[...]... such as the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of religion But in compiling the bibliography for the volume I was made aware how vast was the extent of material I have not read in comparison with the amount that I am familiar with Any single author who attempts to cover the entire history of philosophy is quickly made aware that in matters of detail he is at an enormous disadvantage in comparison... genius of Kant to bring together, in the philosophy of human understanding, the diVerent contributions of the senses and the intellect that had been divided and distorted by both empiricists and rationalists The hallmark of Cartesian dualism was the separation between mind and matter, conceived as the separation of consciousness from clockwork This opened an abyss that hampered the metaphysical enterprise... from pantheism, but the relation between God and the world remains obscure It is not really clariWed by Bruno’s august formulation that God is the Nature making Nature (natura naturans) while the universe is the Nature made by Nature (natura naturata) Two features of Bruno’s system have caught the attention of historians and scientists: his adoption of the Copernican hypothesis, and his postulation of. .. by Martin Luther Luther was an Augustinian monk, as Erasmus had been until released by papal dispensation from his monastic commitments Like Erasmus, Luther had made a close study of St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans This had made him question fundamentally the ethos of Renaissance Catholicism The year after the publication of Erasmus’ New Testament Luther issued, in the University of Wittenberg, a public... endeavour also to avoid jargon and to write suYciently clearly for my history to attract those who read philosophy not for curricular purposes but for their own enlightenment and entertainment This has been the easier to do since in the case of many of my historical subjects I write of necessity as an amateur rather than as a professional In an age when the academic study of past philosophers has expanded... beginning in 1511 can well be regarded as the high point of the Renaissance In the Vatican Raphael was frescoing the walls of the papal apartments, while Michelangelo covered the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel with his paintings In Florence the Medici family, exiled since the time of the reformer Savonarola, returned to power and patronage One of ` the oYcers of the former republic, Niccolo Machiavelli, now... A Wnal volume is planned to cover the history of philosophy from the age of Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill up to the present day The present volume has the same structure as the two previous volumes In the Wrst three chapters I oVer a chronological survey of the philosophical thinkers of the period In the remaining chapters I oVer a thematic treatment of their contribution to the discussion of particular... sharper than ours; they can acquire by swift intuition information that humans have to work out laboriously They have the same needs and emotions as we have, and they display, often to a more remarkable extent, the same traits and virtues that humans take pride in Montaigne piles up stories of faithful and magnanimous dogs and grateful and gentle lions, to contrast with the cruelty and treachery of. .. nature in Raimond Sebond is the antithesis of the gloriWcation of mankind in Pico della Mirandola’s 1486 On the Dignity of Man.7 The optimism generated by the rediscovery of classical texts and the exuberance of the visual arts in Renaissance Florence gave way to the 7 See vol II, p 109 15 SIXTEENTH-CENTURY PHILOSOPHY pessimism natural in a Counter-Reformation France torn by sectarian warfare Montaigne... major work, On the Shadows of Ideas, combined an elaborate Neoplatonic metaphysical system with practical advice on the art of memory There is a hierarchy of ideas with human ideas at the lowest level and at the topmost level the divine Ideas forming a unity in God’s mind These are, in themselves, impenetrable to us; but they are expressed in Nature, which is the universal eVect of God Images of the . empiricists and rationalists. The hallmark of Cartesian dualism was the separation between mind and matter, conceived as the separation of consciousness from clockwork. This opened an abyss that hampered. bibliography for the volume I was made aware how vast was the extent of material I have not read in comparison with the amount that I am familiar with. Any single author who attempts to cover the entire history. to an impartial jury of scholars. On the other hand, he ques- tioned the authenticity of the papal bull of condemnation and he persuaded the emperor Charles V to give Luther a hearing at the