THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

 

STANLEY, Thomas.  THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY: CONTAINING THE LIVES, OPINIONS, ACTS AND DISCOURSES OF THE PHILOSOPHERS OF EVERY SECT.                              

London: W. Battersby, and others, 1701. Folio. Later quarter-calf, marbled boards. Frontispiece, (xxxiv), 1-48, 51-66, 73-328, 321-658, (12); (iv), 63, (1) pages, includes 25 engraved portraits in text. Third edition.

First published in three volumes between 1655 and 1660 and a fourth volume "The History of the Chaldeic Philosophy," followed in 1662; the whole was reprinted in a single volume in 1687, and the third edition in 1701.  The third edition is the first one with the Life of the author.  The work consists of a long series of biographies, chiefly of the Greek philosophers from Thales to Carneades. Added with these he includes extensive discussion of their philosophical beliefs  -- especially for Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Pythagoras, Philo, Epicurus, etc.  Each with a portrait image in the text.  This work was popular in colonial Virginia.  Copies are recorded in the libraries of William Byrd of Westover, Landon Carter of Sabine Hall, and the great library of Thomas Jefferson.  Pagination is erratic but collates complete.  Sympathetically rebound in period style.  Some foxing and browning throughout, else very good.

 

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