Early Modern

  • Ethics

    Spinoza’s Ethics is one of the most fascinating and systematic works of European philosophy—but also among the most challenging. Due to both the metaphysical complexities…

  • The Prince

    Provocative, brutally honest, and timeless, Machiavelli’s The Prince is one of the most important yet misunderstood writings in history. In it, Machiavelli lays bare the…

  • A Treatise of Human Nature

    In his autobiography, David Hume famously noted that A Treatise of Human Nature “fell dead-born from the press.” Yet it is now widely regarded as…

  • Early Modern Philosophy

    This new anthology of early modern philosophy enriches the possibilities for teaching this period by highlighting not only metaphysics and epistemology, but also new themes…

  • Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy

    This volume provides new translations of René Descartes’s two most important philosophical works. The Discourse offers a concise presentation and defense of Descartes’s method of…

  • Grounds of Natural Philosophy

    This edition aims to make Margaret Cavendish’s most mature philosophical work more accessible to students and scholars of the period. Grounds of Natural Philosophy is…

  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Fundamental Political Writings

    This classroom edition includes On the Social Contract, the Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts, the Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, and the…

  • On Perpetual Peace

    Kant’s landmark essay “On Perpetual Peace” is as timely, relevant, and inspiring today as when it was first written over 200 years ago. In it…

  • The Second Treatise of Civil Government

    In this, the second of his Two Treatises of Government, John Locke examines humankind’s transition from its original state of nature to a civil society.…

  • A Letter Concerning Toleration

    Locke argued that religious belief ought to be compatible with reason, that no king, prince or magistrate rules legitimately without the consent of the people,…

  • Essays and Treatises on Philosophical Subjects

    This is the first edition in over a century to present David Hume’s Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Dissertation on the Passions, Enquiry Concerning the Principles…

  • Meditations on First Philosophy

    Considered a foundational text in modern philosophy, the Meditations on First Philosophy presents numerous powerful arguments that to this day influence debates in epistemology, the…

  • Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous

    This is a new critical edition of Berkeley’s 1734 (third edition, first 1713) Three Dialogues, a text that is deservedly one of the most challenging…

  • Discourse on Metaphysics and Other Writings

    This is an edition of what are arguably Leibniz’s three most important presentations of his metaphysical system: the Discourse on Metaphysics, from 1686, and The…

  • The Correspondence of Samuel Clarke and Anthony Collins, 1707-08

    An important work in the debate between materialists and dualists, the public correspondence between Anthony Collins and Samuel Clarke provided the framework for arguments over…

  • An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding

    Over a series of elegantly written, engaging essays, the Enquiry examines the experiential and psychological sources of meaning and knowledge, the foundations of reasoning about…

  • The Age of Reason

    The Age of Reason is one of the most influential defences of Deism (the idea that God can be known without organized religion) ever written.…

  • Rights of Man

    Advocating equality, meritocracy, and social responsibility in plain language, Thomas Paine galvanized tens of thousands of readers and changed the framework of political discourse with…

  • Leviathan – Revised Edition

    Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan is the greatest work of political philosophy in English and the first great work of philosophy in English. Beginning with premises that…

  • Leviathan, Parts I and II – Revised Edition

    Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan is the greatest work of political philosophy in English and the first great work of philosophy in English. Beginning with premises that…

  • Candide

    The philosophical problem of evil—that a supposedly good God could allow terrible human suffering—troubled the minds of eighteenth-century thinkers as it troubles us today. Voltaire’s…

  • The Excellencies of Robert Boyle

    Robert Boyle, one of the most important intellectuals of the seventeenth century, was a gifted experimenter, an exceptionally able philosopher, and a dedicated Christian. In…

  • Contemporary Perspectives on Early Modern Philosophy

    Contemporary Perspectives on Early Modern Philosophy is a collection of essays dedicated to Vere Chappell, one of the most respected scholars in the field of…

  • Catharine Trotter Cockburn

    An important thinker who contributed to eighteenth-century debates in epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics, Catharine Trotter Cockburn pursued the life of a dramatist and essayist, despite…