The cover.
The baroque garden is often used to illustrate Early Modern philosophy and indeed it is quite appropriate. Clever paths leading nowhere and tidy, immaculate labyrinths of thought. Very nice.
The content.
What struck me most was the interesting titles of most chapters. The vast scale of topics is hacked into small portions which often discuss the topic systematically and only the relevant philosophers are taken in. This book appears to be very readable and the text and general comfortability is of high standard.
Here's some chapters which are not too often seen in collections like this: The soul, ideas, aesthetics, hypotheses, Instruments of knowledge, Picturability and Mathematical Ideals of Knowledge, Realism and Relativism in Ethics, The Equality of Men and Women, Religious Toleration. Very nice.
All in all, one gets the feeling that this book is not only another of its kind and can be forgotten instead of, say, The Cambridge History of 17th Century Thought. There is some stuff here which clearly makes the picture more complete.
Writers.
Most writers are different from the earlier Cambridge history and Alan Nelson's Companion to Rationalism. There are many well-known writers plus some less familiar ones. As these are first impressions and I have not read a single article, I will say nothing of the quality of the articles. But I certainly would like to read them all and probably will. The price is about 100 euros, but this book looks like it is going to be valuable for a long time.
Ps.
I was delighted to find in Gabor Boros' article on passions some discussion of Leibniz's views on passions. To my knowledge, this is the first time (apart from my own sofar unpublished papers) that anyone has written about to any extend of this most interesting topic.
Last record heard: Steve Mason & Dennis Bovell: Ghosts Outside
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