In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 14.1 (2004) 47-54 [Access article in PDF] Ethical Guidelines for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research*(A Recommended Manuscript) Adopted on 16 October 2001Revised on 20 August 2002 Ethics Committee of the Chinese National Human Genome Center at Shanghai, Shanghai 201203 Human embryonic stem cell (ES) research is a great project in the frontier of biomedical science for the twenty-first century. Be- cause the (...) research involves the use of human embryos, it triggers serious debate on ethical issues. Opponents consider the embryo to be an early form of human life that should be respected and not destroyed. However, the majority of scientists support embryonic stem cell research, believing that it offers good prospects for the treatment of diseases that have remained incurable until now and so will benefit humankind. The Ethics Committee of the Department of Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of the Chinese National Human Genome Center at Shanghai seriously discussed the ethical debate initiated by embryonic stem cell research. We concluded that we should support the scientists of our country in actively carrying out human embryonic stem cell research for the noble cause of "medicine being a beneficent art." For the healthy and orderly development of human embryonic stem cell research in our country, we put forward the following recommended Ethical Guidelines for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research as a reference for leaders, administrative departments, and related scientists. Preface Article 1. Human embryonic stem cells are the primitive cells that play the main role in the growth and development of a human body. These [End Page 47] primitive cells have the potential for infinite proliferation, self-renewal, and multi-directional differentiation. If scientists can discover the mechanism of differentiation of human embryonic stem cells, it will be possible to induce differentiation of human embryonic stem cells to form various types of human cells for clinical cell therapy. If human embryonic stem cell research can be integrated with modern biomedical engineering techniques, it also will be possible to make repair and replacement of human tissues and organs a reality. Article 2. There are two ways to classify human embryonic stem cells. One way is to classify them according to their potential for differentiation. There could be three kinds of stem cells: totipotent stem cells, pluripotent stem cells, and unipotent stem cells.A totipotent stem cell has the potential to develop into a whole individual. It can differentiate into the more than 200 cell types in the whole body, construct any tissue or organ of the body, and finally develop into a whole individual. The fertilized egg and the cleavage cells at the very early stage of embryonic development are totipotent stem cells.A pluripotent stem cell has the potential to differentiate into many cell types derived from the three embryonic layers. However, it has lost the capacity to develop into a complete organism.A unipotent stem cell is derived from the further differentiation of the pluripotent stem cell. It can differentiate only into one cell type such as a hematopoietic stem cell, neural stem cell, and others.The other way is to classify human stem cells according to their source. There could be two kinds of human stem cells: embryonic stem cells and tissue stem cells (also called adult stem cells). The former involves experimentation with embryos, which has serious ethical implications. Ethical issues associated with the latter are mainly expressed in the various opinions regarding the allocation of health resources. Article 3. Human embryonic stem cells are the group of cells called the blastocyst inner cell mass during the early stage of embryonic development. They are the main source of totipotent stem cells, and hence the focal and hot point in stem cell research. Studies on the clinical application of embryonic stem cells probably will involve use of the somatic cell nucleus transfer (SCNT) technique, which destroys the early human embryo. At present, the ethical and moral debate is very serious in human embryonic stem cell research regarding whether the research will develop... (shrink)

The self-worth of political communities is often understood to be an expression of their position in a hierarchy of power; if so, then the desire for self-worth is a source of competition and conflict in international relations. In early modern German natural law theories, one finds the alternative view, according to which duties of esteem toward political communities should reflect the degree to which they fulfill the functions of civil government. The present article offers a case study, examining (...) the views concerning confederation rights and the resulting duties of esteem in diplomatic relations developed by Christoph Besold (1577–1638). Besold defends the view that confederations including dependent communities—such as the Hanseatic League—could fulfill a stabilizing political function. He also uses sixteenth-century conceptions concerning the acquisition of sovereignty rights through prescription of immemorial time. Both strands of argument lead to the conclusion that the envoys of dependent communities can have the right to be recognized as ambassadors, with all the duties of esteem that follow from this recognition. (shrink)

For German townsmen, life during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was characterized by a culture of arms, with urban citizenry representing the armed power of the state. This book investigates how men were socialized to the martial ethic from all sides, and how masculine identity was confirmed with blades and guns.

데카르트가 정의하는 사랑의 정념은 자기 보존과 유용성 중심의이기적인 것으로도 해석될 여지가 있고, 사랑의 대상을 위해 자기희생까지 감수하는 이타적인 것으로 해석될 여지도 있다. 여기서나는 데카르트의 입장을 이기주의에 가까운 것으로 보되, 그가 심신합일의 바탕에 심신이원론을 설정함으로써 이타주의나 공동체주의와 완전히 양립 가능한 독특한 에고이즘을 벼려냄을 보여준다. 이를 위해 나는 첫째, 사랑에 대한 데카르트의 정의가 ‘대상의 좋음’을 사랑의 핵심에 두는 아퀴나스적 관점과 결별하고 있음을 보여준다. 둘째, 사랑의 동기가 대상에서 주체로 옮겨온다고 해서, 데카르트의 사랑 개념이 홉스 류의 생물학적 이기주의를 함축한다고볼 수는 없음을 보여준다. 마지막으로, 사랑이 (...) 주체에게 가져다주는 진정한 이익이 자기 보존이나 욕구 충족이 아니라 감응 자체에서 얻는 영혼의 만족임을 보여주고, 이 만족이 영혼이 자기 신체와합일되어 있으면서도 지적 거리를 가질 수 있다는 점에 기반하고있음을 보여준다. (shrink)

