"Margaret Cavendish is a fascinating figure who is getting increasing attention by historians of philosophy these days, and for good reason.... She’s an interesting advocate of a vitalist tradition emphasizing the inherent activity of matter, as well as its inherent perceptive faculties. She’s also the perfect character to open students up to a different seventeenth century, and a different cast of philosophical characters. This is an ideal book to use in the classroom. The _Philosophical Letters_ gives us Cavendish’s view (...) of what was interesting and important in the philosophical world at that moment, a view of philosophy as it was at the time by an engaged participant. There are few documents like it in the history of philosophy. Deborah Boyle’s Introduction provides a very accessible summary of Cavendish’s natural philosophy, as well as good introductions to the other figures that Cavendish discusses in the book. Boyle’s annotations are not extensive, but they are a great help in guiding the student toward an informed reading of the texts." —Daniel Garber, Princeton University. (shrink)

In this essay, Falduto focuses primarily on Schiller’s Philosophical Letters, which narrate a crisis-inducing awakening from youthful metaphysical dreams in the style of an autobiographical analysis. The essay presents the Letters as evidence of the metaphysical universe of the younger Schiller and reconstructs the developmental history of Enlightenment in the microcosm of one individual. The concepts of world, thinking being, idea, love, sacrifice, and God are at the centre of the analysis. Through the treatment of Schiller’s overt (...) negation of many points contained in the juvenile writing, it is shown how the dogmatic dreams of a Neoplatonist’s metaphysics are interrupted. In this way, the Letters are presented as evidence of the utmost importance of Schiller’s philosophical reflections before his acquaintance with Kant’s critical enterprise. (shrink)

Introduction. Cavendish's life and works -- Cavendish's philosophical system -- Cavendish's opponents -- A note on the text -- Margaret Cavendish: her life, her times -- Suggestions for further reading -- Philosophical letters, A preface to the reader -- Section 1 -- Section 2 -- Section 3 -- Section 4 -- Index.

The life-long correspondence of David K. Lewis, one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century, reveals the development, breadth, and depth of his philosophy in its historical context. The first of this two volume collection of letters focuses on his contributions to metaphysics, arguably where he made his greatest impact.

The life-long correspondence of David K. Lewis, one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century, reveals the development, breadth, and depth of his philosophy in its historical context. The second of this two volume collection focuses on his contributions to philosophical questions of language, mind, and epistemology.

David Kellogg Lewis (1941-2001) was one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. He made significant contributions to almost every area of analytic philosophy including metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of science, and set the agenda for various debates in these areas which carry on to this day. In several respects he remains a contemporary figure, yet enough time has now passed for historians of philosophy to begin to study his place in twentieth century (...) thought. His philosophy was constructed and refined not just through his published writing, but also crucially through his life-long correspondence with fellow philosophers, including leading figures such as D.M. Armstrong, Saul Kripke, W.V. Quine, J.J.C. Smart, and Peter van Inwagen. His letters formed the undercurrent of his published work and became the medium through which he proposed many of his well-known theories and discussed a range of philosophical topics in depth. A selection of his vast correspondence over a 40-year period is presented here across two volumes. The letters offer an organic story of the origins, development, breadth, and depth of his philosophy in its historical context, as well as a glimpse into the influence of his many interlocutors."-- OCLC OLUC. (shrink)

In his Philosophical Letters, Voltaire provides a pungent and often satirical assessment of the religion, politics, science, and arts of the England he observed during his nearly three-year exile. In addition to the Letters, this edition provides a translation of Voltaire's Proposal for a Letter about the English, a general Introduction, chronology, notes, and bibliography.

scholars often use letter correspondences to uncover missing historical information. For example, while searching for the influential but unacknowledged women in the history of pragmatism, Charlene Haddock Seigfried discovered John Dewey’s letters to Elsie Ripley Clapp. Using these letters, Seigfried defended Clapp’s name as an early pragmatist. Similarly, Joan Smith cited Dewey’s letter to John T. McManis to show that Ella Flagg Young likewise influenced Dewey’s work. More recently, Eduardo Mendieta has defended a different approach to letters, (...) and argues that we should take the letters, diaries, and notebooks of certain philosophers more seriously—not just for the historical or... (shrink)

1. [on Republic 508b] The good, as presented here, is discontinuous with the account at 505a–d, where it is the telos of all the soul pursues and does, and perhaps by implication at 505d, seeks to possess and enjoy. The good, as telos at 505a–d, is more general than that which eros seeks to be one’s own sempiternally at Symposium 206a, where the context is human, and the good is, in some sense, possessable. Thus the good as telos at 505a–d, (...) while essentially related to soul, is not limited to the soul as eros: the implication appears to be that there are other relations of the soul to the good than through eros. (shrink)

