The Philosopher in Early Modern Europe: The Nature of a Contested Identity (Ideas in Context)
Cambridge University Press, 9/28/2006
EAN 9780521866460, ISBN10: 0521866464
Hardcover, 302 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm
Language: English
In this groundbreaking collection of essays the history of philosophy appears in a fresh light, not as reason's progressive discovery of its universal conditions, but as a series of unreconciled disputes over the proper way to conduct oneself as a philosopher. By shifting focus from the philosopher as proxy for the universal subject of reason to the philosopher as a special persona arising from rival forms of self-cultivation, philosophy is approached in terms of the social office and intellectual deportment of the philosopher, as a personage with a definite moral physiognomy and institutional setting. In so doing, this collection of essays by leading figures in the fields of both philosophy and the history of ideas provides access to key early modern disputes over what it meant to be a philosopher, and to the institutional and larger political and religious contexts in which such disputes took place.
List of contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. The persona of the natural philosopher Stephen Gaukroger
2. The university philosopher in early modern Germany Ian Hunter
3. The persona of the philosopher and the rhetorics of office in early modern England Conal Condren
4. From Sir Thomas More to Robert Burton
the laughing philosopher in the early modern period Catherine Curtis
5. 'Vaine philosophy'
Thomas Hobbes and the philosophy of the Schools Richard Serjeantson
6. The judicial persona in historical context
the case of Matthew Hale David Saunders
7. Persona and office
Althusius on the formation of magistrates and councillors Robert von Friedeburg
8. Descartes as sage
spiritual askesis in Cartesian philosophy John Cottingham
9. The natural philosopher and the virtues Peter Harrison
10. Fictions of a feminine philosophical persona
Christine de Pizan, Margaret Cavendish, and philosophia lost Karen Green and Jacqueline Broad
11. John Locke and polite philosophy Richard Yeo.