In the case of morality, moral norms and mores emerge from culturally and historically shaped quasi-physiological "moral feelings" (moralische Gefühle). The paper seeks to unpack the young Herder's reflections on moral philosophy, and show how they emerge from his conception of the soul-body relationship, which is, in part, critically worked out in dialogue with Mendelssohn.

This article revisits the dispute between Moses Mendelssohn and Rabbi Jacob Emden on the question of Jewish chosenness and Universalism, based on a renewed analysis of their correspondence concerning Maimonides’ synthesis of the Noachide laws. Whereas Mendelssohn advocates for a universalism of Reason, Emden develops a surprising idea of universalism as mediated by divine commandment. This article proposes to uncover the philosophical layers beneath the Mendelssohn-Emden debate, which permits to highlight the theoretical originality of Emden’s idea of Jewish universality, often regarded as dogmatic and pre-modern in comparison to Mendelssohn’s enlightened thinking. More importantly, this paper demonstrate how, would Mendelssohn have accepted Emden’s doctrine of universalism, he could have find a solution to one of the most important problems he struggles with in his book Jerusalem, i.e., the contradiction between universalism and chosenness.

This chapter discusses the relation between Kant’s views on the foundations of syllogistic inference in ‘The False Subtlety of the Four Syllogistic Figures’, the views of eighteenth-century German authors who wrote on syllogism, and the conception of metaphysics that Kant developed in 1762-1764. Kant’s positions are, on the whole, rather original, even though they are not as independent from the intellectual context as Kant’s later, Critical philosophy. Despite Kant’s polemical tone, his views on syllogism are not primarily motivated by polemical purposes. They are strongly influenced by his views on the method of metaphysics.

(An Edition Open Access book. Here is the link to the official webpage:

http://www.edition-open-sources.org/sources/9/index.html)

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In the summer of 1704, Antonio Vallisneri (1661–1730), the preeminent Italian physician and natural philosopher of his time, traveled with a “daring soul” and “trembling feet” across the “silent horrors” of the northern Apennines: down the hills south of Reggio Emilia to northern Tuscany and the western edge of his native land, the Province of Garfagnana. He then wrote a report of this adventure, the Primi Itineris per Montes Specimen Physico-Medicum (“Physico-medical example of a first journey through the mountains), and sent it to the Royal Society of London, hoping for its publication in Philosophical Transactions. Unfortunately this did not happen and the manuscript disappeared from sight. The original draft, however, survived in the State Archive of the Italian city of Reggio Emilia where it was found in 2009.

With its exceptional array of geological, medical, geographical, technical, ethnographic, and historical data, the Primi Itineris Specimen is one of the earliest and most well-documented attempts to define a systematic approach to field research. Its frantically reworked pages and anxious marginal notes offer a new and precious opportunity to understand why and how experimental data and theories in the early modern period interacted and shaped the development of many crucial debates. These include the discovering of deep-time, the comprehension of geological phenomena (such as the hydrologic cycle and the origin of mountains and fossils), the perception of man’s place in nature, the constant search for new therapeutics, the tormented and charming relation between science and religion.

It is widely believed that the ancient Greeks thought that Thales was the first philosopher, and that they therefore maintained that philosophy had a Greek origin. This paper challenges these assumptions, arguing that most ancient Greek thinkers who expressed views about the history and development of philosophy rejected both positions. I argue that not even Aristotle presented Thales as the first philosopher, and that doing so would have undermined his philosophical commitments and interests. Beyond Aristotle, the view that Thales was the first philosopher is attested almost nowhere in antiquity. In the classical, Hellenistic, and post-Hellenistic periods, we witness a marked tendency to locate the beginning of philosophy in a time going back further than Thales. Remarkably, ancient Greek thinkers most often traced the origins of philosophy to earlier non-Greek peoples. Contrary to the received view, then, I argue that (1) vanishingly few Greek writers pronounced Thales the first philosopher; and (2) most Greek thinkers did not even advocate a Greek origin of philosophy. Finally, I show that the view that philosophy originated with Thales (along with its misleading attribution to the Greeks in general) has roots in problematic, and in some cases manifestly racist, eighteenth-century historiography of philosophy.

These are the slides from my recent invited Women's History Month lecture on Mary Wollstonecraft, the author of the Vindication of the Rights of Women (among other works). 

Videorecording of the entire lecture is available here - https://youtu.be/ztl5-465rZU

During the lecture, I discuss her childhood, relationships with her family and her close friend Fanny Blood, and the succession of early jobs and professions.  Then we focus on her deliberate choice to move to London and make her living by writing - first by translation and novel review work - then then by her own writings.

We discuss a number of ideas from one of her main works, The Vindication of the Rights of Women, including the nature and importance of education, civilization and human development, culture's impact upon gender inequality, and the need for friendship in marriage. 

We also discuss the two main romantic relationships Wollstonecraft had in the course of her life - in the last five years of her life.  One was with Gilbert Imlay, with whom she had her daughter, Fanny.  He effectively abandoned both of them, which lead to Wollstonecraft's two suicide attempts. The other was with William Godwin, who she married, and with whom she had her daughter Mary. 

After her daughter's Mary birth, Wollstonecraft died of complications from the birth.  Godwin would soon publish his biography of Wollstonecraft, which then effectively ruined her reputation for roughly a century.

Монография составлена из ранее опубликованных автором статей и материалов по истории и методологии исследования российского дворянства конца XVIII — начала XIX века. В книгу вошли результаты более чем двадцати лет работы. Предлагается постановка различных проблем изучения дворянства, case studies из жизни влиятельного клана Воронцовых, сделана попытка соединить государственное служение, личную жизнь и метафизику одного из ярчайших представителей российской аристократии — М.С. Воронцова.