Chaadayev's Philosophical Letters and Apology of a Madman unite the religious approach to history, which was later adopted by the Slavophiles, with the search for Western enlightenment, symbolized in the figure of Peter the Great. - Front flap.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:494 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY in the Haller Zeitung; it will probably not appear at all--it has, among other short, comings, the fault to be too long." In a letter to Schtitz, Niethammer writes from Bamberg on 23 March 1807: "I repeat my urgent demand... to send the review of Salat's book submitted by Prof. Hegel as soon as possible to Jena to hand it in to Hofrat Voigt.... " (...) The volume contains almost 1,000 valuable notes which explain the philosophical and historical background of the newly edited material. HENRY WALTERBRANN Takoma Park, Maryland Peter Yakovlevich Chaadayev: Philosophical Letters and Apology of a Madman. Trans. with Intro. by Mary-Barbara Zeldin. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1969. Pp. 203. $7.50) Mary-Barbara Zeldin's translation into English of the Philosophical Letters and the Apology of a Madman, by the enigmatic Russian intellectual leader of the early nineteenth century, Peter Yakovlevich Chaadayev makes available in English for the first time the thought of this figure whose small corpus of writings circulated mostly in manuscript during his own lifetime and waited over a hundred years after his death for their complete translation in their original French. Historically Chaadayev is important as a mediator between Westernizers and Slavophiles in this initial period of the nineteenth-century Russian intellectual awakening. Chaadayev himself remained aloof from either of these parties, was appealed to by both of them and became himself a kind of martyr to intellectual freedom. His own view of Russian-Western relationships incorporates this problem most remarkably into a theological vision of the "education of the human race." Philosophically Chaadayev stands as a unique and somewhat eccentric synthesizer of German idealism with the Christian concept of salvation history. Perhaps the most remarkable insight to be gained by reading these long-buried essays is the ease with which an Eastern Orthodox Christian versed in Patristic hellenism could fuse the ideas of a paedagogy of the human race in Lessing, Herder and Schiller and read this as an expression of an Irenaean doctrine of the progressive development of a mankind through the mediation of the primordial Logos; an Alexandrian idea of the paedagogy of Christ in history and a Eusebian doctrine of Christian universal empire. In so doing this Russian thinker also reveals to what an extent the German idealist movement itself was grounded on much older syntheses of Christian thought. In the process, however, Chaadayev also shows that nineteenth-century men could only appropriate this heritage anew by taking the great credal themes of revelation, Christi, the church and the Kingdom of God and reissuing them in a secularized, humanistic dress, as a philosophy of history. Chaadayev's basic thesis is that knowledge is a divinely-given deposit of certain fundamental primordial ideas, which man would not have arrived at through his own unaided powers, but rather possesses as an imprint upon the mind of the first man implanted by the Creator. Chaadayev weds the western philosophical concept of a fundamental a priori with a doctrine of primordial revelation, revealing the foundation of man himself in the divine Logos. This primordial deposit of ideas existed in BOOK REVIEWS 495 the first man only as a rudimentary 'image' of God. It is only through historical development that man grows to full stature in these truths whereby he attains to the completed 'likeness' of God. These truths, together with their historical development, are passed down by a historical succession, which is not an ecclesiastical succession, but a succession of the human family. These truths are periodically renewed by the advent of certain extraordinary individuals who exemplify them to a high degree, and by certain elect nations who are divinely designated as their culture-bearers. The Jews of the Old Testament were that culture-bearer in antiquity, and, since the time of Jesus Christ, it is Christendom which stands for and bears the development of this primordial truth as it has been renewed and set forth in archetypal perfection by Christ. Chaadayev sharply down grades the role of the Greeks in this development, but does so in a manner remarkably similar to the ancient Christian apologists who stole Greek fire in order to bathe the... (shrink)

For a number of years, those interested in recovering women's thought have known about Princess Elisabeth, a seventeenth-century correspondent and friend of Descartes whose questions provoked the philosopher to think more seriously about ethics and the passions. Up to now, only a few of her letters have found their way into print. This volume includes translations of all of Elisabeth's extant letters to Descartes, as well as of other materials relevant to understanding her philosophical perspective and her (...) life. Nye has supplemented the translations with a running commentary on the historical, biographical, and intellectual context of the letters. (shrink)

