Includes bibliographical references and index

Space and subtle matter in Descartes's metaphysics / Janathan Bennett -- Descartes on nathing in particular / Eric Palmer -- "If a body meet a body": Descartes on Body-body causation / Michael Della Rocca -- Descartes's extended substances / Matthew Stuart -- Spinoza's extended substance: Cartesian and Leibnizian reflections / J.A. Cover -- Leibniz's constructivism and infinitely folded matter / Samuel Levey -- Locke and Leibniz and the debate over species / Susanna Goodin -- Descartes on spontaneity, indifference, and alternatives / Joseph Keim Campbell -- The range of Leibnizian compatibilism / Eric Sotnak -- The necessity of finite modes and geometrical containment in Spinoza's metaphysics /Charles Huenemann -- Spinoza's necessitarianism reconsidered / Edwin Curley and Gregory Walski -- A spectator at the theater of the world / Stephen Voss -- Distinctness / Clarence Bonnen and Daniel Flage -- Causation and similarity in Descartes / Geoffrey Gorham -- Teleology in Spinoza and early modern rationalism / Don Garrett -- "For they do not agree in nature with us": Spinoza on the lower animals / Margaret D. Wilson -- Leibniz on consciousness and self-consciousness / Rocco J. Gennaro -- The illusory nature of Leibniz's system / Catherine Wilson

"This collection presents some of the most original recent writings on Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz, the three greatest rationalists of the early modern period. Their work offered brilliant and distinct integrations of science, morals, metaphysics, and religion, which today remain at the center of philosophical discussion. These essays, all written especially for this volume, explore how these three philosophical systems treated matter, substance, human freedom, natural necessity, knowledge, mind, and consciousness."--Jacket