Hardback - £90.00

Publication date:

07 December 2016

Length of book:

272 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

Dimensions:

237x159mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781498521536

Jonathan Swift and Philosophy is the first book to analyse and interpret Swift’s writing from a philosophical angle. By placing key texts of Swift in their philosophical and cultural contexts and providing background to their history of ideas, it demonstrates how well informed Swift’s criticism of the politics, philosophy, and science of his age actually was. Moreover, it also sets straight preconceptions about Swift as ignorant about the scientific developments of his time.
The authors offer insights into, and interpretations of, Swift’s political philosophy, ethics, and his philosophy of science and demonstrate how versatile a writer and thinker Swift actually was.

This book will be of interest to scholars of philosophy, history of ideas, and 18th century literature and culture.

This fascinating collection testifies to Swift’s important place in the history of ideas, despite him once joking that ‘all notions too abstracted / Are like the ravings of a crackt head’. These provocative and lucidly-written essays range across the Swift canon, positioning his works in intense dialogue with other key Enlightenment thinkers on issues of ethics, science and politics. Yet, most significantly, Jonathan Swift and Philosophy reveals to us an enduring writer whose works speak profoundly to the debates of today.