Kant’s critique/doctrine distinction tracks the difference between a canon for the understanding’s proper use and an organon for its dialectical misuse. The latter reflects the dogmatic use of reason to attain a doctrine of knowledge with no antecedent critique. In the 1790s, Fichte collapses Kant’s distinction and redefines dogmatism. He argues that deriving a canon is essentially dialectical and thus yields an organon: critical idealism is properly a doctrine of science or Wissenschaftslehre. Criticism is furthermore said to refute dogmatism, by (...) which Fichte means Spinozism. Schelling repudiates Fichte’s position in his Philosophical Letters by reviving Kant’s distinction. First, ‘critique’ for Schelling names a canon that is valid for all systems—including Spinozism—and thus favours none—not even the Wissenschaftslehre. Second, Schelling coins ‘dogmaticism’ to refer to what Kant calls ‘dogmatism’: reason’s uncritical claim to doctrine. Hence, he says all systems—even Fichte’s—are susceptible to the ‘enthusiasm’ of mistaking themselves for doctrines or ‘objects of knowledge’, instead of subjectively valid ‘objects of freedom’. I reconstruct Schelling’s argument for reviving Kant’s distinction, while noting two consequences for German idealism. First, if criticism favours no system, a system’s origin cannot be an act of knowledge, e.g., intellectual intuition, but only an act of endorsement. Second, if dogmaticism entails enthusiasm, a system’s goal cannot be absolute knowledge, but only infinite striving. Hence, by retrieving Schelling’s notion of dogmaticism, we can both gain a better understanding of the Letters and register the impact of a core Kantian distinction on the German idealist project. (shrink)

Kant’s critique/doctrine distinction tracks the difference between a canon for the understanding’s proper use and an organon for its dialectical misuse. The latter reflects the dogmatic use of reason to attain a doctrine of knowledge with no antecedent critique. In the 1790s, Fichte collapses Kant’s distinction and redefines dogmatism. He argues that deriving a canon is essentially dialectical and thus yields an organon: critical idealism is properly a doctrine of science or Wissenschaftslehre. Criticism is furthermore said to refute dogmatism, by (...) which Fichte means Spinozism. Schelling repudiates Fichte’s position in his Philosophical Letters by reviving Kant’s distinction. First, ‘critique’ for Schelling names a canon that is valid for all systems—including Spinozism—and thus favours none—not even the Wissenschaftslehre. Second, Schelling coins ‘dogmaticism’ to refer to what Kant calls ‘dogmatism’: reason’s uncritical claim to doctrine. Hence, he says all systems—even Fichte’s—are susceptible to the ‘enthusiasm’ of mistaking themselves for doctrines or ‘objects of knowledge’, instead of subjectively valid ‘objects of freedom’. I reconstruct Schelling’s argument for reviving Kant’s distinction, while noting two consequences for German idealism. First, if criticism favours no system, a system’s origin cannot be an act of knowledge, e.g., intellectual intuition, but only an act of endorsement. Second, if dogmaticism entails enthusiasm, a system’s goal cannot be absolute knowledge, but only infinite striving. Hence, by retrieving Schelling’s notion of dogmaticism, we can both gain a better understanding of the Letters and register the impact of a core Kantian distinction on the German idealist project. (shrink)

Wang Yang-ming (1472-1529) was a Neo-Confucian philosopher of the Ming Era, whose thoughts have had a profound influence in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. This translation contains sixty-seven letters, thirty-one more than previously translated, which help reveal the philosophy of the great Chinese thinker. Included are a preface with background information, critical annotations and references, bibliography, and a glossary of Chinese and Japanese words. The book is an important contribution to the literature of Chinese philosophy, knowledge of which assists (...) our understanding of China yesterday and today. (shrink)

Seneca is the earlist Stoic author for whom we ahve access to a large number of complete works, and these works were higly influential in later centuries.

