Note from the Editor

Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy is an annual series, presenting a selection of the best current work in the history of early modern philosophy. It focuses on the extraordinary period of intellectual flourishing that spans, roughly, the late sixteenth century through the end of the eighteenth century. It also publishes contributions on thinkers or movements outside of that period, provided that they are important in illuminating early modern thought. The core of the subject matter is philosophy and its history. But the volume’s contents reflect the fact that philosophy in the period was broader in scope than it is now taken to be, and included a great deal of what currently belongs to the natural sciences. Furthermore, philosophy in the period was closely connected with other disciplines, such as theology, law, and medicine, and with larger questions of social, political, and religious history. While the articles in the volume are of importance to specialists in the various subfields of the discipline, our aim is to publish essays that appeal not only to scholars of one particular figure or another, but to the larger audience of philosophers, intellectual historians, and others who are interested in the early modern period.