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.