Rationalism

The seventeenth century saw a major revolution in our ways of thinking about such issues as the method appropriate to philosophy and science, the relation between mind and body, the nature of substance, and the place of humanity in nature. While not neglecting the lesser but still influential figures, such as Arnauld and Malebranche, John Cottingham focuses primarily on the three great "rationalists": Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. He examines how they approached central problems of philosophy, and shows how closely their ideas are related, despite the radically different philosophical systems they produced. He not only places the major thinkers in their historical and philosophical contexts, but engages their ideas in a vigorously critical way, revealing their capacity to throw light on major philosophical topics that are still very much alive today.

This volume, which grew out of a 1995 NEH seminar on the Rationalists, presents nineteen previously unpublished papers on the work of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. These three philosophers are the most important representatives of the 17th and 18th century movement known as rationalism, which can be characterized by the idea that knowledge can be acquired a priori, without sensory experience, from pure thought or reason. Particularly in epistemology and metaphysics, their work has remained at the centre of philosophical interest. The volume is thematically organized into three Parts: Matter and Substance, Freedom and Necessity, and Mind and Consciousness.

How secular is contemporary society? Are pockets of sectarianism embedded in societies of developed countries? This timely book examines the interweaving of politics and religion, and of tradition and innovation in a variety of cultural settings. Eminent scholars from four continents examine here current turmoil in religious beliefs, practices, and organization--not only in the Western world, but in South America, Africa, South Asia, New Zealand, and Japan. They scrutinize evidence of religious change, decline, and revival; investigate challenges posed by new religious movements; and locate religious change and conflict in the context of broader shifts in consciousness and culture. Contributors include Richard Fenn, Phillip E. Hammond, David Martin, Philip Rieff, Roland Robertson, and Mark Schibley. With its focus on the interplay of secularization, rationalism, and sectarianism, this work offers a fitting tribute to Bryan Wilson, who has made so many contributions to the sociological understanding of these phenomena.

The practice of a religion such as Christianity is normally said to involve faith. But different theologians give different account of faith--some say it is simply a belief that God exists, other say it is trust in God. In this third and final volume of his trilogy on philosophical theology, Swinburne analyzes the purposes for practicing a religion--the attainment of salvation for oneself and the rendering of due worship and obedience to God--and concludes that both trust and belief are necessary for religious faith, but that the belief involved is a fairly weak kind--the belief that a certain creed is more likely than others to be true.

An enlightening history of deism, skepticism, and atheism from the 18th to 20th centuries.

A sociological study of religious ascetical groups in the later Middle Ages.

Max Weber argued that medieval religious movements were an important source for the distinctive rationality of Western civilization. He intended to study precisely this theme but died before he could do so. In Schools of Asceticism, Lutz Kaelber builds on Weber's ideas by presenting a fresh historical and theoretical analysis of orthodox and heretical religious groups in the Middle Ages. He explores how doctrine and social organization shaped ascetic conduct in these groups from the twelfth century on.

Kaelber first examines monastic and mendicant groups, correcting common misperceptions about the nature of their ascetic practices and their significance for the emergence of a Protestant work ethic. Then he turns to two of the largest and most widespread heretical groups in the Middle Ages, the Waldensians and the Cathars. For the most part, Waldensians and Cathars practiced a form of "other-worldly asceticism" resembling that of monks and nuns. For the Austrian Waldensians, however, Kaelber documents a type of "inner-worldly asceticism" that resembled what Weber described for early modern Protestant groups. Both types of asceticism originated in distinctive heretical establishments: Waldensian schools and Cathar "houses of heretics." As these establishments disappeared, the boundaries separating Waldensianism and Catharism from Catholicism collapsed. Kaelber is therefore able to link organizational aspects of heretical communities to the tenacity of heresy in the Middle Ages.

Based on exhaustive research into both primary and secondary sources, Schools of Asceticism is a bold and original book thatbridges the disciplines of comparative historical and theoretical sociology, medieval history, and religious studies.

This is an introductory text which sets out to show how the most basic political concepts, such as freedom and justice, are woven together and given structure, forming them into comprehensive political theories such as classical liberalism.