Bruno, Herder, Humboldt

Giordano Bruno: Cause, Principle and Unity And Essays on Magic Series: Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy Giordano Bruno
Edited by Richard J. Blackwell St Louis University, Missouri Robert de Lucca Duke University, North Carolina Introduction by Alfonso Ingegno Università degli Studi, Florence

Giordano Bruno’s notorious public death in 1600, at the hands of the Inquisition in Rome, marked the transition from Renaissance philosophy to the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century. In his philosophical works he addressed such delicate issues as the role of Christ as mediator and the distinction, in human beings, between soul and matter. This volume presents new translations of Cause, Principle and Unity, in which he challenges Aristotelian accounts of causality and spells out the implications of Copernicanism for a new theory of an infinite universe, and of two essays on magic, On Magic and A General Account of Bonding, in which he interprets earlier theories about magical events in the light of the unusual powers of natural phenomena. • A new translation of the texts • Extensive introduction • First ever translation into English of the essays on magic

Herder: Philosophical Writings Series: Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy
Johann Gottfried von Herder Edited and translated by Michael N. Forster University of Chicago

Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744–1803) is one of the most important German philosophers of the eighteenth century, who had enormous influence on later thinkers such as Hegel, Schleiermacher and Nietzsche. His wide-ranging ideas were formative in the development of linguistics, hermeneutics, anthropology and bible scholarship, and even today they retain their vitality and relevance to an extraordinary degree.

This volume presents a translation of Herder’s most important and characteristic philosophical writings (some of which have never before been translated) in his areas of central interest, including philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of history and political philosophy, as well as his general philosophical program. An introduction sets the writings in their historical context and examines their philosophical achievement. • Herder is a very influential philosopher across a range of disciplines • Forster is the leading expert on Herder • Some of the texts included are translated into English for the first time

Humboldt: On Language
On the Diversity of Human Language Construction and its Influence on the Mental Development of the Human Species 2nd Edition Series: Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy Wilhelm von Humboldt Edited by Michael Losonsky Colorado State University Translated by Peter Heath

Wilhelm von Humboldt’s classic study of human language was first published in 1836, as a general introduction to his three-volume treatise on the Kawi language of Java. It is the final statement of his lifelong study of the nature of language, exploring its universal structures and its relation to mind and culture. Empirically wide-ranging - Humboldt goes far beyond the Indo-European family of languages - it remains one of the most interesting and important attempts to draw philosophical conclusions from comparative linguistics. This volume presents a translation by Peter Heath, together with an introduction by Michael Losonsky that places Humboldt’s work in its historical context and discusses its relevance to contemporary work in philosophy, linguistics, cognitive science, and psychology. • New edition of a classic work on language • Will be of interest to linguists and cognitive scientists as well as philosophers • New introduction and useful notes on further reading