ABSTRACT
The division of the history of philosophy into a number of movements is a procedure that has often been followed, but it has its critics. In recent years, historians of philosophy have emphasized what one might call the individuality, the ‘thisness’ of philosophers, and have argued that to try to force this or that individual into pre-set categories can lead to distortions. There is indeed a danger of such distortions; on the other hand, it seems fair to say that during certain epochs certain philosophical questions came to the forefront, and that philosophers provided answers which had some kinship, so that it is possible to speak of a ‘movement’ in such cases. Such, at any rate, is the assumption made in this volume; whether the assumption is a fruitful one, the volume itself will show. The term ‘Renaissance philosophy’ is a controversial one, as indeed is the term ‘seventeenth-century rationalism’.
