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Summary
Philosophy in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries has traditionally been characterized as being primarily concerned with epistemological issues. This book is not intended to overturn this characterization but rather to balance it through an examination of equally important metaphysical, or ontological, positions held, explicitly or implicitly, by philosophers in this period.
Major philosophers whose views are discussed in this book include Descartes, Malebranche, Spinoza, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Leibniz, Wolff, and Kant. In addition, the contributors of minor Cartesians, especially Regis and Desgabets, are analyzed in a separate chapter. Although the views of early modern philosophers on individuation and identity have been discussed before, these discussions have usually been treated as asides in a larger context. This book is the first to concentrate on the problems of individuation and identity in early modern philosophy and to trace their philosophical development through the period in a coherent way.
Kenneth F. Barber is Associate Professor, State University of New York at Buffalo.
Jorge J.E. Gracia is Professor of Philosophy, State University of New York at Buffalo. He is the author of Individuality: An Essay on the Foundations of Metaphysics and Philosophy and Its History: Issues in Philosophical Historiography; editor of Individuation in Scholasticism: The Later Middle Ages and the Counter-Reformation, 1150-1650; and co-editor of Philosophy and Literature in Latin America: A Critical Assessment of the Current Situation, all published by SUNY Press.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction Kenneth Barber
The Problem of Individuation among the Cartesians Thomas M. Lennon
Descartes and the Individuation of Physical Objects Emily Grosholz
Malebranche and the Individuation of Perceptual Objects Daisie Radner
Spinoza's Theory of Metaphysical Individuation Don Garrett
Locke on Identity: The Scheme of Simple and Compounded Things Martha Brandt Bolton
Berkeley, Individuation, and Physical Objects Daniel Flage
Substance and Self in Locke and Hume Fred Wilson
Leibniz's Principle of Individuation in His Disputatio metaphysica de principio individui of 1663 Laurence B. McCullough
Christian Wolff on Individuation Jorge J. E. Gracia
Substance and Phenomenal Substance: Kant's Individuation of Things in Themselves and Appearances Michael Radner
