17th/18th Century Philosophy, Misc

The recovery of ancient skepticism in the sixteenth century had broad consequences in various intellectual domains, including fictional discourse. In the following centuries several authors echoed skeptical philosophical discourse and made literary use of skepticism. Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) is inserted in the hall of the modern writers who echoed and assimilated the skeptical tradition. Satires as A Tale of a Tub (1704), The Battle of Books (1704) and Gulliver's Travels (1726) are framed with marks of skepticism. Thus, my purpose is (...) to present a study on the incorporation of skeptical aspects and arguments in Swift's fictional and satirical discourse. I will try to show that Swift assimilates and uses artifices of skeptical discourse, and therefore, given his relation and knowledge of this tradition, has a place in the history of skeptical thinking. (shrink)

Intellectual history still quite commonly distinguishes between the episode we know as the Scientific Revolution, and its successor era, the Enlightenment, in terms of the calculatory and quantifying zeal of the former—the age of mechanics—and the rather scientifically lackadaisical mood of the latter, more concerned with freedom, public space and aesthetics. It is possible to challenge this distinction in a variety of ways, but the approach I examine here, in which the focus on an emerging scientific field or cluster of (...) disciplines—the ‘life sciences’, particularly natural history, medicine, and physiology —is, not Romantically anti-scientific, but resolutely anti-mathematical. Diderot bluntly states, in his Thoughts on the interpretation of nature, that “We are on the verge of a great revolution in the sciences. Given the taste people seem to have for morals, belles-lettres, the history of nature and experimental physics, I dare say that before a hundred years, there will not be more than three great geometricians remaining in Europe. The science will stop short where the Bernoullis, the Eulers, the Maupertuis, the Clairauts, the Fontaines and the D’Alemberts will have left it.... We will not go beyond.” Similarly, Buffon in the first discourse of his Histoire naturelle speaks of the “over-reliance on mathematical sciences,” given that mathematical truths are merely “definitional” and “demonstrative,” and thereby “abstract, intellectual and arbitrary.” Earlier in the Thoughts, Diderot judges “the thing of the mathematician” to have “as little existence in nature as that of the gambler.” Significantly, this attitude—taken by great scientists who also translated Newton or wrote careful papers on probability theory, as well as by others such as Mandeville—participates in the effort to conceptualize what we might call a new ontology for the emerging life sciences, very different from both the ‘iatromechanism’ and the ‘animism’ of earlier generations, which either failed to account for specifically living, goal-directed features of organisms, or accounted for them in supernaturalistic terms by appealing to an ‘anima’ as explanatory principle. Anti-mathematicism here is then a key component of a naturalistic, open-ended project to give a successful reductionist model of explanation in ‘natural history’, a model which is no more vitalist than it is materialist—but which is fairly far removed from early modern mechanism. (shrink)

The oft-told story of Leibniz’s doctrine of the best world, or optimism, is that it enjoyed a great deal of popularity in the eighteenth century until the massive earthquake that struck Lisbon on 1 November 1755 destroyed its support. Despite its long history, this story is nothing more than a commentators’ fiction that has become accepted wisdom not through sheer weight of evidence but through sheer frequency of repetition. In this paper we shall examine the reception of Leibniz’s doctrine of (...) the best world in the eighteenth century in order to get a clearer understanding of what its fate really was. As we shall see, while Leibniz’s doctrine did win a good number of adherents in the 1720s and 1730s, especially in Germany, support for it had largely dried up by the mid-1740s; moreover, while opponents of Leibniz’s doctrine were few and far between in the 1710s and 1720s, they became increasing vocal in the 1730s and afterwards, between them producing an array of objections that served to make Leibnizian optimism both philosophically and theologically toxic years before the Lisbon earthquake struck. (shrink)

The 18th-century American philosopher Jonathan Edwards argues that nothing endures through time. I analyze his argument, paying particular attention to a central principle it relies on, namely that “nothing can exert itself, or operate, when and where it is not existing”. I also consider what I supposed to follow from the conclusion that nothing endures. Edwards is sometimes read as the first four-dimensionalist. I argue that this is wrong. Edwards does not conclude that things persist by having different temporal parts; (...) he concludes that nothing persists. (shrink)

In this article Johann David Michaelis’s views of language and translation are juxtaposed with his own experience as a translated and translating author, especially with regard to the translations of his prize essay on the reciprocal influence of language and opinions (1759). Its French version originated in a close collaboration with the translators, while the pirated English edition was anonymously translated at second hand. The article reconstructs Michaelis’s relationship with the French translators and his renouncement of the English version, publicly (...) condemned in London by Robert Lowth at the author’s request. These two processes represent different contemporary modes of translation and shed new light on emerging theories of linguistic and cultural transfer. (shrink)

According to Kemp Smith, Descartes believed that animals were devoid of feelings and sensations. This is the so-called ‘monstrous thesis,’ which I explore here in light of two Cartesian approaches to animals. Firstly, I examine their original treatment in function of Descartes’ early metaphysical approach, i.e., all natural phenomena are to be elucidated in terms of mental scrutiny. As pain would only exist in the understanding, and animals have neither understanding nor souls, Descartes held that they did not suffer. Secondly, (...) I look at the Cartesian late naturalism; specifically, at how animals are subsequently regarded as machines that may suffer. Lastly, I conclude that the ‘monstrous thesis’ is not Cartesian because animals are machines with feelings and sensations. However, Descartes’ surprising indulgence towards humans who kill and eat animals supposes that empathy for beings who may suffer is not necessary. This may raise doubts as to another ‘monstrous thesis.'. (shrink)

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 life science as a whole. So-called ‘medical Newtonians’ 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. I am interested here in 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 and 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 are made to directly causally connect such a principle and observable phenomena. 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. (shrink)

Well prior to the invention of the term ