The Seventeenth Century (The History of Philosophy)

313 pp. "...traces and illustrates the pervasive themes of the seventeenth century--the grandeur and the wretchedness of man, faith and reason, the concepts of "body" and "soul," the search for order in science and politics, absolutism and freedom. ...examines the work of the moralists and political writers--Pascal, Nicole, La Rochefoucauld, and Hobbes; of the innovators and synthesizers--Descartes, whose seminal thinking dominated the century, Bacon, Spinoza, Malebranche, Leibniz, and Locke; and then those who associated themselves with Cartesianism, Spinozism, anti-Spinozism, and Malebranchism."--rear wrapper