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Learning from Six Philosophers: Volume 2

Jonathan Bennett author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Oxford University Press

Published:22nd Feb '01

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Learning from Six Philosophers: Volume 2 cover

Jonathan Bennett engages with the thought of six great thinkers of the early modern period: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume. While not neglecting the historical setting of each, his chief focus is on the words they wrote. What problem is being tackled? How exactly is the solution meant to work? Does it succeed? If not, why not? What can we learn from its success or its failure? These questions reflect Bennett's dedication to engaging with philosophy as philosophy, not as museum exhibit, and they require a close and demanding attention to textual details; these being two features that characterize all Bennett's work on early modern philosophy. For newcomers to the early modern scene, this clearly written work is an excellent introduction to it. Those already in the know can learn how to argue with the great philosophers of the past, treating them as colleagues, antagonists, students, teachers.

Its discussion of the various modern philosophers is fairly compact and orderly ... a clear and engaging discussion of central issues in early modern metaphysics and epistemology * Mind *
Very interesting and profitable to read * Michael Ayers, Times Literary Supplement *
A noteworthy feature of the book is the continuously powerful presence of an authorial self ... This book will be widely read and discussed both for its virtues and, I trust, like the works it discusses, for its faults * Michael Ayers, Times Literary Supplement *

ISBN: 9780198250920

Dimensions: 242mm x 164mm x 26mm

Weight: 724g

396 pages