The monograph is composed by the author from already published papers and studies in history and methodology of the Russian nobility at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. The book presents the results of more than twenty years of the author’s research. He suggests interpretations of various problems in nobility studies, of some cases from powerful Vorontsov clan’s life, and attempts to put together outstanding aristocrat M. Vorontsov’s public service, private life and metaphysics.

This chapter is from a volume of papers devoted to providing introductions to many of Leibniz's key philosophical writings. It provides an overview of one of Leibniz's most impenetrable works, the Theodicy. I argue that the Theodicy is best understood against a careful reading of the Preface, in which Leibniz suggests that the primary aim of the book is to provide the means by which natural theology and Leibniz's conception of God as a being deserving of our love may be maintained in the face of objections that stem from considering the nature of freedom and the so-called 'problem of evil'. The chapter contains a detailed presentation of the main discussions in the book, including the Preliminary Dissertation in which Leibniz spells out his conception of the relationship between faith and reason.

Philosophy and Memory Traces defends two theories of autobiographical memory. One is a bewildering historical view of memories as dynamic patterns in fleeting animal spirits, nervous fluids which rummaged through the pores of brain and body. The other is new connectionism, in which memories are ‘stored’ only superpositionally, and are reconstructed rather than reproduced. Both models depart from static archival metaphors by employing distributed representation, which brings interference and confusion between memory traces. Both raise urgent issues about control of the personal past, and about relations between self and body.

The book’s historical argument is anchored by a reinterpretation of Descartes’ dynamic physiology of memory and strange philosophy of the body. English critics of Descartes’ view of memories as motions complained that mechanistic neurophilosophy could not guarantee order in memory, and instead sought techniques for controlling the brain. In a new account of 18th-century philosophers’ fears of confusion in remembering, the author demonstrates the role of bizarre body fluids in moral physiology, as philosophers from Locke to Reid and Coleridge struggled to control their own innards and impose cognitive discipline on ‘the phantasmal chaos of association’. Finally, in a defence of connectionism against Jerry Fodor and against phenomenological and Wittgensteinian critics of passive mental representations, the author shows how problems of the self are implicated in contemporary sciences of mind. The book is an experiment in historical cognitive science, based on a belief that the interdisciplinary study of memory can exemplify the simultaneous attention to brain, body, and culture towards which psychological sciences must aim.

CONTENTS (Download at http://www.johnsutton.net/PhilosophyandMemoryTraces.htm)
1 Introduction: traces, brains, and history
                  Appendix: memory and connectionism

Part I Animal spirits and memory traces
Introduction to Part I: Animal Spirits and Memory Traces
2 Wriggle-work: the quick and nimble animal spirits
3 Memory and 'the Cartesian philosophy of the brain'
                  Appendix 1: nerves, spirits, and traces in Descartes
                  Appendix 2: Malebranche on memory

Part II Inner discipline
Introduction to Part II: Inner Discipline
4 Spirit sciences, memory motions
5 Cognition, chaos, and control in English responses to Descartes' theory of memory
6 Local and distributed representations
7 John Locke and the neurophilosophy of self
                  Appendix: memory and self in Essay II.27
8 The puzzle of survival
9 Spirits, body, and self
10 The puzzle of elimination

Part III 'The phantasmal chaos of association'
Introduction to Part III: 'The phantasmal chaos of association'
11 Fodor, connectionism, and cognitive discipline
12 Associationism and neo-associationism
13 Hartley's distributed model of memory
14 Attacks on neurophilosophy: Reid and Coleridge

Part IV Connectionism and the philosophy of memory
Introduction to Part IV: connectionism and the philosophy of memory
15 Representations, realism, and history
16 Attacks on traces
17 Order, confusion, remembering

References
Index

Adam Smith closes the first chapter to Theory of Moral Sentiments, 'Of Sympathy', with a harmless enough assertion: 'We sympathize even with the dead'.  Death is not a topic that much interests Smith in Theory of Moral Sentiments. With the exception of a few miscellaneous thoughts in the text, the one paragraph Smith devotes to it is the extent of his interest. It is, however, a matter of interest in his Glasgow lectures on jurisprudence. To the extent we wish to observe the rights of the dead, how far may we extend these rights without infringing upon the rights of the living?  Which is the question: what are the demands the dead may make upon the living?

Tra i pensatori settecenteschi, Denis Diderot è senz’altro tra quelli di più difficile classificazione. Autore di romanzi, opere teatrali, testi scientifici e di critica d’arte, oltre che di filosofia. È difficile separare le sue opere propriamente “filosofiche” dal resto della sua produzione. Né, del resto, avrebbe senso farlo, perché la filosofia di Diderot emerge proprio dall’intreccio tra le molteplici sfere a cui egli si dedica. Il trentacinquesimo numero de Lo Sguardo intende indagare la figura di Diderot in tutte le sue diverse sfaccettature: filosofo, romanziere, drammaturgo, scienziato, critico d’arte, promotore culturale (con il grande progetto dell’Encyclopédie). Obiettivo della raccoltà è quello di indagare come interagiscono tra loro questi aspetti della sua opera e come contribuiscono alla filosofia che ne emerge. E ancora, stabilire cosa, ancor oggi, abbia da dire questa complessa eredità filosofica alla contemporaneità.

Case studies in postcolonial contextualization mark a forty-year-old missiolog-ical trend in evangelical scholarship. The largely unqualified support of indigenous theological expression by mission theorists represents an epistemological shift from a conservative bibliology toward felt-needs evangelization and religious roundtable dialogue methods. Evangelical contextualization theory today echoes German Ro-manticism's early assessments of indigenous language and local religion, especially as seen in the works of pluralistic Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803). No study of postcolonial contextualization is complete without considering the enduring influence of Herder's " vernacular consciousness " on the current missiological mindset.