This anthology presents recent writings on Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. All of the essays were written especially for this volume, and many of them grew out of a 1995 NEH summer seminar on the Rationalists hosted by Jonathan Bennett at Syracuse University. The collection is divided into three parts: “Matter and Substance,” “Freedom and Necessity,” and “Mind and Consciousness.” Essays include those written by Jonathan Bennett, J. A. Cover, Edwin Curley, Michael Della Rocca, Don Garrett, Stephen Voss, Catherine Wilson, and Margaret D. Wilson. Some specific topics include Descartes's concepti ... More

This anthology presents recent writings on Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. All of the essays were written especially for this volume, and many of them grew out of a 1995 NEH summer seminar on the Rationalists hosted by Jonathan Bennett at Syracuse University. The collection is divided into three parts: “Matter and Substance,” “Freedom and Necessity,” and “Mind and Consciousness.” Essays include those written by Jonathan Bennett, J. A. Cover, Edwin Curley, Michael Della Rocca, Don Garrett, Stephen Voss, Catherine Wilson, and Margaret D. Wilson. Some specific topics include Descartes's conception of empty space (i.e., vacuum), Leibniz on the infinite divisibility of matter, Spinoza's “necessitarianism,” and Spinoza and Leibniz on animal mentality and consciousness.