17th Century & Early Modern Philosophy

“Review of The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Philosophy edited by Donald Rutherford"

by Angela Coventry

The Notre Dame Philosophical Review, July 2007

On the role of Newtonian analogies in eighteenth-century life science: Vitalism and provisionally inexplicable explicative devices

by Charles Wolfe

Final draft, May 2012. For a projected volume on 'Newton and Empiricism', eds. Z. Biener and E. Schliesser.

Newton’s impact on Enlightenment natural philosophy has been studied at great length, in its experimental,... more Newton’s impact on Enlightenment natural philosophy has been studied at great length, in its experimental, methodological and ideological ramifications. One aspect that has received fairly little attention is the role Newtonian “analogies” played in the formulation of new conceptual schemes in physiology, medicine, and the life science as a whole in the work of self-proclaimed Newtonians in natural history such as Buffon. The so-called ‘medical Newtonians’, people like Pitcairne and Keill, have been studied; but they were engaged in a more literal project of directly transposing, or seeking to transpose, Newtonian laws into quantitative models of the body. What I shall be interested in here is something different: neither the metaphysical reading of Newton, nor direct empirical transpositions, but rather, a more heuristic, empiricist construction of Newtonian analogies. Figures such as Haller, Barthez, and Blumenbach constructed analogies between the method of celestial mechanics and the method of physiology. In celestial mechanics, they held, an unknown entity (such as gravity) is posited and used to mathematically link sets of determinate physical phenomena (e.g., the phases of the moon and tides). This process allows one to remain agnostic about the ontological status of the unknown entity, as long as the two linked sets of phenomena are represented adequately. Haller, et. al., held that the Newtonian physician and physiologist can similarly posit an unknown called ‘life’ and use it to link various other phenomena, from digestion to sensation, to the functioning of the glands. These phenomena consequently appear as interconnected, goal-oriented processes which do not exist either in an inanimate mechanism or in a corpse. In keeping with the empiricist roots of the analogy, however, no ontological claims are made about the nature of this vital principle, and no attempts to directly causally connect such a principle and observable phenomena are made. The role of the “Newtonian analogy” thus brings together diverse schools of thought, and cuts across a surprising variety of programs, models and practices in natural philosophy.

Whose Freedom? – Spinoza’s Compatibilism

by Martin Lenz

Draft; comments welcome.

Spinoza’s notion of freedom confronts us with a paradoxical idea: on the one hand,freedom requires us to act with... more Spinoza’s notion of freedom confronts us with a paradoxical idea: on the one hand,freedom requires us to act with rational insight into the causally determined order of thenatural world. On the other hand, grasping this order seems to leave us with the insight that there is nothing that could be justly termed a human person. On my reading, the key to resolving this tension is to be sought within Spinoza’s theory of the striving for selfpreservation
(conatus). This theory suggests that we ought to re-describe our personal histories in terms of a gradual appropriation of the natural order and take supposedly external causes as our own reasons for action. The present article tries to set out this
solution and its difficulties against the background of the contemporary debate on freedom.

Locke as a Social Externalist

by Martin Lenz

Draft; forthcoming (with a commentary by Michael Ayers) in the Dawes Hicks Lectures on Philosophy: Proceedings of the British Academy,Oxford: Oxford University Press 2012

What determines the meaning of linguistic expressions: the mental states of language users or external factors? John... more What determines the meaning of linguistic expressions: the mental states of language users or external factors? John Locke is still taken to hold the simple thesis that words primarily signify the ideas in the mind of the speaker and thus to commit himself to an untenable mentalism. The present paper challenges this widespread view and sketches an argument to the effect that Locke should be seen as defending a kind of social externalism, since, for Locke, it is primarily the speech community that plays the essential role in determining meaning. 

