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Richard Kennington (1921-1999), a professor for many years at Pennsylvania State University and the Catholic University of America, was renowned for his insight in reading and teaching early modern philosophy. Although he published articles and spoke widely, never before have his writings been collected in a book. On Modern Origins deftly shows how modern thinkers assessed the errors of the classical tradition and established in its place a philosophy that fuses a new meaning of nature and of theory with humanitarian goals. This volume is an essential source for scholars seeking to understand the contemporary significance of the dawning of the modern era.
Richard Kennington (1921-1999), a professor for many years at Pennsylvania State University and the Catholic University of America, was renowned for his insight in reading and teaching early modern philosophy. Although he published articles and spoke widely, never before have his writings been collected in a book. On Modern Origins deftly shows how modern thinkers assessed the errors of the classical tradition and established in its place a philosophy that fuses a new meaning of nature and of theory with humanitarian goals. This volume is an essential source for scholars seeking to understand the contemporary significance of the dawning of the modern era.
Chapter 1 Bacon's Reform of Nature Chapter 2 Bacon's Critique of Ancient Philosophy in New Organon 1 Chapter 3 Bacon's Ontology Chapter 4 Bacon's Humanitarian Revision of Machiavelli Chapter 5 Descartes's Olympica Chapter 6 Descartes's Discourse on Method Chapter 7 Descartes and Mastery of Nature Chapter 8 The Finitude of Descartes's Evil Genius Chapter 9 Cartesian Rationalism and Eternal Truths Chapter 10 The "Teaching of Nature" in Descartes's Soul Doctrine Chapter 11 René Descartes Chapter 12 Analytic and Synthetic Methods in Spinoza's Ethics Chapter 13 On the Intention of Leibniz Chapter 14 Nature and Natural Right in Locke
Pamela Kraus teaches at St. John's College, Annapolis. Frank Hunt teaches at St. John's College, Santa Fe.
Superbly practicing the art of reading, Richard Kennington uncovers
the founding arguments of the early modern philosophers. His
explications of the thought of Bacon and Descartes on the relations
between method, experiential starting-points, and the final
purposes of inquiry, are sans pareil for depth and subtlety.
Kennington's work builds on insights of Heidegger, Leo Strauss, and
Jacob Klein concerning the origins and intent of the modern project
of mastering nature, but his reflection on this theme is more
thorough and in the end more satisfying than any previous
account.
*Richard Velkley, Catholic University of America*
While some scholars have examined the origins of modern natural
science and others have examined the origins of modern political
philosophy, Kennington masterfully combines the two in his profound
studyof the philosophic accounts underlying "the mastery of
nature." On Modern Origins is indispensable for understanding the
origins of the modern world.
*Jan H. Blits*
Mixing extraordinary learning with the most acute philosophical
penetration, Kennington shows how the philosophers at the origins
of modernity were concerned with something still more fundamental
than either the purely theoretical question of knowledge or the
practical question of the mastery of nature. Kennington articulates
this deeper stratum of modern philosophy, in which it seeks to
reconcile its understanding of the true with its understanding of
the good, in its conscious opposition but also in its sometimes
unintentional kinship with ancient philosophy. On Modern Origins is
at once scrupulously careful in its interpretation and profoundly
philosophical in its own right. It is a remarkable book in which
one enounters a mind of rare quality.
*Michael Davis, Sarah Lawrence College*
Useful in several respects. First, it contains illuminating
interpretations of certain key passages in the writings of the
philosophers under consideration…The book is exemplary, moreover,
in showing us how to read these philosophers…Finally, this
collection of essays is useful for the questions it provokes.
*Review of Metaphysics*
Indespensible.
*Reconsiderations, Winter 2008*
On Modern Origins is several books at once: an original, subtle,
erudite, unclassifiable interpretation of the beginnings of modern
philosophy; at a reflective level, a meditation on what it means to
investigate the origins of philosophical positions; and an argument
for reconsidering canonical assumptions about the order and
priority of texts in the modern philosophical tradition. This is a
very important contribution not only to our understanding of the
figures discussed, but to our sense of what it could mean that
philosophy might "begin again" in modernity.
*Robert Pippin*
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