New Essays on the Rationalists [Paperback]

This collection presents some of the most vital and original recent writings on Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz, the three greatest rationalists of the early modern period. Their work offered brilliant and distinct integrations of science, morals, metaphysics, and religion, which today remain at the center of philosophical discussion. The essays written especially for this volume explore how these three philosophical systems treated matter, substance, human freedom, natural necessity, knowledge, mind, and consciousness. The contributors include some of the most prominent writers in the field, including Jonathan Bennett, Michael Della Rocca, Jan A. Cover, Catherine Wilson, Stephen Voss, Edwin Curley, Don Garrett, and Margaret D. Wilson.

Introduction
Part I - Matter and Substance
1. Space and Subtle Matter in Descartes's Metaphysics,Jonathan Bennett, Syracuse University
2. Descartes on Nothing in Particular,Eric Palmer, Allegheny College, Pennsylvania
3. If a Body Meets a Body : Descartes on Body-Body Causation,Michael Della Rocca, Yale University
4. Descartes's Extended Substances,Mathew Stuart, Bowdoin College, Maine
5. Spinoza's Extended Substance: Cartesian and Leibnizian Reflections,Jan A. Cover, Purdue University
6. Leibniz's Constructivism and Infinitely Folded Matter,Samuel Levey, Dartmouth College
7. Locke and Leibniz and the Debate over Species,Susanna Goodin, University of Wyoming
Part II - Freedom and Necessity
8. Descartes on Spontaneity, Indifference, and Alternatives,Joseph Keim Campbell, Washington State University
9. The Range of Leibnizian Compatibilism,Eric Sotnak, University of Akron, Ohio
10. The Necessity of Finite Modes and Geometrical Containment in Spinoza's Metaphysics,Charles Huenemann, Utah State University
11. Spinoza's Necessitarianism Reconsidered,Edwin Curley and Gl)