Schuurman Paul. Concepts of War, 1650-1900: From Free-rider Strategies to Survival of the Fittest

Brill, 2023. — 240 p. — (Value Inquiry; Studies in the History of Western Philosophy 383).Why do people wage war? How can wars be won? How has warfare been an engine of change for human civilization - for better and for worse? In this book Paul Schuurman shows how some of the best Western minds between 1650 and 1900 tried to answer these questions in an epoch when European developments became a matter of global concern. In eight wide-ranging chapters he discusses the key concepts that philosophers and generals of this era developed to grasp and influence the dramatic phenomenon of war. Their concepts remain fresh and relevant down to the present day.Paul Schuurman was associate professor at the philosophy department of Erasmus University Rotterdam until his retirement. He has published articles on war in the history of ideas and on early modern philosophy. His books include Ideas, Mental Faculties and Method: The New Logic of René Descartes and John Locke and Its Reception in the Dutch Republic, 1630-1750 (Brill, 2004) and (co-edited with Sami-Juhani Savonius-Wroth and Jonathan Walmsley) The Bloomsbury Companion to Locke (Bloomsbury, 2014).