The author analyzes the transformation of norms and values in France and England during the preindustrial period (1500-1760). The relationship between religion and reason, the nature of popular fears, witchcraft, marriage, attitudes toward death, and persecution of confessional minorities are singled out for closer examination. The interplay between the two national traditions and the Catholic and Protestant ways remains under constant focus. The new norms and models for behavior that arose in each country in this period, besides being different, were (...) also articulated, communicated, and enforced differently, even though there is a broad family resemblance between the changes in France and in England that led to modernization. It is argued that the general concepts used in comparative religious ethics should always be suspect and may be of questionable applicability outside the historical wholes which gave them birth. To enhance the applicability of these concepts, it is proposed that the work adopt the more limited ambition of comparing cultural wholes that are geographically close and culturally permeable. (shrink)

This examination of a fundamental but often neglected aspect of the intellectual history of early modern Europe brings together philosophers, historians and political theorists from Great Britain, Canada, the United States, Australia, France and Germany. Despite the diversity of disciplines and national traditions represented, the individual contributions show a remarkable convergence around three themes: changes in the modes of moral education in early modern Europe, the emergence of new relations between conscience and law (particularly the law (...) of the state), and the shared continuities and discontinuities of both Roman Catholic and Protestant moral culture in relation to their medieval past. (shrink)

This paper provides an overview of women's engagement with Stoic ethics in early modern England (c. 1600–1700). It builds on recent literature in the field by demonstrating that there is a positive gender‐inclusive narrative to be told about Stoic philosophy in this time—one that incorporates women's specific concerns and responds to women's lived experiences. To support this claim, we take an interdisciplinary approach and examine several different genres of women's writing in the period, including letters, poems, plays, (...) educational texts, and moral essays. In these writings, we argue, a distinctive conception of Stoic therapy emerges. Women embrace well‐known aspects of the Stoic philosophy—such as living in agreement with nature, the importance of self‐government, and the ideal of freedom from the passions—but they also allow room for the cultivation of eupatheiai or life‐affirmative feelings, such as feelings of respect, affection, and good will toward other people. (shrink)

In the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the paradigm of a new science, political economy, was established. It was a science distinct from the Aristotelian sub-disciplines of practical philosophy named oikonomía and politiké, and emphasis on its character of science not unlike the natural sciences – still called ‘natural philosophy’ – mirrored precisely a willingness to stress its autonomy from two other sub-disciplines of practical philosophy, that is, ethics and politics. However, the new science resulted from a (...) transformation of part of traditional practical philosophy, allowing the inclusion of bodies of knowledge accumulated by experts of commerce and public finance. Such bodies of knowledge were unified by the (true or alleged) discovery of regularities, mechanisms, causal connections making for a new partial order within the overall social order. How far this paved the way to a science similar to mathematics rather left a normative discipline as alive as ever was a recurrent question for at least a century, until the marginalist revolution opened the way for a sharp division, leaving ‘economics’ as a science of causes and effects facing ‘economic policy’ as a discourse on ends. (shrink)

This volume contains essays that examine infinity in early modern philosophy. The essays not only consider the ways that key figures viewed the concept. They also detail how these different beliefs about infinity influenced major philosophical systems throughout the era. 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. It then moves from a general background of infinity up (...) through Kant. Readers will learn about the place of infinity in the writings of key early modern thinkers. The contributors profile the work of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Kant. Debates over infinity significantly influenced philosophical discussion regarding the human condition and the extent and limits of human knowledge. Questions about the infinity of space, for instance, helped lead to the introduction of a heliocentric solar system as well as the discovery of calculus. This volume offers readers an insightful look into all this and more. It provides a broad perspective that will help advance the present state of knowledge on this important but often overlooked topic. (shrink)

Argues that during the late Imperial period, all three main religious strains in China embraced an ethic that everyone should engage in labor as a crucial component to their personal enlightenment and their duty to society. This is what brings together new Chan (Zen in Japanese) Buddhism; new religious Daoism; and new Confucianism. All three new religions had to overcome traditional elitist biases and moral concerns about working for individual material results. To overcome traditional assumptions and practices, as well as (...) to embrace the priority of working for one's livelihood, required the religious practitioners to resolve tensions within their own minds and often with precepts of earlier forms of their religious traditions. The final section of the book focuses on the changing social status of merchants, their enhanced self-confidence in their identity and profession, and their manifestation of the new work ethics in their mercantile activities, especially from 1500 to 1820. (shrink)