Recensione di Igor Agostini, "L'infinità di Dio. Il dibattito da Suarez a Caterus", Editori Riuniti University Press 2008

by Simone Guidi

in "Lo Sguardo", n. II, 2010 (I)

Call for papers - The Inner Revolution (16th and 17th century) [English version]

by Lo Sguardo - Rivista di Filosofia

This tenth issue of Lo Sguardo will be dedicated to the “inner revolution” of he 16th and 17th century; in particular it will delve into the matter of the interiorization of the world” and the development of an “individual interiority” in the period included betweenthe end of the Renaissance and the early modern Age. With this purpose the issue will consider the “psychology of the soul” livering over the role of the “auxialiry faculties” –such as memory, imagination, fantasy – in relation to the notion of apprehensio, to the practice of spiritual exercises and to the concept of homo faber sui.

Accepted languages: English, French, Italian, Spanish, German
Deadline for the delivery: September, 10th 2012

Please feel free to contact us for any further informations: redazione@losguardo.net

http://www.losguardo.net/index.html
http://www.losguardo.net/public/collabora/collabora.html

The Material Soul: Strategies for Naturalising the Soul in an Early Modern Epicurean Context

by Charles Wolfe

Longer draft (April 2012) of a paper co-authored with Michaela Van Esfeld, forthcoming in shorter form in D. Kambaskovic-Sawers, ed., Conjunctions: Body and Mind, Sexuality and Spirit from Plato to Descartes. Dordrecht: Springer.

We usually portray the early modern period as one characterised by the ‘birth of subjectivity’ with Luther and... more We usually portray the early modern period as one characterised by the ‘birth of subjectivity’ with Luther and Descartes as two alternate representatives of this radical break with the past, each ushering in the new era in which ‘I’ am the locus of judgements about the world. A sub-narrative under the heading ‘the mind-body problem’ recounts how Cartesian dualism, responding to the new promise of a mechanistic science of nature, “split off” the world of the soul/mind/self from the world of extended, physical substance – a split which has preoccupied the philosophy of mind up until the present day. We would like to call attention to a different constellation of texts – neither a robust ‘tradition’ nor an isolated ‘episode’, somewhere in between – which have in common their indebtedness to, and promotion of an embodied, Epicurean approach to the soul. These texts follow the evocative hint given in Lucretius’ De rerum natura (III, 327-330) that ‘the soul is to the body as scent is to incense’ (in an anonymous early modern French version); in other words they neither assert the autonomy of the soul, nor the dualism of body and soul, nor again a sheer physicalism in which ‘psychic’ or ‘intentional’ properties are reduced to the basic properties of matter. Rather, to borrow the title of one of these treatises (L’âme matérielle), they seek to articulate the concept of a material soul. By reconstructing some elements of the tradition of a corporeal, mortal and ultimately material soul, at the intersection of medicine, natural philosophy and metaphysics, including sections devoted to Malebranche and Willis, but focusing primarily on texts including the 1675 Discours anatomiques by the Epicurean physician Guillaume Lamy; the anonymous manuscript from circa 1725 entitled L’âme matérielle, which is essentially a compendium of texts from the later seventeenth century such as Malebranche and Bayle, along with excerpts from Lucretius; and materialist writings such Julien Offray de La Mettrie’s L’Homme-Machine (1748), we seek to articulate this concept of a ‘material soul’ with its implications for notions of embodiment, the nature of mental states, and selfhood.

Teleomechanism redux? Functional physiology and hybrid models of Life in early modern natural philosophy (revised title)

by Charles Wolfe

longer draft (2011) of paper forthcoming in Gesnerus, special issue 'Entre mécanisme et téléologie : Anatomie, physiologie et philosophie des fonctions', eds. Roberto Lo Presti & Nunzio Allocca.

