Skepticism and Irreligion in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

From a July-August 1990 conference near The Hague, Netherlands, 17 papers present a variety of views on early-modern European challenges to the accepted framework for thinking about God and religion and to the intellectual framework that supported such thinking. Descarte, Hobbes, the Cambridge Platonists, the early Dutch enlightenment, views of ancient scepticism, and Biblical criticism are among the offerings. No subject index, among other reasons, because the authors would not give up their favorites in order to harmonize the spelling of common terms. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

Richard Popkin, Ph.D. Columbia 1950, is presently Professor Emeritus, Washington University, St. Louis and Adjunct Professor History and Philosophy at UCLA. He has published nine books, including three with Brill: Isaac La Peyrere, his Life, his Work, his Influence (1987); Millenarianism and Thought 1650-1800, (ed. 1988), Menasseh ben Israel and his World ed. with Y. Kaplan and H. Mechoulan, 1989) and The Third Force in Seventeenth Century Philosophy.Arjo Vanderjagt (1948) is Associate Professor at the University of Groningen. He has published books on Anselm of Canterbury and on late-medieval and Renaissance intellectual history.