This two-volume work examines far-reaching debates on the concept of courage from Greek antiquity to the Christian and mediaeval periods, as well as the modern era. Volume 1 explains how competing accounts of epistêmê, rational wisdom, and truth dominated classical antiquity. Early Christian and mediaeval thinkers, in contrast, favoured fortitude founded on faith and fear of God over philosophical reasoning left to its own devices. Volume 2 turns to theories of courage from the early modern period (...) to the present. It shows how the twin laws of polis and physis are at the heart of post-medieval thought. Courage is found at the crossroads of love and dread, freedom and fate, happiness and suffering, as well as power and submission to the ruling order. The later influence of evolutionism, existentialism, and the social and natural sciences on moral philosophy is also addressed at some length. The protection of people's best interests, the passions and powers of the human will, and the rule of active energy in all aspects of life supplant courage formerly viewed through the lens of reason or faith, or a combination of the two. These new ideas, paradoxically, herald the end of the ethics of courage. They also undermine the courage of ethical thinking. Courage is no longer an end in itself, nor is it a means to happiness "at the end." Regardless of what Gandhi, Tillich, and Foucault have to say about the topic, late modernity and the global age witness a marked loss of interest in courage as an idea worthy of conceptual investigation. Debates about the moral implications of courage give way to the value-free science of resilience, which studies how people can recover from past trauma and find wellness, primarily in the realm of physis. (shrink)

Today, friendship, love and sexuality are mostly viewed as private, personal and informal relations. In the mediaeval and early modern period, just like in ancient times, this was different. The classical philosophy of friendship included both friendship and love in the concept of philia. It was also linked to an argument about the virtues needed to become an excellent member of the city state. Thus, close relations were not only thought to be a matter of pleasant gatherings in (...) privacy, but just as much a matter of ethics and politics.What, then, happened to the classical ideas of close relations when they were transmitted to philosophers, clerical and monastic thinkers, state officials or other people in the medieval and early modern period? To what extent did friendship transcend the distinctions between private and public that then existed? How were close relations shaped in practice? Did dialogues with close friends help to contribute to the process of subject-formation in the Renaissance and Enlightenment? To what degree did institutions of power or individual thinkers find it necessary to caution against friendship or love and sexuality? (shrink)

This volume contains essays that examine infinity in early modern philosophy. The essays not only consider the ways that key figures viewed the concept. They also detail how these different beliefs about infinity influenced major philosophical systems throughout the era. 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. It then moves from a general background of infinity up (...) through Kant. Readers will learn about the place of infinity in the writings of key early modern thinkers. The contributors profile the work of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Kant. Debates over infinity significantly influenced philosophical discussion regarding the human condition and the extent and limits of human knowledge. Questions about the infinity of space, for instance, helped lead to the introduction of a heliocentric solar system as well as the discovery of calculus. This volume offers readers an insightful look into all this and more. It provides a broad perspective that will help advance the present state of knowledge on this important but often overlooked topic. (shrink)

_ A Companion to Early Modern Philosophy_ is a comprehensive guide to the most significant philosophers and philosophical concepts of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe. Provides a comprehensive guide to all the important modern philosophers and modern philosophical movements. Spans a wide range of philosophical areas and problems, including metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of science, ethics, political philosophy and aesthetics. Written by leading scholars in the field. Represents the most up-to-date research in the history of early (...) modern philosophy. Serves as an excellent supplement to primary readings. (shrink)

Recasting Hume and Early Modern Philosophy is a collection of essays that are all concerned with major figures and topics in the early modern philosophy. Most of the essays are concerned, more specifically, with the philosophy of David Hume (1711-1776). The sixteen essays included in this collection are divided into five parts. These parts are arranged under the headings of: (1) Metaphysics and Epistemology; (2) Free Will and Moral Luck; (3) Ethics, Virtue and Optimism; (4) (...) Skepticism, Religion and Atheism; and (5) Irreligion and the Unity of Hume’s Thought. A particularly important theme running through many of these essays is the subject of Hume’s irreligious aims and intentions. The fifth and final part of the collection is devoted to an articulation and defence of this specific understanding of Hume’s philosophical thought. (shrink)

In this collection of essays, philosopher Paul Russell addresses major figures and central topics of the history of early modern philosophy. Most of these essays are studies on the philosophy of David Hume, one of the great figures in the history of philosophy. One central theme, connecting many of the essays, concerns Hume's fundamental irreligious intentions. Russell argues that a proper appreciation of the significance of Hume's irreligious concerns, which runs through his whole philosophy, serves to discredit the (...) deeply entrenched framework for understanding Hume - and much of early modern philosophy - in terms of the idea of "British Empiricism". In a substantive introduction, Russell outlines how his various insights overlap and connect to each other. -/- The volume is organized thematically into five sections: metaphysics, free will, ethics, religion, and general interpretations of Hume's philosophy. The collection also features a previously unpublished essay on Hume's atheism and an essay on Adam Smith's views on religion and ethics that has not been previously published in English. -/- Recasting Hume and Early Modern Philosophy presents the reader with Russell's substantial and significant set of interconnected observations and insights on the matters and figures of the greatest importance in early modern philosophy. These essays not only provide different and original perspectives on the subject, they also show that the various issues addressed are very relevant to each other, as well as to a number of major topics in contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

