Books, Nonfiction, Philosophy, History, 17th & 18th Century

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Russell Shorto
Descartes' Bones: A Skeletal History of the Conflict between Faith and Reason
by Doubleday (Hardcover) (Release Date: 2008-10-14)

On a brutal winter's day in 1650 in Stockholm, the Frenchman René Descartes, the most influential and controversial thinker of his time, was buried after a cold and lonely death far from home. Sixteen years later, the French Ambassador Hugues de Terlon secretly unearthed Descartes' bones and transported them to France. Why would this devoutly Catholic official care so much about the remains of a philosopher who was hounded from country to country on charges of atheism? Why would Descartes' bones take such a strange, serpentine path over the next 350 years—a path intersecting some of the grandest events imaginable: the birth of science, the rise of democracy, the mind-body problem, the conflict between faith and reason? Their story involves people from all walks of life—Louis XIV, a Swedish casino operator, poets and playwrights, philosophers and physicists, as these people used the bones in scientific studies, stole them, sold them, revered them as relics, fought over them, ...

John Locke, Richard Howard Cox
Second Treatise of Government (Crofts Classics)
by Harlan Davidson (Paperback)

This essential volume features John Locke's hand-corrected text with an outstanding introduction to Locke's life and role in intellectual history, his principal works, and their purpose. Written by the editor, Richard Cox, the introduction also outlines the course of both treatises of government and analyzes the problems of interpretation. Also included are a list of the principal dates in the life of John Locke as well as a selected bibliography.

Immanuel Kant
Kant: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
by Wilder Publications (Paperback) (Release Date: 2008-11-24)

Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals is one of the most important works in modern moral philosophy. It belongs beside Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Hobbes. Here Kant sets out to articulate and defend the Categorical Imperative - the fundamental principle that underlies moral reasoning - and to lay the foundation for a comprehensive account of justice and human virtues.

Candide By Voltaire (The Bedford Series in History and Culture)
by Palgrave Macmillan (Hardcover)

Brother Lawrence
The Practice of the Presence of God
by Lotus Press (Hardcover)

Brother Lawrence, a 17th Century Carmelite lay brother, was recognized for hisspirituality and the purity and simplicity of his teaching. This book compriseshis entire surviving writings, including Spiritual Maxims, Gathered Thoughts,Conversations and Letters.

Immanuel Kant
Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals: With on a Supposed Right to Lie Because of Philanthropic Concerns
by Hackett Publishing Company (Paperback)

This expanded edition of James Ellington's preeminent translation of Grounding of the Metaphysics of Morals includes his new translation of Kant's essay 'On a Supposed Right to Lie Because of Philanthropic Concerns', in which Kant replies to one of the standard objections to his moral theory as presented in the main text: that it requires us to tell the truth even in the face of harmful consequences.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Basic Political Writings: Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Discourse on Political Economy on the Socia
by Hackett Pub Co Inc (Hardcover)

David Hume
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (The Clarendon Edition of the Works of David Hume)
by Oxford University Press, USA (Paperback)

This is the first new scholarly edition this century of one of the greatest works in the history of philosophy, David Hume's Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. It is the third volume of the Clarendon Hume Edition, which will be the definitive edition for the foreseeable future. In this work Hume gives an elegant and accessible presentation of strikingly original and challenging views. The distinguished Hume scholar Tom Beauchamp presents an authoritative text accompanied by an introduction, annotation, a glossary, biographical sketches, bibliographies, and indexes.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Discourse on Political Economy and The Social Contract (Oxford World's Classics)
by Oxford University Press, USA (Paperback)

Revolutionary in its own time and controversial to this day, this work is a permanent classic of political theory and a key source of democratic belief. Rousseau's concepts of "the general will" as a mode of self-interest uniting for a common good, and the submission of the individual to government by contract inform the heart of democracy, and stand as its most contentious components today. Also included in this edition is Rousseau's Discourse on Political Economy", a key transitional work between his Discourse on Inequality and The Social Contract. This new translation offers fresh insight into a cornerstone of political thought, which is further illuminated by a comprehensive introduction and notes.

Thomas Hobbes
Leviathan (Oxford World's Classics)
by Oxford University Press, USA (Paperback)

Leviathan is both a magnificent literary achievement and the greatest work of political philosophy in the English language. Permanently challenging, it has found new applications and new refutations in every generation. This new edition reproduces the first printed text, retaining the original punctuation but modernizing the spelling. It offers exceptionally thorough and useful annotation, an introduction that guides the reader through the complexities of Hobbes's arguments, and a substantial index.

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