Philosophical Correspondence and Unpublished Writings of Francois Hemsterhuis

Jacob van Sluis is a former subject librarian at the University Library of Groningen. He has published on the history of theology and philosophy in the Dutch Republic and he is the editor of the critical edition of Hemsterhuis’ Oeuvres philosophiques (Brill, 2015). Daniel Whistler is Professor of Philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is author and editor of numerous volumes on eighteenth and nineteenth-century philosophy, including the three-volume Edinburgh Edition of the Complete Philosophical Works of François Hemsterhuis, The Schelling-Eschenmayer Controversy, 1801: Nature and Identity (EUP, 2020), The Edinburgh Critical History of Nineteenth-Century Christian Theology, The Schelling Reader (Bloomsbury, 2020) and the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Modern French Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2022).

The van Sluis and Whistler edition of The Philosophical Works of François Hemsterhuis has been a revelation to anyone working in late modern, German romantic and/or ancient philosophy. This third volume of unpublished essays and correspondence is a treasure trove, featuring numerous texts addressing his interpretation of Spinoza, his understanding of the "Pantheism controversy" between Jacobi and Mendelssohn, including the 'Letter on Atheism' first published by Jacobi, as well as additional essays highlighting his views in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics and aesthetics. Hemsterhuis’s wide-ranging correspondence sheds light on every aspect of his thinking, as well as upon Hemsterhuis the person. van Sluis and Whistler have done us all a great favor in providing this material in English in a definitive scholarly edition.

• Series Introduction Jacob van Sluis and Daniel WhistlerHemsterhuis’s Life, Works and Reception AbbreviationsIntroductionsAtheism according to François Hemsterhuis: Convergences with and Divergences from the German Spinoza Controversy, Claudia MelicaHemsterhuis and Newtonian Philosophy, Henri A. KropThe Ubiquity of Vases in Hemsterhuis’s Sketches and Drawings: Making Art in Philosophy, Doing Philosophy in Art, Peter SonderenHemsterhuis as a European and trans-Atlantic Political Theorist, Jonathan I. IsraelPart One: Spinozism, Atheism and ReligionLetter on FatalismOn PrayerLetters on the History of Philosophy to Spinoza (Hemsterhuis and Gallitzin)On Two Kinds of TheologyLetters on Knowing, Believing and Doubting (Hemsterhuis and Gallitzin)Prelude to the Letter on AtheismLetter on Atheism from Diocles to DiotimaFurther Reflections on Spinoza and the Spinozism ControversySupplement to the Letter on FatalismPart Two: Epistemology and the SciencesOn the Reality of AppearancesOn the Relations of Matter and SoulFragment on PhysicsOn Divisibility to InfinityOn the IncommensurableOn Loss of ImaginationAn Analogy between the Formation of the Body and the Formation of the SoulLetter on the Rotation of the PlanetsOn Final CausesPrelude to the Letter on OpticsLetter on OpticsPart Three: Art and StyleLetters on Geometric Style (Hemsterhuis and Gallitzin)On Geometric Education and Aesthetic JudgmentLetters on Hesiod and the Golden AgeOn the Best Shape to Give to the Feet of Vases Further Reflections on the Best Shape to Give to the Feet of VasesOn Plato’s Style in the Phaedrus and the Symposium (and Racine’s Phaedra)Letters on Diderot’s StyleCatechism for a Young PainterOn the Artworks of Central GermanyLetters on Plato and the Sublime (Hemsterhuis and Gallitzin)On Architecture and Other ArtsOn Reading Goethe’s WertherPart Four: Ethics and PoliticsLetter on Virtues and VicesOn Fürstenberg’s CharacterOn the Moral OrganOn Current Events in the Dutch RepublicReflections on the Republic of the United ProvincesPreliminary Observations on the Constitution of the Republic of the United ProvincesOn the Political Situation of the Dutch RepublicAlexis II, or on the MilitarySketch of Advice to the Council of StateOn PatriotismLetters on the French RevolutionAppendixOn the Genesis of Alexis II: The Metaphysics of the Military, Jacob van Sluis