In _Regimens of the Mind_, Sorana Corneanu proposes a new approach to the epistemological and methodological doctrines of the leading experimental philosophers of seventeenth-century England, an approach that considers their often overlooked moral, psychological, and theological elements. Corneanu focuses on the views about the pursuit of knowledge in the writings of Robert Boyle and John Locke, as well as in those of several of their influences, including Francis Bacon and the early Royal Society virtuosi. She argues that their experimental (...) programs of inquiry fulfill the role of regimens for curing, ordering, and educating the mind toward an ethical purpose, an idea she tracks back to the ancient tradition of _cultura animi_. Corneanu traces this idea through its early modern revival and illustrates how it organizes the experimental philosophers’ reflections on the discipline of judgment, the study of nature, and the study of Scripture. _ _ _ _ It is through this lens, the author suggests, that the core features of the early modern English experimental philosophy—including its defense of experience, its epistemic modesty, its communal nature, and its pursuit of “objectivity”—are best understood. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Early Modern Philosophy: Mind, Matter, and MetaphysicsMargaret J. OslerChristia Mercer and Eileen O’Neill, editors. Early Modern Philosophy: Mind, Matter, and Metaphysics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Pp. xxi + 298. Cloth, $55.00.The editors of this collection of essays by the late Margaret Wilson's former students and colleagues present this book "as a snapshot of state-of-the-art history of early modern philosophy" (8). (...) Many of the usual suspects make an appearance in these pages: Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Berkeley, Malebranche, and Kant. A couple of new faces also come on stage: Damaris Cudworth (Lady Masham), best known as Locke's companion but presented here as a philosopher in her own right, and the Cartesian Bernard le Bouvier de Fontenelle. As the title suggests, most of the papers deal with metaphysical topics, including the nature of matter, the nature of mind, and arguments for the existence of God. Notably absent from the stage are other figures who played key roles in seventeenth-century philosophy, such as Hobbes, Gassendi, and the Cambridge Platonists. The authors stay fairly close to the traditional canon of early modern philosophers and philosophical issues, but, then, so did Margaret Wilson.In their Introduction, Mercer and O'Neill briefly outline the recent historiography of early modern philosophy, at least as practiced in the Anglo-American tradition. These approaches range from the logical analysis of the arguments of historical figures to accounts that situate their subjects in the context of their times. Mercer and O'Neill identify two methodological principles that have emerged since the 1960s and that depart from the older analytic approach, which sought to use historical sources for new philosophical insights. The two principles, articulated by Janet Broughton in her paper in the volume, encourage a greater historical sensibility: (1) the history of philosophy should aim "to articulate how previous philosophers saw their projects"; and (2) the history of philosophy should accept "how remote the fundamental concerns of previous philosophers may be from our own (and how historically conditioned both their concerns and ours may be)" (4–5). The editors claim that all the authors in the volume accept principle (1), but disagree about whether they should abide strictly by the principle or go on to debate with their historical subjects about philosophical issues. Would that the essayists had been as historiographically aware as their editors.It is not surprising that a book honoring Margaret Wilson should contain four articles on Descartes. With a few noteworthy exceptions, the articles deal with very traditional problems growing out of the analytic tradition. Janet Broughton describes the results of a close reading of Descartes's skeptical arguments in the Meditations. Michael Ayers examines Descartes's dualism, demonstrating its relevance to modern discussions of personal identity and the mind-body problem. Edwin Curley considers Descartes's ontological argument for the existence of God, revisiting his own earlier analysis of this question. And Louis E. Loeb provides a critical analysis of Descartes's mind-body dualism. Although all these papers are based on close textual analysis, they largely ignore the historical and intellectual context within which Descartes was writing, focusing instead on the logic of his arguments. They give little acknowledgement to the fact that Descartes was working in intellectually turbulent times as philosophers wrestled with the relationships among the foundations of knowledge, natural philosophy, and theology, or that these factors might have been formative influences on the development of his thought.Most of the other papers take a similar approach. Catherine Wilson sets out to find contradictions between Spinoza's "severe ontology" and his ethical program, and proceeds to explain why his ethical theory has been less influential on modern ethical theory than the ideas of Hume or Kant. She ignores the influence of medieval Jewish philosophy on [End Page 478] Spinoza's thinking, suggesting instead a Platonic influence for which she provides no textual evidence. Roger S. Woolhouse and Jonathan Bennett provide close readings of Locke's theory of matter. Useful as explications, neither paper contains any discussion of the mechanical philosophy more generally or the theological implications of matter theory in seventeenth-century natural philosophy. Vere Chappell examines Locke... (shrink)

Normativity has long been conceived as more properly pertaining to the domain of thought than to the domain of nature. This conception goes back to Kant and still figures prominently in contemporary epistemology, philosophy of mind and ethics. By offering a collection of new essays by leading scholars in early modern philosophy and specialists in contemporary philosophy, this volume goes beyond the point where nature and normativity came apart, and challenges the well-established opposition between these all too (...) neatly separated realms. It examines how the mind’s embeddedness in nature can be conceived as a starting point for uncovering the links between naturally and conventionally determined standards governing an agent’s epistemic and moral engagement with the world. The original essays are grouped in two parts. The first part focuses on specific aspects of theories of perception, thought formation and judgment. It gestures towards an account of normativity that regards linguistic conventions and natural constraints as jointly setting the scene for the mind’s ability to conceptualise its experiences. The second part of the book asks what the norms of desirable epistemic and moral practices are. Key to this approach is an examination of human beings as parts of nature, who act as natural causes and are determined by their sensibilities and sentiments. Each part concludes with a chapter that integrates features of the historical debate into the contemporary context.​. (shrink)

