Victoria Kahn is Professor of English and Bernie H. Williams Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. Among her books is "Wayward Contracts: The Crisis of Political Obligation in England, 1640-1674" (Princeton). Neil Saccamano is Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Cornell University. Daniela Coli is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Florence, Italy.

• Introduction by VICTORIA KAHN AND NEIL SACCAMANO 1 Tempering the Grandi's Appetite to Oppress: The Dedication by and Intention of Machiavelli's Discourses by JOHN P. MCCORMICK 7 Difficult Engagements: Private Passion and Public Service in by Montaigne's Essais by TIMOTHY HAMPTON 30 The Bachelor State: Philosophy and Sovereignty in Bacon's by New Atlantis by JOHN GUILLORY 49 Hobbes's Revolution by DANIELA COLI 75 Happy Tears: Baroque Politics in Descartes's Passions de l'ame by VICTORIA KAHN 93 The Desire to Live: Spinoza's Ethics under Pressure by JUDITH BUTLER 111 A Mind for Passion: Locke and Hutcheson on Desire by NANCY ARMSTRONG AND LEONARD TENNENHOUSE 131 Rousseau's Quarrel with Gratitude by PATRICK COLEMAN 151 Parting with Prejudice: Hume, Identity, and Aesthetic by Universality by NEIL SACCAMANO 175 Vico, "Tenderness," and "Barbarism" by RICCARDO CAPORALI 196 Kant and the Relegation of the Passions by HOWARD CAYGILL 217 Beliefs and Emotions (from Stanley Fish to Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill) by FRANCES FERGUSON 231 Contributors 251 Notes 253 Index 311

"I am very favorably impressed by the articles collected here and by the book as a whole. There is a coherence to the book in terms of topic, a coherence enhanced by the fact that there are essays on the most important figures in the period loosely between the Renaissance and the French Revolution. By its detail and range, the book takes the issue of politics and the passions well beyond Hirschman's classic The Passions and the Interests. The selection of authors is first-rate."—Tracy B. Strong, University of California, San Diego