An innovative perspective on the relationship between philosophy and the Bible. The early modern philosophers’ interpretations of the Scriptures allow deciphering the breeding ground of the freedom of philosophizing, the theological-political debate, and the new conception of nature.

This chapter describes the language of law and the different occurrences of the lexical family of lex as part of a very complex terminology which refers to a more complex range of different types and variants. An important laboratory for a first analysis of the concept of law as essential bond of nature is present in the early writings of the philosopher. Spinoza's ‘treaty of method’ outlines a horizon in which mutual relations and relations of mutual dependency between entities are (...) a guarantee of intelligibility and knowledge. The theoretical process marking the introduction of the geometrical order into the human sphere involves the transformation of the law from a system of universal relationships into personal and collective experience according to a path of interior requalification. The particular conception of Spinoza's law would cross the boundary between philosophy and science, for more than a century. (shrink)

The article analyzes the different occurrences of the term res present in Spinoza's works in their relations with other terms and particular phrases (res cogitans, res...

The book presented here is dedicated to the scientist, anatomist, geologist, theologian and bishop, Niels Stensen. He was born in 1638 in Copenhagen into a family of Lutheran parsons and preachers. He studied first in his native town and then at the Faculty of medicine in Leiden, in the Netherlands, before embarking on several trips throughout Europe, in France and Italy in particular. On November 2, 1667, he converted to Catholicism in Florence, and from then his interests turned more and (...) more toward theology. However, he still published many scientific works before being ordained bishop in Rome in 1677. From 1678, he lived in Schwerin, the seat of his bishopric, where he died in 1686. Three centuries later, following the pressing demands of a committee of supporters led mainly by Gustav Scherz, the canonization process began, and in 1988 Stensen was finally declared Blessed of the Roman Catholic Church.The book edited by Kardel and Maquet collects for the first time the English tran .. (shrink)