Although the works of the authors of the Golden Age of Latin Literature play an important formative role for Early Modern philosophers, their influence in Early Modern thought is, nowadays, rarely studied. Trying to bring this topic to light once again and following the seminal works of Kajanto (1979), Proietti (1985) and Akkerman (1985), I will target Spinoza’s Latin sources in order to analyze their place in his philosophy. On those grounds, I will offer an overview (...) of the problems of the reception of classical literature in Early Modernity and then dwell on the particular case of Ovid and Spinoza. The present paper will argue that although Spinoza’s references to Ovid fill a rhetorical purpose as suggested by the existing literature, these mentions have a prior philosophical motivation. That is, the references in the Ethics are not merely illustrative; instead, they indicate that Spinoza acknowledges Ovid’s beliefs about human experiences and deliberately elaborates on Ovid’s view to construct and defend his own theses. To this end, the paper will analyze some citations mapped by Proietti (1985) and add a new one in an attempt to enlarge the list of places and topics that merit further investigation. To conclude, I will point out how the references to Ovid are part of Spinoza’s own defense of the powers of imagination. (shrink)

The theories of Locke, Hume and Kant dominate contemporary philosophical discourse on property rights. This is particularly true of applied ethics, where they are used to settle issues from biotech patents to managerial obligations. Within these theories, however, the usual criticisms of private property aren’t even as much as intelligible. Locke, Hume and Kant, I argue, develop claims about property on a model economy that I call “Frontier Town.” They and contemporary authors then apply these claims to capitalist economies. (...) There are two problems with this application: First, we’ll be considering the wrong kind of property: The only property in Frontier Town are means of life. Critics, however, object to property in concentrated capital because they associate only this kind of property with economic coercion and political power. Second, the two economies differ in central features, so that very different claims about empirical consequences and hence about fairness and merit will be plausible for each. This second problem, I argue, is a consequence of the first. I conclude that Frontier Town theories are more likely to distort than to illuminate property issues in capitalist economies. (shrink)

This essay traces out the context that allowed numerous early modern thinkers to deny that animals had faces. Using early- to mid-seventeenth-century writing by, among others, John Milton, John Bulwer and Ben Jonson, it shows that faces were understood to be sites of meaning, and were thus, like gestural language and the capacity to perform a dance, possessed by humans alone. Animals, this discourse argued, have no ability to communicate meaningfully because they have no bodily control, and (...) as such they are faceless beings without individuality and without a sense of self-consciousness. The ethical implications of such a reading of the human face are far reaching. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.1 (2002) 121-122 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Humanism and Early Modern Philosophy Jill Kraye and M. W. F. Stone, editors. Humanism and Early Modern Philosophy. New York: Routledge, 2000. Pp. xii + 270. Cloth, $75.00 Early-modern philosophy begins in the seventeenth century. This book, based on a colloquium at the Warburg Institute, London in 1997, (...) strives at extending the limits of this period into the sixteenth and fifteenth centuries. Thus "the long-standing exclusion of the Renaissance from the standard philosophical curriculum" (xii) should come to an end by acknowledging its being an integral part of early modern philosophy and its relevance for an understanding of modern thought. The distinctive element of the Renaissance was, according to the editors, humanism, understood as the revival of ancient sources from the fourteenth century on, and its impact on the shaping of modern thought by these sources.One can identify the following types of argument offered in the twelve contributions to this book: (1) Renaissance humanists mediated classical sources into the seventeenth and following centuries either by translating Greek texts into Latin (Lohr on Aristotle commentaries) or by offering new interpretations that were to become standard (Hankins on Ficino and Galileo, and Mercer on the German Platonists). (2) Ancient modes of thought, mediated through the Renaissance, shaped modern philosophy (Stone on Aristotelian and Reformed ethics, Levi on Stoicism in Justus Lipsius, Kraye on Marcus Aurelius editions, and Osler on Gassendi and Aristotle). (3) Humanist literary forms and mentalities survived in modern thought (Bianchi on dialogue, Vickers on rhetoric in Bacon, and James on 'grandeur' and scientific argument).Two papers do not fit into this scheme: in "The Theology of Lorenzo Valla," the only paper dealing directly with a Renaissance humanist, Monfasani wants to prove that "Valla was no theologian." Monfasani does this on the basis of a very narrow concept of dogmatic correctness, blaming Valla continuously for being banal, to the effect that the paper does not contribute to the topic of the book. One could well connect Valla's theological issues (free will, summum bonum, trinity, etc.) with his provocative stirring up of philosophy in general and show his influence on Protestant theology and on modern ethics.The other paper is by J. R. Milton, which is enlightening because it summarizes the prejudices against humanism in modern philosophy ("'Delicate learning,' erudition and the enterprise of philosophy"). He endorses "one of the most familiar narratives in European philosophy" (161), namely that Descartes's breakthrough was due to his total rupture [End Page 121] with the philosophical tradition, especially with contemporary humanist and scholastic thought. Thus Descartes's triumph was that of the myth of the irrelevance of history to philosophy as evident in Galileo, Locke, and even Hume. If antecedents are acknowledged, e.g., in Berkeley, then accepting that they "provide us either with an irreplaceable source of wisdom or with equally irreplaceable models for imitation, or indeed both" (167), still fails to recognize that the history of a philosophical problem is a part of that problem rather than just some general "wisdom" or a model for imitation. Of course, Milton repeats the myth of Bacon's anti-humanism, masterly refuted in this very book by Brian Vickers, and Milton believes that Valla "enthroned" "custom and example" and therefore for him "it would be difficult if not impossible to state Hempel's Raven Paradox" (169). One might wonder whether the conclusion: "All ravens are black --all non-black things are non-ravens," is the paramount of modern philosophy. But a thorough reader of Valla's logic might discover similarities to pragmatism, which are fostered by his deep criticism of language with the tools of Renaissance humanism. However, Descartes's indebtedness to Renaissance method and rhetoric is handbook knowledge today.The audience for this collection of samples are specialists either in seventeenth- or eighteenth-century philosophy, or in Renaissance thought, or even philosophers in the narrow sense of the disciplines. The latter are difficult to convince of the usefulness of historic studies or "erudite activity" (Milton... (shrink)

