People have always been xenophobic, but an explicit philosophical and scientific view of human racial difference only began to emerge during the modern period. Why and how did this happen? Surveying a range of philosophical and natural-scientific texts, dating from the Spanish Renaissance to the German Enlightenment, Nature, Human Nature, and Human Difference charts the evolution of the modern concept of race and shows that natural philosophy, particularly efforts to taxonomize and to order nature, played a crucial role. Smith demonstrates (...) how the denial of moral equality between Europeans and non-Europeans resulted from converging philosophical and scientific developments, including a declining belief in human nature's universality and the rise of biological classification. The racial typing of human beings grew from the need to understand humanity within an all-encompassing system of nature, alongside plants, minerals, primates, and other animals. While racial difference as seen through science did not arise in order to justify the enslavement of people, it became a rationalization and buttress for the practices of trans-Atlantic slavery. From the work of François Bernier to G. W. Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, and others, Smith delves into philosophy's part in the legacy and damages of modern racism. With a broad narrative stretching over two centuries, Nature, Human Nature, and Human Difference takes a critical historical look at how the racial categories that we divide ourselves into came into being. (shrink)

La correspondance de Spinoza comprend six lettres remarquables sur le thème des spectres. On se demande s’ils existent et si on peut reconnaître à certains d’entre eux un sexe féminin. Cet échange qui s’est noué à l’instigation de Hugo Boxel est une curiosité dans cette correspondance mais pas dans son contexte historique, et cela même si, aux Pays-Bas, les procès en sorcellerie avaient moins de succès qu’ailleurs. C’est alors dans l’éclairage de la littérature qui s’est développée autour des choses superstitieuses (...) que ces lettres peuvent être placées. À cet égard, l’œuvre maîtresse de Balthasar Bekker De Betoverde Wereld (Le Monde enchanté), est une référence importante. Cet ouvrage qui cherche à purifier la foi en combattant la superstition avec des arguments cartésiens permet d’établir les deux points suivants. Boxel est plus du côté de la superstition que de la raison, malgré les nombreuses autorités qu’il cite. Spinoza, lui, a avec Bekker des positions communes, mais ceci ne peut faire oublier qu’il défend au sujet d’une question d’actualité une position unique qui peut l’en éloigner en raison de son identité de philosophe. (shrink)

The second edition incorporates Samuel Shirley's pre-eminent translation with corrections of the typographical errors of its first edition, and a new general index. Seymour Feldman has contributed a new Bibliography and notes.

Including the first English edition of the Treatise of the Three Impostors since 1904, this book examines the treatise in its literary, political, and philosophical context.