Don Garrett

There exists alongside the celebration of Hume's work for its philosophical brilliance and elegance of style considerable disagreement over the meaning of Hume's most famous doctrines, the precise nature of his philosophical greatness, and the value of his contributions for contemporary philosophy. A series of interpretive difficulties has led some to accuse the work of contradiction and disunity. In this vigorous new study, Don Garrett takes up the charges against Hume, demonstrates their weakness, and solves a number of well-known interpretive puzzles that have long stood in the way of a complete understanding and accurate assessment of Hume's philosophy.

Benedict (Baruch) de Spinoza has been one of the most inspiring and influential philosophers of the modern era, yet also one of the most difficult and most frequently misunderstood. Spinoza sought to unify mind and body, science and religion, and to derive an ethics of reason, virtue, and freedom 'in geometrical order' from a monistic metaphysics. Of all the philosophical systems of the seventeenth century it is his that speaks most deeply to the twentieth century. The essays in this volume provide a clear and systematic exegesis of Spinoza's thought informed by the most recent scholarship. They cover his metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of science, psychology, ethics, political theory, theology, and scriptural interpretation, as well as his life and influence on later thinkers.