Rationalism, Platonism and God comprises three main papers on Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz, with extensive responses. It provides a significant contribution to the exploration of the common ground of the great early-modern Rationalist theories, and an examination of the ways in which the mainstream Platonic tradition permeates these theories. -/- John Cottingham identifies characteristically Platonic themes in Descartes's cosmology and metaphysics, finding them associated with two distinct, even opposed attitudes to nature and the human condition, one ancient and (...) 'contemplative', the other modern and 'controlling'. He finds the same tension in Descartes's moral theory, and believes that it remains unresolved in present-day ethics. -/- Was Spinoza a Neoplatonist theist, critical Cartesian, or naturalistic materialist? Michael Ayers argues that he was all of these. Analysis of his system reveals how Spinoza employed Neoplatonist monism against Descartes's Platonist pluralism. Yet the terminology - like the physics - is Cartesian. And within this Platonic-Cartesian shell Spinoza developed a rigorously naturalistic metaphysics and even, Ayers claims, an effectually empiricist epistemology. -/- Robert Merrihew Adams focuses on the Rationalists' arguments for the Platonist, anti-Empiricist principle of 'the priority of the perfect', i.e. the principle that finite attributes are to be understood through corresponding perfections of God, rather than the reverse. He finds the given arguments unsatisfactory but stimulating, and offers a development of one of Leibniz's for consideration. -/- These papers receive informed and constructive criticism and development at the hands of, respectively, Douglas Hedley, Sarah Hutton and Maria Rosa Antognazza. (shrink)

This book examines the contributions of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French women philosophers and intellectuals to moralist writing. Moralist writing, a distinctively French genre, draws on philosophical and literary traditions extending back to classical antiquity. Closely connected to salon culture and influenced by Augustinianism, it engages social and political questions, epistemology, moral psychology, and virtue ethics. The first half of the book analyzes women’s use of moralist forms such as the essay, maxim, and “character” or portrait to explore classical topics: (...) self-knowledge and knowledge of the self, the ethics and obligations of friendship, the relation of the passions to happiness. The second half focuses on topics that relate directly to women’s lifeworld: the critique of the institution of marriage, the status of older women, and the question of women’s nature and capabilities. Each chapter traces the evolution of women’s moralist thought from the late seventeenth century to the Enlightenment and the decades immediately following the French Revolution, a period of tremendous change in the horizon of possibilities for women as public figures and intellectuals. (shrink)

This article investigates the early modern history of dog labor in small-scale industrial production in Europe and the Americas as a paradigmatic example of the history of animal labor. The turnspit dog was the “product” of material conditions of production as they were forced to labor in butter-churning, knife-grinding, water-raising, sewing, and food industries. Furthermore, their bodies and labor tried to be “perfected” by selective breeding and violent methods of training, mechanical dressage, and labor discipline. The incorporation of (...) dog labor into mechanized industrial production developed hand-in-hand with certain ideas, ideologies, and mentalities, such as the mechanistic interpretation of bodies deprived of soul, mind, and sentience. (shrink)

This article explores Spinoza's distinctive contribution to the eudaimonistic tradition, which considers happiness (eudaimonia) to be the highest good. Most (if not all) ancient eudaimonists endorse some sort of hierarchy between mind and body, where one is always dependent on, or subordinate to, the other. In particular, many of them endorse ethical intellectualism, where mental things are considered more valuable than bodily ones. I argue that Spinoza, in contrast, considers mind and body ontologically and ethically identical and equal, thereby bringing (...) something new to this ethical tradition. (shrink)

Humoralism, the view that the human body is composed of a limited number of elementary fluids, is one of the most characteristic aspects of ancient medicine. The psychological dimension of humoral theory in the ancient world has thus far received a relatively small amount of scholarly attention. Medical psychology in the ancient world can only be correctly understood by relating it to psychological thought in other fields, such as ethics and rhetoric. The concept that ties these various domains together (...) is character (êthos), which involves a view of human beings focused on clearly distinguishable psychological types that can be recognized on the basis of external signs. Psychological ideas based on humoral theory remained influential well into the early modern period. Yet, in 17th-century medicine and philosophy, humoral physiology and psychology started to lose ground to other theoretical perspectives on the mind and its relation to the body. This decline of humoralist medical psychology can be related to a broader reorientation of psychological thought in which the traditional concept of character lost its central position. Instead of the focus on types and stable character traits, a perspective emerged that was primarily concerned with individuality and transient passions. (shrink)

