This major new publication is the most comprehensive reference source ever on eighteenth-century authors writing in the English language about philosophical ideas and issues. Featuring authors taken from 1689 through to the middle of the nineteenth century, the period beginning with John Locke and ending with Dugald Stewart, the word 'philosophical' is used in a wide, eighteenth-century sense. Thus the Dictionary includes epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, education, politics, rhetoric, science, medicine, biology, geology, chemistry and theology, and many of the authors may more usually be called divines, scientists, doctors, mathematicians, or even poets. In addition to short biographies of the writers, there are detailed expositions and analyses of their doctrines and ideas, bibliographies of their writings and suggestions for further reading. There are also mini-entries on extremely obscure figures and appendices listing anonymous tracts. All the major eighteenth-century philosophers are featured, but the most valuable feature of the Dictionary is its representation of a huge range of less well-known writers. In many cases the Dictionary offers the first scholarly treatment of the life and work of certain writers. This book will be an indispensable reference work for scholars working on almost any aspect of eighteenth-century studies.

The 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration and rapidly growing technology and expanding record-keeping made possible by advances in the printing press. In its determination to preserve the century of revolution, Gale initiated a revolution of its own: digitization of epic proportions to preserve these invaluable works in the largest archive of its kind. Now for the first time these high-quality digital copies of original 18th century manuscripts are available in print, making them highly accessible to libraries, undergraduate students, and independent scholars. The Age of Enlightenment profoundly enriched religious and philosophical understanding and continues to influence present-day thinking. Works collected here include masterpieces by David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, as well as religious sermons and moral debates on the issues of the day, such as the slave trade. The Age of Reason saw conflict between Protestantism and Catholicism transformed into one between faith and logic -- a debate that continues in the twenty-first century. ]+++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification: ++++ British Library T091066 [Dublin]: London printed, and Dublin reprinted, by P. Wogan, 1787. 39, [1]p.; 12°