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This chapter analyzes Spinoza’s intervention in the debate over luxury – a topic central to early modern debates over the new economy. Spinoza’s position has received scant scholarly attention. It argues that Spinoza’s diagnosis of the problem of luxury and corruption is are important to his political philosophy. And that his attempt to resolve it anticipates key features to the strains of economics known as constitutional political economy and public choice theory. In particular in institutional design one should not just be alert to the incentive structure of the institutions in shaping behavior, but also in the ways these incentives attract people one ought to keep out (or wish to attract).

TThis edited and refereed volume consists of an introduction by the editor and twelve commissioned chapters by leading contemporary professional philosophers who share their passion for unjustly neglected classics from the distant past and recent past. These neglected classics are to be found in many philosophical traditions on several continents and in different ages. Collectively, these chapters invite the beginning and advanced student of philosophy to explore some overlooked paths and to renew philosophy in a more inclusive, cosmopolitan manner. They also offer an oblique window on the nature and state of contemporary professional philosophy, and signal how it may be reformed.

The Introduction to Neglected Classics of Philosophy, Volume 2, uses Bertrand Russell’s The History of Western Philosophy (1945) to analyze the meta-philosophical themes that recur throughout the chapters of the volume. In particular, it focuses on the way the distinction or opposition between rustic thought, which is supposed to characterize barbarous societies, and the urbane thought that is purported to characterize civilized society can help explain some entrenched patterns of exclusion visible in contemporary philosophy. It embeds these remarks in a larger, speculative historiography of the very idea of “Western philosophy.” Along the way, an overview and brief summary of the chapters of the volume is provided.

Margaret Cavendish is a vitalist, materialist, and monist. She holds that human beings and other natural kinds are parts of the one material entity, “nature.” While human beings may not be superior to other animals in many ways, Cavendish does think that human beings have a type of knowledge and perception that is unique to their kind, that they strive for the continuance of their being, and that they join together into societies in order to achieve a more peaceful existence. This essay considers the formation of human beings, how their perception and knowledge differ from other nonhuman animals, how human beings are individuated, and in what sense they can be immortal. Finally, the essay argues that Cavendish’s views about the social nature of human beings mirror her views about the metaphysical structure of nature. The essay shows that Cavendish embraces natural and social hierarchy alongside a form of sexual equality that the essay dubs “Platonic feminism.”

This chapter explores Nagel’s polemics. It shows these have a two-fold character: (i) to defend liberal civilization against all kinds of enemies. And (ii) to defend what he calls ‘contextual naturalism.’ And the chapter shows that (i-ii) reinforce each other and undermine alternative political and philosophical programs. The chapter’s argument responds to an influential argument by George Reisch that Nagel’s professional stance represents a kind of disciplinary retreat from politics. In order to respond to Reisch the relationship between Nagel’s philosophy of science and his politics is explored and this chapter shows how both are anchored in what Nagel once called his ‘contextual naturalism’—a metaphysics that resists imposing the unity of the world and treats all entities as embedded in a wider network of entities. Part of the argument traces out how Nagel’s views on responsible speech and professionalism reflect a distinct understanding of the political role of philosophers of science.

This collection of papers by a leading philosophical Newton scholar offers new interpretations of Newton’s account of space, gravity, motion, inertia, and laws—all evergreens in the literature. The volume also breaks new ground in focusing on Newton’s philosophy of time, Newton’s views on emanation, and Newton’s modal metaphysics. In addition, the volume is unique in exploring the very rich resonances between Newton’s and Spinoza’s metaphysics, including the ways in which Newton and his circles responded to the threat by, and possible accusation of, Spinozism. Seven chapters have been published before and will be republished with minor corrections. Two of these chapters are coauthored: one with Zvi Biener and one with Mary Domski. Two chapters are wholly new and are written especially for this volume. In addition, the volume includes two postscripts with new material responding to critics. A main part of the argument of these essays is not just to characterize the conceptual choices Newton made in developing the structure of theory that would facilitate the kind of measurements characteristic of the Newtonian style, but also to show that these choices, in turn, were informed by intellectual aspirations that brought Newton’s edifice into theological and philosophical conflicts. As these conflicts became acute, these drove further conceptual refinement. Many of the essays in the volume relate the development of Newton’s philosophy to the philosophies of his contemporaries, especially Spinoza and Samuel Clarke.

In this chapter, we offer a composite portrait of the concept of magnanimity in nineteenth-century America, focusing on the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Henry David Thoreau. In our portrait, these New England philosophers provide an account of magnanimity that reconciles it with humility, egalitarianism, and beneficence. They suggest that individuals can achieve the best sort of magnanimity without wealth, and without engaging in warfare or violence. In many respects, their project resembles that of philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment, who similarly provide a modernized account of magnanimity. Yet the American account of magnanimity is also religious in a way more reminiscent of the Thomist and Stoic traditions. These Americans propose that, to become magnanimous, an individual must engage in the correct sort of philosophical inquiry, which involves direct engagement with God. They revitalize a trope from the Scottish Enlightenment—the notion of the magnanimous ‘true philosopher’—but provide a novel, religious, and Americanized account of it. For example, they contend that, to become true philosophers, individuals must directly engage with and study wilderness, which they associate with America and contrast with the culture and conformity of Europe.