This Oxford Handbook examines the radical transformation of worldview taking place in the period from the middle of the 16th century to the early 18th century. The intention of the volume is to cover both well-known and undeservedly less well-known philosophical texts by placing these works in their historical context which includes tight interconnections with other disciplines as well as historical and political events. By proceeding in this manner the editors hope to recover a meaning of “philosophy” that comes (...) closer to the way its early modern proponents would have understood and practiced it. The editors also point to the reader-friendly character of this Handbook: in addition to grouping chapters in five categories, cross-references to chapters or pages dealing with the same issues make it possible for readers to consult the book selectively. (shrink)

From the late sixteenth to the late seventeenth centuries, French writing is especially concerned with analysing human nature. The ancient ethical vision of man's nature and goal survives, even, to some extent, in Descartes. But it is put into question especially by the revival of St Augustine's thought, which focuses on the contradictions and disorders of human desires and aspirations. Analyses of behaviour display a powerful suspicion of appearances. Human beings are increasingly seen as motivated by self-love: they are driven (...) by the desire for their own advantage, and take a narcissistic delight in their own image. Moral and religious writers re-emphasize the traditional imperative of self-knowledge, but in such a way as to suggest the difficulties of knowing oneself. Operating with the Cartesian distinction between mind and body, they emphasize the imperceptible influence of bodily processes on our thought and attitudes. They analyse human beings' ignorance of their own motives and qualities, and the illusions under which they live their lives. Their critique of human behaviour is no less searching than that of writers who have broken with traditional religious morality, such as Hobbes and Spinoza. A wide range of authors is studied, some well-known, others much less so: the abstract and general analyses of philosophers and theologians are juxtaposed with the less systematic and more concrete investigations of writers like Montaigne and La Rochefoucauld, not to mention the theatre of Corneille, Molière, and Racine. (shrink)

Mary Astell is best known today as one of the earliest English feminists. This book sheds new light on her writings by interpreting her first and foremost as a moral philosopher—as someone committed to providing guidance on how best to live. The central claim of this work is that all the different strands of Astell’s thought—her epistemology, her metaphysics, her philosophy of the passions, her feminist vision, and her conservative political views—are best understood in light of her ethical objectives. To (...) support that claim, this work examines Astell’s programme to bring about a moral transformation of character in her fellow women. This ethical programme draws on several key aspects of seventeenth-century philosophy, including Cartesian and Neoplatonist epistemologies, ontological and cosmological proofs for the existence of God, rationalist arguments for the soul’s immateriality, and theories about how to regulate the passions in accordance with reason. At the heart of Astell’s philosophical system lies a theory of virtue, including guidelines about how to cultivate generosity of character, a benevolent disposition towards others, and the virtue of moderation. This book explains the foundations of that moral theory, and then examines how it shapes and informs Astell’s response to male tyranny within marriage and to political tyranny in the state. It concludes with some reflections on the historiographical implications of writing Mary Astell back into the history of philosophy. (shrink)

This book is a collection of studies on topics related to subjectivity and selfhood in medieval and early modern philosophy. The individual contributions approach the theme from a number of angles varying from cognitive and moral psychology to metaphysics and epistemology. Instead of a complete overview on the historical period, the book provides detailed glimpses into some of the most important figures of the period, such as Augustine, Avicenna, Aquinas, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz and Hume. The questions addressed include (...) the ethical problems of the location of one's true self and the proper distribution of labour between desire, passion and reason, and the psychological tasks of accounting for subjective experience and self-knowledge and determining different types of self-awareness. (shrink)

Critically exploring medical thought in a cultural milieu with no discernible influence from the European Enlightenment, _Being Human_ reveals an otherwise unnoticed intersection of early modern sensibilities and religious values in traditional Tibetan medicine. It further studies the adaptation of Buddhist concepts and values to medical concerns and suggests important dimensions of Buddhism's role in the development of Asian and global civilization. Through its unique focus and sophisticated reading of source materials,_ Being Human_ adds a crucial chapter in (...) the larger historiography of science and religion. The book opens with the bold achievements in Tibetan medical illustration, commentary, and institution building during the period of the Fifth Dalai Lama and his regent, Desi Sangye Gyatso, then looks back to the work of earlier thinkers, tracing a strategically astute dialectic between scriptural and empirical authority on questions of history and the nature of human anatomy. It follows key differences between medicine and Buddhism in attitudes toward gender and sex and the moral character of the physician, who had to serve both the patient's and the practitioner's well-being. _Being Human_ ultimately finds that Tibetan medical scholars absorbed ethical and epistemological categories from Buddhism yet shied away from ideal systems and absolutes, instead embracing the imperfectability of the human condition. (shrink)