We have been accustomed at least since Kant and mainstream history of philosophy to distinguish between the... more We have been accustomed at least since Kant and mainstream history of philosophy to distinguish between the ‘mechanical’ and the ‘teleological’; between a fully mechanistic, quantitative science of Nature exemplified by Newton (or Galileo, or Descartes) and a teleological, qualitative approach to living beings ultimately expressed in the concept of ‘organism’ – a purposive entity, or at least an entity possessed of functions. The beauty of this distinction is that it seems to make intuitive sense and to map onto historical and conceptual constellations in medicine, physiology and the related natural-philosophical discussions on the status of the body versus that of the machine. In this paper I argue that the distinction between mechanism and teleology is imprecise and flawed, on the basis of a series of examples: the presence of ‘functional’ or ‘purposive’ features even in Cartesian physiology; work such as that of Richard Lower’s on animal respiration; the fact that the model of the ‘body-machine’ is not at all a mechanistic reduction of organismic properties to basic physical properties but on the contrary a way of emphasizing the uniqueness of organic life; and the concept of ‘animal economy’ in vitalist medical theory, which I present as a kind of ‘teleo-mechanistic’ concept of organism (borrowing a term of Timothy Lenoir’s which he used to discuss 19th-century embryology) – neither mechanical nor teleological.

Historia sincera: ermeneutica dell'immaginazione in Spinoza e Vico

by Andrea Sangiacomo

Bollettino del Centro di Studi Vichiani 41 (1), 2011, pp. 43-73.

«HISTORIA SINCERA»: HERMENEUTICS OF IMAGINATION ACCORDING TO SPINOZA AND VICO. According to Derrida’s Of Grammatology... more «HISTORIA SINCERA»: HERMENEUTICS OF IMAGINATION ACCORDING TO SPINOZA AND VICO. According to Derrida’s Of Grammatology the Western ‘logocentrism’ represents the endeavor to conceives of language as disembodied and abstract. Be that as it may, as far as I am concerned, this interpretation turns out to be misleading. I will firstly sketch the main features of the analysis of this topic provided by Baruch Spinoza: his attempt to separate reason and imagination notwithstanding, his philosophy as a whole will be shown to tend to a considerable overlap rather than a total separation. Secondly, I will scrutinize the concept of ‘poetic logic’ developed by Gian Battista Vico, and I will contend that this logic might provide a convincing explanation for the ultimate a-rationality of the language. In conclusion, I will show how the debate considered might lay the foundations of a new hermeneutics that might be able to overcome the traditional dualism between logocentrism and relativism.

L'uomo libero a nulla pensa meno che alla morte: Spinoza contra Heidegger

by Andrea Sangiacomo

Giornale di Metafisica, 33 (2), 2011, p. 371-390.

THE FREE MAN THINKS OF NOTHING LESS THAN DEATH:
SPINOZA AGAINST HEIDEGGER


In this essay a... more THE FREE MAN THINKS OF NOTHING LESS THAN DEATH:
SPINOZA AGAINST HEIDEGGER


In this essay a theoretical comparison is presented between the perspective developed by Heidegger in Being and time regarding authentic existence and the analogous one afforded by the ethics of Spinoza. The bearing thesis is that these two perspectives have a common theoretical presupposition: the essence of every entity is founded in its rooting in the world or nature in which it exists. Nevertheless, it appears that the results which the two authors reach are opposite. While Heidegger develops a radically contingentist approach that through the concept of being-for-death and anticipatory decision transforms being-in the-world itself into a mere unfounded accident, Spinoza’s ontology works out this affiliation in terms of absolute necessitarianism, ultimately identifying the essence of every entity with the activity
that it carries out in nature. This leads to a diametrically opposite conception of freedom: while for Heidegger this must be thought of first of all as emancipation from dispersion and dejection in the world, for Spinoza being free means being adequate causes of the effects that necessarily derive from one’s nature.

Spinoza's Model of Human Nature

by Adam Shmidt

draft only

In the preface to Part IV of Spinoza's Ethics, he discusses the need to form an idea of man to be used as a model of... more In the preface to Part IV of Spinoza's Ethics, he discusses the need to form an idea of man to be used as a model of human nature, a man who is led by reason alone. This man has the power to act solely through his own nature for the sake of his highest advantage and is free from the coercion of external influences. There is a debate in the secondary literature over whether or not Spinoza develops this idea in the body of Part IV, and the tenability of interpreting the free man as the model of human nature, in relation to Spinoza's understanding of human psychology and his metaphysical system. The aim of this paper is to survey some of the recent literature and to provide an alternative interpretation of the use and relevance of Spinoza's conception of the free man to his overarching project of ethical reevaluation.

