Best of All Possible Worlds

Steven Nadler is the William H. Hay II Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of "Rembrandt's Jews", a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize, as well as "Spinoza: A Life" and "Spinoza's Heresy".

"The centerpiece of this intellectual history is a vicious late 17th-century debate between three unlikely combatants... Nadler's superb study makes for a larger space for Leibniz, Malebranche, and Arnauld alongside such giants of the period as Descartes and Spinoza."--Publishers Weekly "I can't imagine a better guide to 17th-century philosophical thought."--Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World "Why did a loving God create a world marred by so much evil? In three seventeenth-century intellectuals who wrestled with this question, Nadler recognizes how a single inquiry can profoundly engage markedly different minds."--Bryce Christensen, Booklist "Nadler knows as much about Spinoza and Malebranche as any man alive, and enough about Arnauld and Leibniz to engage at need with detailed issues of scholarship. He is a serious scholar at the peak of his powers... What he has given us here is a wonderfully vivid and lifelike portrait of one of the great debates that dominate Early Modern Philosophy, the echoes of which continue to reverberate down the ages."--Andrew Pyle, Metascience "Nadler's remarkably accessible comparative analysis of these difficult seventeenth-century concepts and flights of theological speculation shows us the deep grammar of our times."--Jeffrey T. Zalar, European Legacy "[I]f you want to know about pictures of Descartes, this is the place to look. The colour plates in themselves are a justification for having the book to hand, (let alone the many black and white images including one of Descartes in a baseball cap)."--Martin Cohen, Philosopher

• Preface ix Chapter 1. Leibniz in Paris 3 Chapter 2. Philosophy on the Left Bank 23 Chapter 3. Le Grand Arnauld 52 Chapter 4. Theodicy 78 Chapter 5. The Kingdoms of Nature and Grace 108 Chapter 6. "Touch the Mountains and They Smoke" 141 Chapter 7. The Eternal Truths 184 Chapter 8. The Specter of Spinoza 217 Epilogue 241 Notes 255 Bibliography 281 Acknowledgments 287 Index 289