This book considers different forms of voluntarism developed from the 13th to 18th centuries. By crossing the conventional dividing line between the medieval and early modern periods, the volume draws important new insights on the historical development of voluntarism. Voluntarism places a special emphasis on the will when it comes to the analysis and explanation of fundamental philosophical questions and problems. Since the Middle Ages, voluntarist considerations and views played an important role in the development of different theories (...) of action, ethics, metaethics, and metaphysics. The chapters in this volume are grouped according to three distinct kinds of voluntarism: psychological, ethical, and theological voluntarism. They address topics such as the threat of irrationality as the standard objection to voluntarism, incontinent actions and their explanation, the nature of the will as rational appetite, the relationship between intellect and will, the implications of conceptions of the will for political freedom, and the relations between divine freedom and the modal status of eternal truths. The chapters not only consider towering figures of the Middle Ages--Thomas Aquinas, Henry of Gent, William of Ockham, Francisco de Vitoria--and early modern period--René Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Samuel Pufendorf--but also engage with less well-known figures such as Peter John Olivi, John of Pouilly, Catharine Trotter Cockburn, and Christian August Crusius. Varieties of Voluntarism in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy will appeal to scholars and advanced students working in medieval philosophy, early modern philosophy, the history of ethics, and philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Present-day philosophy has witnessed an efflorescence of virtue ethics. Although the return to virtue has been portrayed as a rehabilitation of the notion of virtue from the neglect into which it fell in the early modern period, in his seminal article, “The Misfortunes of Virtue,” J. B. Schneewind argues that virtue’s misfortune in the early modern period was not its neglect, but rather its displacement as the central concept in ethics. In Disguised Vices, Michael (...) Moriarty uncovers another misfortune that befell virtue in the early modern period: the suspicion of the concept of virtue, that is, of its applicability to agents, in the work of early modern French philosophers, theologians, and moralists. Moriarty .. (shrink)

European autobiography of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was fed particularly by the religious exploration of the self and the desire to tell about and place oneself within the web of one's family. Jewish autobiography has behind it these same impulses, though it is more likely to be an expansion of ethical teachings appended to a will than an elaboration from an account book. It also differs from Christian autobiography in lacking a definitive conversion. Rather the life is imbued with (...) a cyclical sense of sin, of God's power and punishment, and of the unpredictable: the individual's life is a recapitulation of the history of the Jewish people. Leon Modena's Life of Judah is a combination of confession, lament, and self-celebration. It bears comparison to Girolamo Cardano's Book of My Life, for both men express pride in their fame and many books, despair about their sons, and admit to the vice of gambling. Cardano's glory and complaints delimited a secular sphere within the Christian universe of meaning, while Modena's were still closely tied to God's tangled relations with His chosen people. Further, the realm of the "secret" was defined differently by Christian and Jew. Christian writers usually assumed the inside/outside contrast to apply especially to the individual and that secrecy was bad but inevitable in a society of preferment. For Jewish writers the inside went beyond the individual and his or her family to the wider Jewish community. In that protected space and in the safe language of Hebrew, a range of situations and feelings could be explored with considerable frankness, the inner/outer contrast leading to surprising self-discovery. (shrink)

Francesco guicciardini rather than niccolo machiavelli was the first significant theorist to consider the role of interest in moral and political life, But the idea of interest rose to normative status because traditional natural law ethics, Which repressed the pursuit of interest in the name of right reason, Was transformed in the early modern period. The transformed version, It is proposed, Legitimized the pursuit of interest by introducing a philosophy of ethical egoism.

This open access volume provides an in-depth analysis of philosophical discussions concerning the common good and its relation to self-interest in the history of Western philosophy. The thirteen chapters explore both renowned and lesser-known thinkers from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century, covering also the relevant ancient background. By bridging the gap between the medieval and early modern periods, they provide fresh insights into how moral and political philosophers understood the concepts of the common good and self-interest, (...) along with their ethical and political implications. The concept of the common good occupies a central role in philosophical reflections on the public and private dimensions of moral and social life in contemporary debates. By exploring the rich and diverse ways in which the relationship between the common good and self-interest has been understood, this volume has the potential to contribute to our ongoing efforts to critically discern the possibilities and limitations of these concepts in the present. Thus, the volume will be useful for scholars interested in the multi-layered role of the notion of the common good both in the history of philosophy and in contemporary moral and political philosophy. (shrink)

Seventeenth-century English virtuoso attitudes to the visual arts have often been contrasted with a putative eighteenth-century culture of connoisseurship, most notably in a still influential 1942 article by Walter Houghton. This essay revisits Houghton's thesis and argues that English virtuoso culture did indeed allow for an incipient notion of artistic connoisseurship but that it did so in a manner different from the French model. The first section details a virtuoso aesthetic in which a modern approach to the cultural heritage (...) of antiquity was central. The instructive ethical and historical attributes of an art work were deemed more important than attribution to a master artist, although one can discern an incipient notion of a virtuoso canon of great artists. The second section examines the social and institutional position of the English virtuosi and argues that the lack of a Royal Academy of Arts in the French manner made virtuoso attitudes to the arts unusually receptive to outside influences such as the Royal Society and other private clubs and academies. It concludes by considering the ways in which some eighteenth-century concepts of taste and connoisseurship defined themselves in contrast to an earlier and wider-ranging virtuosity even if they failed to fully supplant it. (shrink)