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Enjoyed by students, scholars, and anyone with an interest in philosophy, this internationally acclaimed series offers lively, clear introductions to major writers, thinkers, artists, topics, and periods. Each volume contains specially commissioned essays by a team of leading scholars, therefore offering a variety of viewpoints rather than a single voice.

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142 results in Cambridge Companions to Philosophy

Page 6 of 8

The Cambridge Companion to Locke
  • Edited by Vere Chappell
  • Published online:
    28 May 2006
    Print publication:
    24 June 1994
  • Each volume of this series of companions to major philosophers contains specially commissioned essays by an international team of scholars, together with a substantial bibliography, and will serve as a reference work for students and non-specialists. One aim of the series is to dispel the intimidation such readers often feel when faced with the work of a difficult and challenging thinker. The essays in this volume provide a systematic survey of Locke's philosophy informed by the most recent scholarship. They cover Locke's theory of ideas, his philosophies of body, mind, language, and religion, his theory of knowledge, his ethics, and his political philosophy. There are also chapters on Locke's life and subsequent influence. New readers and non-specialists will find this the most convenient, accessible guide to Locke currently available.

The Cambridge Companion to Bertrand Russell
  • Edited by Nicholas Griffin
  • Published online:
    28 May 2006
    Print publication:
    23 June 2003
  • Bertrand Russell ranks as one of the giants of twentieth-century philosophy. Through his books, journalism, correspondence and political activity he exerted a profound influence on modern thought. This companion centers on Russell's contributions to modern philosophy and, therefore, concentrates on the early part of his career. There are chapters on Russell's contributions to the foundations of mathematics, and on his development of logical methods in philosophy and their application to such fields as epistemology, metaphysics and the philosophy of language. The intellectual background to his work is covered, as is his engagement with such contemporaries as Frege and G. E. Moore. The final chapter considers Russell as a moral philosopher. New readers will find this the most convenient and accessible guide to Russell available. Advanced students and specialists will find a conspectus of recent developments in the interpretation of Russell.

The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes
  • Edited by Tom Sorell
  • Published online:
    28 May 2006
    Print publication:
    26 January 1996
  • It was as a political thinker that Thomas Hobbes first came to prominence, and it is as a political theorist that he is most studied today. Yet the range of his writings extends well beyond morals and politics. Hobbes had distinctive views in metaphysics and epistemology, and wrote about such subjects as history, law, and religion. He also produced full-scale treatises in physics, optics, and geometry. All of these areas are covered in this Companion, most in considerable detail. The volume also reflects the multidisciplinary nature of current Hobbes scholarship by drawing together perspectives that are now being developed in parallel by philosophers, historians of science and mathematics, intellectual historians, political scientists, and literary theorists.

The Cambridge Companion to Freud
  • Edited by Jerome Neu
  • Published online:
    28 May 2006
    Print publication:
    29 November 1991
  • Does Freud still have something to teach us? The premise of this volume is that he most certainly does. Approaching Freud from not only the philosophical but also historical, psychoanalytical, anthropological, and sociological perspectives, the contributors show us how Freud gave us a new and powerful way to think about human thought and action. They consider the context of Freud's thought and the structure of his arguments to reveal how he made sense of ranges of experience generally neglected or misunderstood. All the central topics of Freud's work, from sexuality and neurosis to morality, art, and culture are covered.

The Cambridge Companion to Pascal
  • Edited by Nicholas Hammond
  • Published online:
    28 May 2006
    Print publication:
    17 April 2003
  • Each volume of this series of companions to major philosophers contains specially commissioned essays by an international team of scholars, together with a substantial bibliography, and will serve as a reference work for students and nonspecialists. One aim of the series is to dispel the intimidation such readers often feel when faced with the work of a difficult and challenging thinker. Blaise Pascal (1623–62) occupies a position of pivotal importance in many domains: philosophy, mathematics, physics, religious polemics and apologetics. In this volume a team of leading scholars presents the full range of Pascal's achievement and surveys the intellectual background of his thought and the reception of his work. New readers and nonspecialists will find this the most convenient and accessible guide to Pascal currently available. Advanced students and specialists will find a conspectus of recent developments in the interpretation of Pascal.

