Learning from Six Philosophers

Bennett engages with the thought of six great thinkers of the early modern period: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume. 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 be learned from its success or failure?

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 i

VOLUME 1; 1. Cartesian and Aristotelian Physics; 2. Matter and Space; 3. Descartes's Physics; 4. Descartes's Dualisms; 5. Descartes on Causation; 6. Preparing to Approach Spinoza; 7. One Extended Substance; 8. Explaining the Parallelism; 9. Explanatory Rationalism; 10. Spinoza on Belief and Error; 11. Desire in Descartes and Spinoza; 12. Leibniz Arrives at Monads; 13. Causation and Perception in Leibniz; 14. Leibniz's Physics; 15. Harmony; 16. Animals that Think; 17. Leibniz's Contained-Predicate Doctrine; 18. Leibniz and Relations; 19. Descartes's Search for Security; 20. Descartes's Stability Project