This volume offers the proceedings of the conference held in Leeuwarden at the end of September 2001 and organized by the Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici of Naples in co-operation with the Fryske Akademy of Leeuwarden. The conference, whose title was Hemsterhuis: a European Philosopher Rediscovered, aimed to discuss the work of the Frisian philosopher Frans Hemsterhuis (1721-1790) as a whole. The reason for this confe-rence was the presentation of new two editions of the collected works of the philosopher both pu-blished in 2001: a French-Dutch parallel-text with an introduction and commentary by Michael John Petry, and an ltalian edition with an introduction and commentary edited by the present writer.
The conference was Petry's idea, who, with the help of the present writer and with the collaborarion of Lammert G. Jasma (director of the Frisian Academy), wanted to make available the extensive unpublished material in the two editions. The rich coment oE the collected works of the philosopher was studied in depth by the researchers in order to write their papers. The volume, including the proceedings oE the conference, examines the most important writings of Hemsterhuis and is divided in two generaI parts including different themes, each one explored by a Dutch and an ltalian researcher. These, using the two new editions, investigated critically different aspects of Hemsterhuis's thinking and made a survey of the scientific, religious, philosophical and political situation of the United Provinces at that age
As a result, the tide chosen for this book emphasises the "European» dimension of Hemsterhuis's thought. This conference, published now with the ltalian publisher Vivarium in the collection called "European Library", emphasizes "Europeanism" as one oE the central topics in Hemsterhuis's philosophy. This volume follows Vivarium's "European Library" series that started in 1990 with Paul Dibon's excellent book on the Dutch siècle d'or. It hopes to complement the series, which prints texts in the most used languages of the European culture and welcomes books by Italian and foreign researchers. Bringing together the papers of the conference, this volume hopes to follow from the previous edition dedicated to Hemsterhuis and published in the same collection.