This volume contains the essential statements of Rationalism's three greatest figures: Descartes, who began it; Spinoza, who epitomized it; and Leibniz, who gave it its last serious expression.

An extremely suitable focus for the study of Leibniz's thought and of the traditions of rationalism and empiricism in relation to one another.

It has been thoroughly revised for this series and provided with a new and longer introduction, a chronology on Leibniz's life and career and a guide to further reading.

Features Leibniz's writings including letters, published papers, and fragments on a variety of philosophical, religious, mathematical, and scientific questions.

For this new edition, Roger Ariew has adapted Samuel Clarke's edition of 1717, modernizing it to reflect contemporary English usage.

All these perspectives (and more) are united in what this book identifies as his Art of Controversies, which might also be called an Art of Dialectical Cooperation.