This fine new translation of Voltaire's Letters Concerning the English Nation supersedes other out-of-date translations. Although the format is attractive, the introduction is disappointingly brief and uninformative.--S. M. W.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Princess and the Philosopher: Letters of Elisabeth of the Palatine to Rene DescartesRichard A. WatsonAndrea Nye. The Princess and the Philosopher: Letters of Elisabeth of the Palatine to Rene Descartes. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999. Pp. xiii + 187. Cloth, $57.95. Paper, $18.95.Princess Elisabeth was an acute, persistent critic of Descartes's philosophy. Because he liked her and she was a princess, Descartes did not (...) dismiss her criticisms as he did those of Gassendi and Hobbes. How can an immaterial mind interact with a material body? How can God determine all our actions and yet give us free will? Elisabeth was dissatisfied with Descartes's answer that an all-powerful God can do anything even if we cannot understand how.Andrea Nye analyzes the correspondence between Elisabeth and Descartes to support the thesis that Elisabeth developed and defended a worldly philosophy of life in opposition to the unworldly rules Descartes offered for living a tranquil and happy life. Descartes said she should focus on the separation of the mind from the body to avoid disturbing the intellect with sensory matters. Think positively about such nice things as birds and flowers and not of bad things that happen to one. Descartes told Elisabeth that "there are no events so dreadful, nor so absolutely bad in the judgments of people, that a person of spirit cannot look on them with a bias that makes them appear favorable" (48). If we do our best to find out the right course of action and act accordingly, then even if the results are bad, we have no reason for remorse or recrimination, but can be happy that we have done the best we can. Descartes even says that a person who follows his rules can view everything that happens to him, even the worst, as though these events were taking place in a theatre, for in the end they do not impinge upon the ultimate happiness of one's immortal soul.Elisabeth, earnestly. sardonically, and sometimes with annoyance responds that this is perhaps possible for a single man of independent means with few civil and personal relationships, but for someone engaged in family affairs, royal politics, and social interaction with other human beings, Descartes's philosophy of life is both impossible and wrong. One never knows what is best; even if one did know, it is difficult to carry it out; and finally, if the results are bad, then one is after all responsible. One would be inhuman to deny fault, monstrous to deny moral responsibility. Above all, Elisabeth says, one should not view one's own life as theatre. One must be responsible for oneself and others.Nye casts this as a difference between Descartes's abstract and Elisabeth's particularist approaches to life, but also as a contrast between those who can live a disengaged life and those who cannot. Some of the amusement in Nye's perceptive discussions comes from her showing how Descartes's passions often run away with him, and how Elisabeth gently turns his own rules back onto him. [End Page 277]Nye's analyses of the correspondence are excellent, but she makes some mistakes about the lives of Descartes and Elisabeth. Nye explains Descartes's coolness by his having suffered from a "motherless infancy" (129), even speaking of "the mother's milk denied him as a child" and calling him an "orphan" (156), which he was not. His mother died thirteen months after his birth, but he had a wet nurse. Descartes may never have tasted his own mother's milk, but he was never deprived of nursing. Children were often sent to live with wet nurses for as long as four years, although Descartes is traditionally said to have been raised by his grandmother. In any event, such psychoanalyzing is off the mark.Nye also says that Descartes was asked by Queen Christina to write a ballet. She cites the wrong ballet and attributes a verse from the right ballet incorrectly, but beyond that, there is no evidence either that Descartes wrote verses for a ballet or that Christina asked him to.Then Nye speaks of Descartes's daughter Francine... (shrink)

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1845 Edition.

Letters to the editor (LTEs) are a versatile short-format forum with unique characteristics to allow for cross-pollination of different kinds of philosophical reflection about medicine. Philosophical LTEs have both benefits and possible drawbacks. We draw on a case study to warn against misuse through “CV inflation,” where low-quality ideas may favor a scholar’s publishing metrics more than scholarly debate. Factual inaccuracies in LTEs have implications for authors, publishing, and indexing, and we argue for prudence by editors and (...) restraint by scholars, inviting them to focus on quality, rather than the quantity of LTEs published. When writing LTEs, rigor, readability, and relevance are needed. (shrink)

Voltaire has presented in his Letters on the English different themes, from religious ethics, literacy, politics, to dramas and science. The letters present us a comparison between England and France. In this parallel we shall present how Voltaire was concerned in evaluate a high standard of taste and refinements. This paper will review some of the last letters of those, which testify about this criterion of taste as a modern point of view. We shall present in Voltaire (...) the eminence of modernity in taste, refinements and on liberty of enjoying the ecstasies of a cosmopolitan life fulfilled with entertainments and luxury. We shall present how Voltaire fought against barbarism in benefit of civilization and some how against religiosity in benefit of an ethic hedonism. (shrink)

In his letters to Lucius Papirius Paetus from 46 BC Cicero provides striking reports on his thoughts and activities as he seeks to accommodate himself to the new political realities following Caesar’s decisive victory over the republican forces in Africa. In these letters Cicero also engages in a kind of performative role-playing: he casts himself variously as a teacher of oratory to two of Caesar’s close associates (Hirtius and Dolabella), as a bon vivant immersed in the Caesarian social (...) scene, and as a man of moral principle who measures himself against the model of the wise man. Philosophical jokes, allusions, and arguments all figure prominently: Cicero is evidently drawing on a rich range of philosophical material to frame his actions and how he should be judged. This paper brings out the full significance of these underlying philosophical frameworks and makes clear the ways in which Cicero exploits the resources of the Greek philosophical tradition in his self-fashioning in the letters to Paetus. (shrink)