The Cambridge Companion to Feminism in Philosophy
  • Edited by Miranda Fricker, Jennifer Hornsby
  • Published online:
    28 May 2006
    Print publication:
    27 January 2000
  • The thirteen specially-commissioned essays in this volume are written by philosophers at the forefront of feminist scholarship, and are designed to provide an accessible and stimulating guide to a philosophical literature that has seen massive expansion in recent years. Ranging from history of philosophy through metaphysics to philosophy of science, they encompass all the core subject areas commonly taught in anglophone undergraduate and graduate philosophy courses, offering both an overview of and a contribution to the relevant debates. Together they testify to the intellectual value of feminism as a radicalizing energy internal to philosophical inquiry. This volume will be essential reading for any student or teacher of philosophy who is curious about the place of feminism in their subject.

The Cambridge Companion to Rawls
  • Edited by Samuel Freeman
  • Published online:
    28 May 2006
    Print publication:
    04 November 2002
  • Each volume of this series of companions to major philosophers contains specially commissioned essays by an international team of scholars and will serve as a reference work for students and nonspecialists. John Rawls is the most significant and influential philosopher and moral philosopher of the twentieth century. His work has profoundly shaped contemporary discussions of social, political and economic justice in philosophy, law, political science, economics and other social disciplines. In this exciting collection of essays, many of the world's leading political and moral theorists discuss the full range of Rawls's contribution to the concepts of political and economic justice, democracy, liberalism, constitutionalism, and international justice. There are also assessments of Rawls's controversial relationships with feminism, utilitarianism and communitarianism. New readers will find this to be an accessible guide to Rawls. Advanced students and specialists will find a conspectus of developments in the interpretation of Rawls.

The Cambridge Companion to Levinas
  • Edited by Simon Critchley, Robert Bernasconi
  • Published online:
    28 May 2006
    Print publication:
    25 July 2002
  • Emmanuel Levinas is now widely recognised alongside Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Sartre as one of the most important Continental philosophers of the twentieth century. His abiding concern was the primacy of the ethical relation to the other person and his central thesis was that ethics is first philosophy. His work has also had a profound impact on a number of fields outside philosophy such as theology, Jewish studies, literature and cultural theory, psychotherapy, sociology, political theory, international relations theory and critical legal theory. This volume, first published in 2002, contains overviews of Levinas's contribution in a number of fields, and includes detailed discussions of his early and late work, his relation to Judaism and talmudic commentary, and his contributions to aesthetics and the philosophy of religion.

The Cambridge Companion to Hume
  • Edited by David Fate Norton
  • Published online:
    28 May 2006
    Print publication:
    29 October 1993
  • David Hume is, arguably, the most important philosopher ever to have written in English. Although best known for his contributions to epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of religion, Hume also made substantial and influential contributions to psychology and the philosophy of mind, ethics, the philosophy of science, political and economic theory, political and social history, and, to a lesser extent, aesthetic and literary theory. All facets of Hume's output are discussed in this volume, the first genuinely comprehensive overview of his work. The picture that emerges is of a thinker who, though critical to the point of scepticism, was nonetheless able to build on that scepticism a profoundly important, and still viable, constructive philosophy.

The Cambridge Companion to Descartes
  • Edited by John Cottingham
  • Published online:
    28 May 2006
    Print publication:
    25 September 1992
  • Descartes occupies a position of pivotal importance as one of the founding fathers of modern philosophy; he is, perhaps the most widely studied of all philosophers. In this authoritative collection an international team of leading scholars in Cartesian studies present the full range of Descartes' extraordinary philosophical achievement. His life and the development of his thought, as well as the intellectual background to and reception of his work, are treated at length. At the core of the volume are a group of chapters on his metaphysics: the celebrated 'Cogito' argument, the proofs of God's existence, the 'Cartesian circle' and the dualistic theory of the mind and its relation to his theological and scientific views. Other chapters cover the philosophical implications of his work in algebra, his place in the seventeenth-century scientific revolution, the structure of his physics, and his work on physiology and psychology.