This paper explains Sophie de Grouchy’s philosophical debts to Adam Smith. I have three main reasons for this: first, it should explain why eighteenth-century philosophical feminists (De Grouchy, James Millar, and Mary Wollstonecraft) found Smith, who has—to put it mildly—not been a focus of much recent feminist admiration, a congenial starting point for their own thinking; second, it illuminates De Grouchy’s considerable philosophical originality, especially her important, overlooked contributions to political theory; third, it is designed to remove some unfortunate misconceptions that have found their way into Karin Brown’s ‘Introduction’ to the recent and much-to-be-welcomed translation of Sophie de Grouchy’s Lettres Sur La Sympathie (Letters on Sympathy). While Brown claims that there are major ‘differences’ in their programs of ‘social reform’, I argue there are important commonalities between Smith and De Grouchy. In particular, I highlight how they share a common understanding of how human sensibilities are shaped by social institutions and I show that De Grouchy’s path-breaking analysis of negative and positive liberty is grounded in her extension of Smith’s political theory and moral psychology.

This paper analyzes Dennett’s term ‘strange inversion of reasoning.’ First, it argues this term covers two related concepts, which share a family resemblance. Second, it shows the concepts share a common source, the Appendix of Spinoza’s Ethics, Book 1. The paper reveals a kind of genealogy of modernity that Dennett has inscribed in From Bacteria to Bach and Back.

In this paper I distinguish four methods of empirical inquiry in eighteenth century natural philosophy. In particular, I distinguish among what I call, (i) the mathematical-experimental method; (ii) the method of experimental series; (iii) the method of inspecting ideas; (iv) the method of natural history. While such a list is not exhaustive of the methods of inquiry available, even so, focusing on these four methods will help in diagnosing a set of debates within what has come to be known as ‘empiricism’; throughout the eighteenth century there was a methodological reaction against the hegemonic aspirations of mathematical natural philosophy associated with the authority of Newton.In particular, I argue that the methods of inspecting ideas and natural history remained attractive to ‘empiricist’ thinkers with reservations about aspects of Newtonianism. Moreover, I show that the language of experimentalism meant different things to researchers with different attitudes toward Newton’s legacy. In order to illustrate and make more precise these claims, I embed my taxonomic treatment of the four methods within a narrative in which I primarily focus on Colin Maclaurin, Isaac Newton, David Hume, and Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon.

This chapter argues that the standard conception of Spinoza as a fellow-traveling mechanical philosopher and proto-scientific naturalist is misleading. 1 It argues, first, that Spinoza’s account of the proper method for the study of nature presented in the Theological-Political Treatise points away from the one commonly associated with the mechanical philosophy. Moreover, throughout his works Spinoza’s views on the very possibility of knowledge of nature are decidedly skeptical. Third, in the seventeenth-century debates over proper methods in the sciences, Spinoza sided with those who criticized the aspirations of the physico-mathematicians like Galileo, Huygens, Wallis, and Wren who thought the application of mathematics to nature was the way to make progress. In particular, he offers grounds for doubting their confidence in the significance of measurement as well as their piecemeal methodology. Along the way, this chapter offers a new interpretation of common notions in the context of treating Spinoza’s account of motion.

This chapter introduces David Hume’s views on ‘affective leadership,’ which refers to the political management of dispositions and emotions conducive to minimal union in the social-political sense. Hume’s ideas on this are presented and analyzed by way of close scrutiny of his (and Spinoza’s) extended treatment of the fall of the Dutch statesman, Johan de Witt. This is done to articulate some distinctive features of a ‘Humean’ political theory in which the management of dispositions and emotions of a “spirit of union” play a central role.

This article addresses the question how philosophy should be evaluated in a research‐grant funding environment. It offers a new conception of philosophy that is inclusive and builds on familiar elements of professional, philosophical practice. Philosophy systematically questions the questions we ask, the concepts we use, and the values we hold. Its product is therefore rarely conclusive but can be embodied in everything we do. This is typical of explorative research and differentiates it from exploitative research, which constitutes the bulk of funded research activity. This article argues that exploratory research is crucial for long‐term progress and requires a distinct evaluative regime.

In our contribution to this volume, we argue that Dutch science-funding practices should be recalibrated because the status quo fails to meet its own stated objectives and is causing non-trivial harm along the way. We challenge, in particular, the existing bias toward identifying and awarding scholarly niches and national champions with large grants to ever tinier shares of the submitted proposals. We argue that this is wasteful spending and, when scrutinized, based on unrealistic assumptions about the nature of scientific research and the composition of the scientific community. The bias also skews the incentives for young researchers: by creating a...

In this paper, I treat Sophie de Grouchy as an important contributor to liberal reflection on the famous distinction between two kinds of liberty. I place her in the intellectual context of Adam Smith and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and show it is likely that Benjamin Constant was familiar with her work. Along the way, by engaging with Isaiah Berlin and with Jason Stanley and Vesla Weaver, I make some suggestions on the nature of an intellectual tradition worth having.

This book treats Adam Smith as a systematic philosopher. Smith was a giant of the Scottish Enlightenment with polymath interests. The book explores Smith’s economics and ethics in light of his other commitments on the nature of knowledge, the theory of emotions, the theory of mind, his account of language, the nature of causation, and his views on methodology. It places Smith’s ideas in the context of a host of other philosophers, especially David Hume, Rousseau, and Isaac Newton; it draws on the reception of Smith’s ideas by Sophie de Grouchy, Mary Wollstonecraft, and other philosophers and economists to sketch the elements of and the detailed connections within Smith’s system. The book traces out Smith’s system and puts it in the context of his highly developed views on the norms that govern responsible speech. In particular, the book articulates Smith’s concerns with the impact of his public policy recommendations, especially on the least powerful in society. In so doing, the book offers new interpretations of Smith’s views on the invisible hand, Wealth of Nations, his treatment of virtue, the nature of freedom, the individual’s relationship to society, his account of the passions, the moral roles of religion, and his treatment of the role of mathematics in economics. While the book offers a single argument, it is organized in modular fashion and includes a helpful index; readers with a more focused interest in Smith’s achievements can skip ahead to the section of interest.