Review Essay: Primary and Secondary Qualities: The Historical and Ongoing Debate, edited by Laurence Nolan (OUP)

by Keith Allen

Locke Studies, forthcoming

“Living Atoms, Hylomorphism and Spontaneous Generation in Daniel Sennert”, in Gideon Manning (ed.), "Matter and Form in Early Modern Science and Philosophy" (Boston-Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp. 77-98.

by Hiro Hirai

On the volume, see at http://bit.ly/IFdXO7

The work of Daniel Sennert (1572-1637), professor of medicine at the Lutheran University of Wittenberg, encompasses... more The work of Daniel Sennert (1572-1637), professor of medicine at the Lutheran University of Wittenberg, encompasses the cluster of issues raised by the early seventeenth-century intersection of matter theories and the life sciences, where the origin of life emerged as one of the most important questions. There the belief in spontaneous generation was particularly pertinent. Sennert wrote a treatise precisely on this subject, entitled "De spontaneo viventium ortu," published at the end of his masterpiece "Hypomnemata physica" (Frankfurt, 1636). There he developed a corpuscular interpretation of the origin of life to explain spontaneous generation, while biological generation provided the foundational model for his philosophical reflections in general. This article first analyzes Sennert’s discussions on the “normal” generation of living beings (plants, animals and human beings), the discussions which provide the basis of his doctrine on the origin of souls. Then his theory of spontaneous generation is examined on its own.


1. Introduction
2. The Origin of the Soul in Normal Generation
2.1. The Giver of Forms and Astral Causality
2.2. The Eduction of Forms
2.3. Jacob Schegk and Plastic Force
2.4. The Nature of the Seed and Its “Spiritus”
3. Spontaneous Generation in Sennert
3.1. The Soul, Seminal Principle and Corpuscles
3.2. The Atoms of Living Beings and Their Souls
4. Conclusions

Logic and Metaphysics in the Ethics: Maimonides and Spinoza on Attributes

by Igor H. De Souza

The author suggests ways in which Maimonides' Millot Hahiggayon (Treatise on Logic) can illuminate the notion of... more The author suggests ways in which Maimonides' Millot Hahiggayon (Treatise on Logic) can illuminate the notion of "attribute" in Spinoza's Ethics.

Hume as a Trope Nominalist

by Jani Hakkarainen

I will give this paper at the panel on nominalism and relations in Hume Conference, Calgary, July 18-22, 2012.

Ett göticistiskt släktbygge - Johan Bures minnessten från 1611

by Urban Sikeborg

Published in Släktforskarnas årsbok 2010 (Sveriges Släktforskarförbund, Stockholm).

El hebraísmo en la Ciencia Moderna

by Hernán Javier Matzkevich

Extending Spinoza... for the love of God! Spinoza,

by f. scott scribner

Published: International Philosophical Quaterly Vo. 42, No 2, Issue 166 (June 2002), 151-160.

Highlights briefly Levinas to consider possible alternative articulations of an "extensional' embodied love of... more Highlights briefly Levinas to consider possible alternative articulations of an "extensional' embodied love of God in Spinoza.

Molyneux's Question

by Brian Glenney

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Molyneux’s Question, also known as Molyneux’s Problem, became a fulcrum for early research in the epistemology of... more Molyneux’s Question, also known as Molyneux’s Problem, became a fulcrum for early research in the epistemology of concepts, challenging common intuitions about how our concepts originate, whether sensory features differentiate concepts, and how concepts are utilized in novel contexts. It was reprinted and discussed by a wide range of early modern philosophers, including Gottfried Leibniz, George Berkeley, and Adam Smith, and was perhaps the most important problem in the burgeoning discipline of psychology of the 18th Century. The question has since undergone various stages of development, both as a mental exercise and as an experimental paradigm, garnering a variety of both affirmative and negative replies in the next three centuries of debate and deliberation.

review of Kenneth Clatterbaugh, _The Causation Debate in Modern Philosophy, 1637-1739

by Jeffrey Bernstein

published in Teaching Philosophy, December 2000, 381-384.