The Cambridge Companion to Critical Theory
  • Edited by Fred Rush
  • Published online:
    28 May 2006
    Print publication:
    26 August 2004
  • Critical Theory constitutes one of the major intellectual traditions of the twentieth century, and is centrally important for philosophy, political theory, aesthetics and theory of art, the study of modern European literatures and music, the history of ideas, sociology, psychology, and cultural studies. In this volume an international team of distinguished contributors examines the major figures in Critical Theory, including Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, Benjamin, and Habermas, as well as lesser known but important thinkers such as Pollock and Neumann. The volume surveys the shared philosophical concerns that have given impetus to Critical Theory throughout its history, while at the same time showing the diversity among its proponents that contributes so much to its richness as a philosophical school. The result is an illuminating overview of the entire history of Critical Theory in the twentieth century, an examination of its central conceptual concerns, and an in-depth discussion of its future prospects.

The Cambridge Companion to Hegel
  • Edited by Frederick C. Beiser
  • Published online:
    28 May 2006
    Print publication:
    29 January 1993
  • Few thinkers are more controversial in the history of philosophy than Hegel. He has been dismissed as a charlatan and obscurantist, but also praised as one of the greatest thinkers in modern philosophy. No one interested in philosophy can afford to ignore him. This volume considers all the major aspects of Hegel's work: epistemology, logic, ethics, political philosophy, aesthetics, philosophy of history, philosophy of religion. Special attention is devoted to problems in the interpretation of Hegel: the unity of the Phenomenology of Spirit; the value of the dialectical method; the status of his logic; the nature of his politics. A final group of chapters treats Hegel's complex historical legacy: the development of Hegelianism and its growth into a left and right-wing school; the relation of Hegel and Marx; and the subtle connections between Hegel and contemporary analytic philosophy.

The Cambridge Companion to Kant
  • Edited by Paul Guyer
  • Published online:
    28 May 2006
    Print publication:
    31 January 1992
  • The fundamental task of philosophy since the seventeenth century has been to determine whether the essential principles of both knowledge and action can be discovered by human beings unaided by an external agency. No one philosopher contributed more to this enterprise than Kant, whose Critique of Pure Reason (1781) shook the very foundations of the intellectual world. Kant argued that the basic principles of the natural science are imposed on reality by human sensibility and understanding, and thus that human beings are also free to impose their own free and rational agency on the world. This 1992 volume is the only systematic and comprehensive account of the full range of Kant's writings available, and the first major overview of his work to be published in more than a dozen years. An internationally recognised team of Kant scholars explore Kant's conceptual revolution in epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of science, moral and political philosophy, aesthetics, and the philosophy of religion.

The Cambridge Companion to Marx
  • Edited by Terrell Carver
  • Published online:
    28 May 2006
    Print publication:
    25 October 1991
  • Marx was a highly original and polymathic thinker, unhampered by disciplinary boundaries, whose intellectual influence has been enormous. Yet in the wake of the collapse of Marxism-Leninism in Eastern Europe the question arises as to how important his work really is for us now. An important dimension of this volume is to place Marx's writings in their historical context and to separate what he actually said from what others (in particular, Engels) interpreted him as saying. Informed by current debates and new perspectives, the volume provides a comprehensive coverage of all the major areas to which Marx made significant contributions.

The Cambridge Companion to Anselm
  • Edited by Brian Davies, Brian Leftow
  • Published online:
    28 May 2006
    Print publication:
    02 December 2004
  • Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109), Benedictine monk and the second Norman archbishop of Canterbury, is regarded as one of the most important philosophers and theologians of the Middle Ages. The essays in this volume explore all of his major ideas both philosophical and theological, including his teachings on faith and reason, God's existence and nature, logic, freedom, truth, ethics, and key Christian doctrines. There is also discussion of his life, the sources of his thought, and his influence on other thinkers. New readers will find this the most convenient, accessible guide to Anselm currently available. Advanced students and specialists will find a conspectus of developments in the interpretation of Anselm.

