The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Philosophy is
a comprehensive introduction to the central topics and
changing shape of philosophical inquiry in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. It explores one of the most innovative
periods in the history of Western philosophy,
extending from Montaigne, Bacon, and Descartes through
Hume and Kant. During this period, philosophers initiated
and responded to major intellectual developments in natural
science, religion, and politics, transforming in the process
concepts and doctrines inherited from ancient and medieval
philosophy. In this Companion, leading specialists examine
early modern treatments of the methodological and conceptual
foundations of natural science, metaphysics, philosophy
of mind, logic and language, moral and political
philosophy, and theology. A final chapter looks forward to
the philosophy of the Enlightenment. This will be an invaluable
guide for all who are interested in the philosophical
thought of the early modern period.