According to Chandra Mohanty, there is no apolitical academy; academic and scholarly practices are in themselves political, insofar as they are inscribed in power and validation relations, which answer to and have effects upon the patriarchal, colonial, and capitalist structures to which they belong. In the case of philosophical writing, this means that the forms that regulate writing, that is, what determines how one must write in different contexts, are expressive of the power structures within philosophical academia. These (...) power structures are upheld through time because of, among many other factors, the rendering invisible of the diversity of places of enunciation belonging to those who write and think in philosophy, and of the universalization of the privileges associated with said places of enunciation. In this article, I propose a way of writing letters that appeals to grammatical persons and their relation to the authors of the texts. Through this writing practice it is possible to make explicit the places of enunciation from which we write philosophy. This enables, first, making visible the privileges and oppressions of those writing philosophy; and second, generating small spaces of resistance and transformation of the oppressive power relations within the philosophical academy. (shrink)

This paper revisits close encounters with perceived non-human intelligences through the Strieber letters that are available in the Rice University Woodson Archives. In 1997, Michael E. Zimmerman first published on the ‘alien abduction’ phenomenon in hopes of generating philosophical conversation regarding these extraordinary and unexplained experiences. I begin by comparing the contents of the Strieber letters to other research that has been done on abduction and close encounters. I then explain how the experiences violate the existing social (...) ontology, that is to say, the boundaries for defining ‘truth’ and ‘reality’ in mainstream society, drawing on existing work by Zimmerman. I proceed to show that the phenomenology of close encounters reveals them as subversive experiences that initiate a process of transformation in the individual experiencer. I show that the experience is meant to leave the experiencer questioning their current understanding of reality, thus opening them up to the possibility of a new metaphysical and ethical paradigm. Many who have extraordinary encounters report profound shifts in worldviews following their close encounter experiences. Last, I draw parallels between the close encounter experience and the clown or trickster figure in the Native American worldview. (shrink)

The selections contained in these volumes from the papers and letters of Leibniz are intended to serve the student in two ways: first, by providing a more adequate and balanced conception of the full range and penetration of Leibniz's creative intellectual powers; second, by inviting a fresher approach to his intellectual growth and a clearer perception of the internal strains in his thinking, through a chronological arrangement. Much confusion has arisen in the past through a neglect of the develop (...) ment of Leibniz's ideas, and Couturat's impressive plea, in his edition of the Opuscu/es et fragments (p. xii), for such an arrangement is valid even for incomplete editions. The beginning student will do well, however, to read the maturer writings of Parts II, III, and IV first, leaving Part I, from a period too largely neglected by Leibniz criticism, for a later study of the still obscure sources and motives of his thought. The Introduction aims primarily to provide cultural orientation and an exposition of the structure and the underlying assumptions of the philosophical system rather than a critical evaluation. I hope that together with the notes and the Index, it will provide those aids to the understanding which the originality of Leibniz's scientific, ethical, and metaphysical efforts deserve. (shrink)

Inspired from Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, this work is in the form of letters from an old philosopher to a young student, guiding, instructing, and passing on wisdom gathered from the experiences of life. They cover a comprehensive introduction to philosophy, wisdom, and the art of thinking, as well as discuss a range of themes and issues such as love, education, friendship, violence, ignorance, mediocrity, and happiness.

November 1965 marked ninety years since the birth of Anatolii Vasil'evich Lunacharskii, outstanding critic and theoretician of art, who made an enormous contribution to the building of socialist culture.

Cicero's letters are saturated with learned philosophical allusions and arguments. This innovative study shows just how fundamental these are for understanding Cicero's philosophical activities and for explaining the enduring interest of his ethical and political thought. Dr McConnell draws particular attention to Cicero's treatment of Plato's Seventh Letter and his views on the relationship between philosophy and politics. He also illustrates the various ways in which Cicero finds philosophy an appealing and effective mode of self-presentation and a (...) congenial, pointed medium for talking to his peers about ethical and political concerns. The book offers a range of fresh insights into the impressive scope and sophistication of Cicero's epistolary and philosophical practice and the vibrancy of the philosophical environment of the first century BC. A new picture emerges of Cicero the philosopher and philosophy's place in Roman political culture. (shrink)