The Cambridge Companion to German Idealism
  • Edited by Karl Ameriks
  • Published online:
    28 May 2006
    Print publication:
    30 October 2000
  • The Cambridge Companion to German Idealism, first published in 2000, offers a comprehensive, penetrating and informative guide to what is regarded as the classical period of German philosophy. Kant, Fichte, Hegel and Schelling are all discussed in detail, together with a number of their contemporaries, such as Hölderlin and Schleiermacher, whose influence was considerable but whose work is less well known in the English-speaking world. The essays in the volume trace and explore the unifying themes of German Idealism, and discuss their relationship to Romanticism, the Enlightenment, and the culture of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe. The result is an illuminating overview of a rich and complex philosophical movement, and will appeal to a wide range of readers in philosophy, German studies, theology, literature, and the history of ideas.

The Cambridge Companion to Hannah Arendt
  • Edited by Dana Villa
  • Published online:
    28 May 2006
    Print publication:
    30 November 2000
  • Hannah Arendt was one of the foremost political thinkers of the twentieth century, and her particular interests have made her one of the most frequently cited thinkers of our time. This Companion examines the primary themes of her multi-faceted work, from her theory of totalitarianism and her controversial idea of the 'banality of evil' to her classic studies of political action and her final reflections on judgment and the life of the mind. Each essay examines the political, philosophical, and historical concerns which shaped Arendt's thought, and which prompted her to become one of the most unapologetic champions of the political life in the history of Western thought.

The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza
  • Edited by Don Garrett
  • Published online:
    28 May 2006
    Print publication:
    27 October 1995
  • Benedict (Baruch) de Spinoza has been one of the most inspiring and influential philosophers of the modern era, yet also one of the most difficult and most frequently misunderstood. Spinoza sought to unify mind and body, science and religion, and to derive an ethics of reason, virtue, and freedom 'in geometrical order' from a monistic metaphysics. Of all the philosophical systems of the seventeenth century it is his that speaks most deeply to the twentieth century. The essays in this volume provide a clear and systematic exegesis of Spinoza's thought informed by the most recent scholarship. They cover his metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of science, psychology, ethics, political theory, theology, and scriptural interpretation, as well as his life and influence on later thinkers.

The Cambridge Companion to Sartre
  • Edited by Christina Howells
  • Published online:
    28 May 2006
    Print publication:
    28 August 1992
  • This is one of the most comprehensive and up-to-date surveys of the philosophy of Sartre, by some of the foremost interpreters in the United States and Europe. The essays are both expository and original, and cover Sartre's writings on ontology, phenomenology, psychology, ethics, and aesthetics, as well as his work on history, commitment, and progress; a final section considers Sartre's relationship to structuralism and deconstruction. Providing a balanced view of Sartre's philosophy and situating it in relation to contemporary trends in Continental philosophy, the volume shows that many of the topics associated with Lacan, Foucault, Levi-Strauss, and Derrida are to be found in the work of Sartre, in some cases as early as 1936. A special feature of the volume is the treatment of the recently published and hitherto little studied posthumous works.

The Cambridge Companion to Peirce
  • Edited by Cheryl Misak
  • Published online:
    28 May 2006
    Print publication:
    12 July 2004
  • Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) is generally considered the most significant American philosopher. He was the founder of pragmatism, the view popularized by William James and John Dewey, that our philosophical theories must be linked to experience and practice. The essays in this volume reveal how Peirce worked through this idea to make important contributions to most branches of philosophy. The topics covered include Peirce's influence; the famous pragmatic maxim and the view of truth and reality arising from it; the question as to whether mathematical, moral and religious hypotheses might aspire to truth; his theories of inquiry and perception; and his contribution to semiotics, statistical inference and deductive logic. New readers will find this the most convenient and accessible guide to Peirce currently available. Advanced students and specialists will find a conspectus of recent developments in the interpretation of Peirce.

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