The Cambridge Companion to Eighteenth-Century Thought

A survey of influential thinkers and their ideas in eighteenth-century British philosophy, science, religion, history, law, and economics.

Providing a comprehensive overview of intellectual life in the eighteenth-century Anglophone world at a time when the boundaries of knowledge were growing rapidly in response to their evolving surroundings, this volume is essential reading for scholars and students of eighteenth-century British literature, culture and thought.The Cambridge Companion to Eighteenth-Century Thought gives a comprehensive overview of intellectual life in the eighteenth-century Anglophone world at a time when the boundaries of knowledge were growing rapidly in response to a world undergoing radical change. Organised in two parts, the volume begins with four wide-ranging chapters on key areas of thought: philosophy, science, political and legal theory, and religion. The second part comprises shorter chapters that focus on subjects of emerging inquiry, such as aesthetics, economics, and sensibility and emotion, as well as intellectual disciplines undergoing methodological evolution, such as history. A chronology is provided to help situate historical events, important thinkers, key publications, and intellectual milestones in relation to one another, and guides for further reading point the reader to avenues for deeper exploration of the Companion's various topics.