This volume is the translation of "Dall'età cartesiana a Brucker", the second volume of the multi-volume work "Storia delle storie generali della filosofia". It guides the reader from the Cartesian rejection of the 'philosophical past' that found voice in the work of Malebranche, to the establishment of a 'critical' history of philosophy by 18th century thinkers A.-F Boureau-Deslandes and J.J. Brucker. The latter pair investigated philosophy from its most ancient origins up to the contemporary age, and oversaw the transformation of the history of philosophy into a genre in its own right, thus spawning dozens of works that made a major contribution to the culture of the Enlightenment. Through careful analysis of more than 36 separate works, the authors show how in the span of a single century the theoretical and methodological techniques used to assess the history of philosophy were refined and developed.

It is the most detailed and complete work to date concerning the history of philosophical historiography. A major contribution to the intellectual history of the 17th and 18th centuries It lends itself to interdisciplinary study and with the history of historiography and the history of literary genres

Autorentext

GIOVANNI SANTINELLO (1922-2003) was full professor of the History of Philosophy in the Faculty of Education at the University of Padua, a member of the Accademia Galileiana di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti in Padua, the Director of the Institute for the History of Philosophy, and was awarded a Gold Medal for Merit in Education, Culture, and the Arts by the Ministry of Education. A pupil of Luigi Stefanini, in the course of his research he applied philosophical personalism to the field of historiography in the following areas: a) the ethical, religious, and aesthetic thought of the Renaissance (Nicolas of Kues, Leon Battista Alberti, Léfèvre d'Etaples, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Thomas More, Luigi Pesaro, Paolo Sarpi); b) metaphysics and criticism in Immanuel Kant; and c) the history and theory of philosophical historiography in the modern and contemporary period.

GREGORIO PIAIA (1944) is full professor of the History of Philosophy in the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy at the University of Padua. He has been vice-president of the Italian Philosophical Society, and is a member of the Accademia Galileiana di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti in Padua and the Ateneo of Treviso. He is currently Director of the Philosophy Department. His research has developed in three directions: a) political, ethical and religious thought in the late medieval and renaissance period (Marsilio da Padova, Nicolò da Cusa, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Thomas More); b) the history and theory of philosophical historiography from the medieval period to the 20th century; and c) the philosophical culture of the Veneto in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Klappentext

Published in English for the first time, this is the updated version of Dall'età cartesiana a Brucker , the second part of the monumental multi-volume Storia delle storie generali della filosofia . The translation of the first volume, edited by C.W.T. Blackwell and Ph. Weller and published by Kluwer in 1993, covered the development of philosophical historiography from its origins in the Renaissance to the birth of the general history of philosophy as a genre in its own right. The present volume guides the reader from the historiographical effects of the Cartesian rejection of 'philosophical past' up to the establishment of a 'critical' or 'philosophical' history of philosophy. In the space of one hundred years, from the mid-17th to the mid-18th century, a momentous theoretical and methodological shift occurred, marking the transition from an 'erudite' historiography to new 'systematic' styles embodied by authors like Bayle, Boureau-Deslandes, Brucker, Heumann. The numerous works on the history of philosophy published during this century vastly contributed to the culture of the Enlightenment, creating a representation of the past distinctive to this crucial period of European intellectual history.

The volume offers a detailed examination of 36 works, either general histories of philosophy, or textssuch as Bayle's Dictionnaire which have strongly influenced the development of the genre, and is valuable for intellectual history, philosophy and the history of philosophy, the history of literature and the history of religion. It can be used both for undergraduate courses (for specific reading assignments) and as background material for graduate courses. The bibliography provides important aids to many topics which were previously difficult to access.

Inhalt
List of Abbreviations. .- Foreword to the English Edition (Gregorio Piaia) .- Preface to the Italian Edition (Giovanni Santinello).- Part I: The General Histories of Philosophy in France and in Italy, 1650-1750 (Gregorio Piaia).- Chapter I: The Histories of Philosophy in France in the Age of Descartes.- Chapter II: Philosophical Historiography in France from Bayle to Deslandes.- Chapter III: A "Critical" History of Philosophy and the Early Enlightenment: André-François Boureau-Deslandes.- Chapter IV: The General Histories of Philosophy in Italy in the Late Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Century.- Part II: The General Histories of Philosophy in Germany (Francesco Bottin and Mario Longo) .- Chapter V: The History of Philosophy from Eclecticism to Pietism (Francesco Bottin and Mario Longo).- Chapter VI: The Theory of "Historia Philosophica" (Mario Longo).- Chapter VII: Manuals of History of Philosophy from Heumann to Brucker (Mario Longo).- Chapter VIII: A "Critical" History of Philosophy and the Early Enlightenment: Johann Jakob Brucker (Mario Longo) .- Index of Names.- Index of Philosophical Schools and Sects.