Books in the Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy series

This work, first published in 1746 and offered here in a new translation, is a highly influential work in the history of philosophy of mind and language, and anticipates Wittgenstein's views on language and its relation to mind and thought.

This edition of Logic or the Art of Thinking presents a new translation of this enormously influential Cartesian and Jansenist treatise, which inspired the modern transformation in logic and semantic theory by Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein and recent philosophers.

This classic study of human language remains one of the most interesting and important attempts to draw philosophical conclusions from comparative linguistics. This 1999 volume presents a translation by Peter Heath together with an introduction by Michael Losonsky that places Humboldt's work in its historical and philosophical context.

These four early essays, key documents for understanding the development of Nietzsche's thought, are here presented in a new edition with an introduction that places them in their historical context and discusses their significance for Nietzsche's philosophy.

In this book, published in 1686, the scientist Robert Boyle attacked prevailing notions of the natural world which depicted 'Nature' as a wise, benevolent and purposeful being. His Free Enquiry represents one of the subtlest statements concerning the philosophical issues raised by the mechanical philosophy to emerge from the period of the scientific revolution.

Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) lays the foundation for a general system of morals, and is a text of central importance in the history of moral and political thought. It presents a theory of the imagination which Smith derived from David Hume but which encompasses an idea of sympathy that in some ways is more sophisticated than anything in Hume's philosophy. By means of sympathy and the mental construct of an impartial spectator, Smith formulated highly original theories of conscience, moral judgment and the virtues. The enduring legacy of his work is its reconstruction of the Enlightenment idea of a moral, or social, science encompassing both political economy and the theory of law and government. This 2002 volume offers a new edition of the text with clear and helpful notes for the student reader, together with a substantial introduction that sets the work in its philosophical and historical context.

Outlines of Scepticism is the fullest extant account of ancient scepticism and a work of major importance for the history of Greek philosophy. This volume presents the accurate and readable translation which was first published in 1994, together with a substantial new historical and philosophical introduction by Jonathan Barnes.

Giordano Bruno's notorious public death in 1600, at the hands of the Inquisition in Rome, marked the transition from Renaissance philosophy to the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century. In his philosophical works he addressed such delicate issues as the role of Christ as mediator and the distinction, in human beings, between soul and matter. This volume presents new translations of Cause, Principle and Unity, in which he challenges Aristotelian accounts of causality and spells out the implications of Copernicanism for a new theory of an infinite universe, and of two essays on magic, On Magic and A General Account of Bonding, in which he interprets earlier theories about magical events in the light of the unusual powers of natural phenomena.

When the New Organon appeared in 1620, part of a six-part programme of scientific inquiry entitled 'The Great Renewal of Learning', Francis Bacon was at the high point of his political career, and his ambitious work was groundbreaking in its attempt to give formal philosophical shape to a new and rapidly emerging experimentally-based science. Bacon combines theoretical scientific epistemology with examples from applied science, examining phenomena as various as magnetism, gravity, and the ebb and flow of the tides, and anticipating later experimental work by Robert Boyle and others. His work challenges the entire edifice of the philosophy and learning of his time, and has left its mark on all subsequent philosophical discussions of scientific method. This volume presents a new translation of the text into modern English by Michael Silverthorne, and an introduction by Lisa Jardine that sets the work in the context of Bacon's scientific and philosophical activities.

Beyond Good and Evil is one of the most scathing and powerful critiques of philosophy, religion, science, politics and ethics ever written. In it, Nietzsche presents a set of problems, criticisms and philosophical challenges that continue both to inspire and to trouble contemporary thought. In addition, he offers his most subtle, detailed and sophisticated account of the virtues, ideas, and practices which will characterize philosophy and philosophers of the future. With his relentlessly energetic style and tirelessly probing manner, Nietzsche embodies the type of thought he wants to foster, while defining its historical role and determining its agenda. This edition offers a new and readable translation, by Judith Norman, of one of the most influential texts in the history of philosophy, together with an introduction by Rolf-Peter Horstmann that sets it in its historical and philosophical context.

The works presented in this volume, in a new English translation, are among the most important and characteristic texts of the Enlightenment. The issues which they raise, concerning questions of tolerance and human dignity, are still highly relevant to our own times.

Shaftesbury's Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times was first published in 1711. It ranges widely over ethics, aesthetics, religion, the arts (painting, literature, architecture, gardening), and ancient and modern history, and aims at nothing less than a new ideal of the gentleman. Together with Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Addison and Steele's Spectator, it is a text of fundamental importance for understanding the thought and culture of Enlightenment Europe. This volume, first published in 2000, presents an edition of the text together with an introduction, explanatory notes and a guide to further reading.

Sextus Empiricus' Against the Logicians is a prime example of the ancient Greek sceptical method at work. This volume presents it in a new and accurate translation together with a detailed introduction.

This volume combines five of Nietzsche's late works: The Antichrist, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche contra Wagner, and The Case of Wagner. Here, Nietzsche takes on some of his greatest adversaries: traditional religion, contemporary culture, and above all his one-time hero, the composer Richard Wagner.

This volume offers Schopenhauer's brilliant and elegant essay on free will and determinism in a previously unpublished translation by Eric F. J. Payne, the leading twentieth-century translator of Schopenhauer into English, together with a historical and philosophical introduction by Gunter Zoeller.

Ralph Cudworth deserves recognition as one of the most important English seventeenth-century philosophers after Hobbes and Locke. A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality is his most important work, and this volume makes it available, together with his shorter Treatise of Freewill.

