In the first edition of this work, I thanked several people who had helped me in different ways in connection with my research on the book in the years 2004–2007. While I am of course still most grateful to these people, I will confine myself here to acknowledging those who have helped in connection with this second edition. I would like to begin by thanking my wife Katalin Nun Stewart, to whom this work is dedicated, for all her help and support over so many years, which made it possible for me to do the intensive research required for this study. She has also been responsible for creating the useful index to all three tomes of this study.
I am deeply grateful to Finn Gredal Jensen for his constant help with virtually every aspect of the work. The quality of the research presented here has been greatly enhanced due to his generous efforts. I also stand in the debt of Carl Henrik Koch, who has likewise contributed many valuable suggestions for improving the work. His enormous wealth of knowledge about the subject has been invaluable. I would also like to express my gratitude to Gerhard Schreiber who has been a great help in locating some of the rare books and articles that I needed for this study. This work has also been vastly improved by the proof-reading of Loy Stewart. I am very thankful to the director of my institute, Richard Sťahel, who has constantly helped and supported me in my research at the Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.
Several people have kindly helped me to update the work with new publications that have appeared since the first edition in 2007. In this context I am indebted to Klaus Müller-Wille, Nassim Bravo, Pier Francesco Corvino, Lasse Horne Kjældgaard, István Czakó, Johnny Kondrup, Poul Houe, Elizabeth Li, Bertel Nygaard, Philipp Schwab, Peter Šajda, Ingrid Basso, Curt Thompson, George Pattison, and Nate Kramer. I have also been very fortunate to have the kind support of my friends and colleagues Zoltán Gyenge, Róbert Karul, Jaroslava Vydrová, Eva Dědečková, František Novosád, Jesper Tang Nielsen, Alžbeta Kuchtová, Ivana Kováčiková, and Lucia Jankovičová. This work would not have been possible without the use of the wonderful resources at The Royal Library in Copenhagen, which kindly makes available online so many of its holdings. Most of the pictures that appear in the present study have come from its collections.
This work was produced at the Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, v.v.i. It was supported by the Agency APVV under the project “Philosophical Anthropology in the Context of Current Crises of Symbolic Structures,” APVV-20-0137.