Models of the History of Philosophy: From its Origins in the Renaissance to the ‘Historia Philosophica’

Models of the History of Philosophy. From its Origins in the Renaissance to the `Historia philosophica' (a translation of a work published in 1981 in Italian - the bibliography has been updated) gives a comprehensive description of the various forms and approaches in the literature of the history of philosophy from the fifteenth to the middle of the seventeenth century. Several traditions are described, from the well known `prisca theologia' and `perennis philosophia' traditions of Marsilio Ficino and Augustino Steuco, which claimed that the Greeks got their philosophy from the East, to the unknown influence of Scepticism on the history of philosophy by the recovery of Sextus Empiricus, and the German Protestant critical attack on Greek philosophy as Atheistic which was the tradition of the history of philosophy out of which Leibniz developed. Each individual historian of philosophy is given a separate entry which includes a biography, a complete bibliography of his works, a description of his history of philosophy and ends with both an assessment of his reputation during his own time and a complete listing of recent literature on him. As a result the substantial variety in the way the history of philosophy was written and, with it, an overview of the way western civilization developed is described in detail for the first time. For university history of literature, history of culture, history of religion and history of philosophy classes. The book can be used both for undergraduate courses (for specific reading assignments) and as background material for graduate courses. The bibliography provides important aids to many topics which have previously been almost inaccessible.