Do human beings ever act freely, and if so what does freedom mean? Is everything that happens antecedently caused, and if so how is freedom possible? Is it right, even for God, to punish people for things that they cannot help doing? This volume presents the famous seventeenth-century controversy in which Thomas Hobbes and John Bramhall debate these questions and others. The complete texts of their initial contributions to the debate are included, together with selections from their subsequent replies to one another and from other works of Hobbes, in a collection that offers an illuminating commentary on issues still of concern to philosophers today. The volume is completed by a historical and philosophical introduction that explains the context in which the debate took place.

This book presents a selection of texts by the most celebrated philosophers of the classical period of Islam, including Farabi, Ghazali (Avicenna) and Ibn Rushd (Averroes). An introduction situates the text in their philosophical and historical contexts, and the volume also includes helpful notes on further reading.

This volume presents translations of Saadia Gaon, Solomon ibn Gabirol, Moses Maimonides, Isaac Albalag, Moses of Narbonne, Levi Gersonides, Hasdai Crescas and Joseph Albo. Their texts range over topics that are both theological (e.g. the creation of the world) and philosophical (e.g. determinism and free choice).

This volume presents translations of Saadia Gaon, Solomon ibn Gabirol, Moses Maimonides, Isaac Albalag, Moses of Narbonne, Levi Gersonides, Hasdai Crescas and Joseph Albo. Their texts range over topics that are both theological (e.g. the creation of the world) and philosophical (e.g. determinism and free choice).

In the New Essays on Human Understanding, Leibniz argues chapter by chapter with John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, challenging his views about knowledge, personal identity, God, morality, mind and matter, nature versus nurture, logic and language, and a host of other topics. The work is a series of sharp, deep discussions by one great philosopher of the work of another. Leibniz's references to his contemporaries and his discussions of the ideas and institutions of the age make this a fascinating and valuable document in the history of ideas. The work was originally written in French, and the version by Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett, based on the only reliable French edition (published in 1962), first appeared in 1981 and has become the standard English translation. It has been thoroughly revised for this series and provided with a new and longer introduction, a chronology on Leibniz's life and career and a guide to further reading.

The Gay Science is an extensive and sophisticated treatment of the philosophical themes and views which were most central to Nietzsche's own thought and which have been most influential on later thinkers. This volume presents the work in a new translation, with a philosophical introduction by Bernard Williams.

This 2001 translation makes one of the most important texts in ancient philosophy available to modern readers. Cicero is increasingly being appreciated as an intelligent and well-educated amateur philosopher, and in this work he presents the major ethical theories of his time in a way designed to get the reader philosophically engaged in the important debates. Raphael Woolf's translation does justice to Cicero's argumentative vigour as well as to the philosophical ideas involved, while Julia Annas's introduction and notes provide a clear and accessible explanation of the philosophical context of the work. This edition will appeal to all readers interested in this central text in ancient philosophy and the history of ethics.

Kant is the central figure of modern philosophy. He sought to rebuild philosophy from the ground up, and he succeeded in permanently changing its problems and methods. This revised edition of the Prolegomena, which is the best introduction to the theoretical side of his philosophy, presents his thought clearly by paying careful attention to his original language. Also included are selections from the Critique of Pure Reason, which fill out and explicate some of Kant's central arguments (including famous sections of the Schematism and Analogies), and in which Kant himself explains his special terminology. The first reviews of the Critique, to which Kant responded in the Prolegomena, are included in this revised edition. The volume is completed by a historical and philosophical introduction, explanatory notes, a chronology, and a guide to further reading.

Nietzsche regarded 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' as his most important work, and it has had an enormous influence on subsequent culture. This edition offers a new translation, which captures the text's poetic brilliance, together with an introduction which discusses many of the most important interpretative issues raised by the work.

Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744-1803) is one of the most important German philosophers of the eighteenth century, who had enormous influence on later thinkers such as Hegel, Schleiermacher and Nietzsche. This volume presents a translation of Herder's most important and characteristic philosophical writings.

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, based on lectures that he gave in Athens in the fourth century BCE, is one of the most significant works in moral philosophy, and has profoundly influenced the whole course of subsequent philosophical endeavour. It is soundly located within a philosophical tradition, but its argument differs markedly from those of Plato and Socrates in its emphasis on the exercise - as opposed to the mere possession - of virtue as the key to human happiness, offering seminal discussions of ethical issues that are practical in their intent. Topics covered include the role of luck in human wellbeing, moral education, responsibility, courage, justice, moral weakness, friendship and pleasure. This accessible new translation by Roger Crisp follows the Greek text closely and also provides a non-Greek-reader with the flavour of the original. The volume also includes a historical and philosophical introduction and notes on further reading.

This volume presents the distinguished translation of Daybreak by R. J. Hollingdale, with a new introduction that sets the main themes of the work in their intellectual and philosophical contexts. The edition is completed by a chronology, notes and a guide to further reading.

Designed for intermediate to advanced students, this edition of Kant's Metaphysics of Morals contains a lightly revised version of Mary Gregor's highly regarded translation. Readers' understanding and engagement are facilitated by its informative and accessible introduction, extensive further reading essay, and translation and editorial notes.

This edition of The Birth of Tragedy, one of the seminal philosophical works of the modern period, presents a new translation by Ronald Speirs and an introduction by Raymond Geuss that sets the work in its historical and philosophical context.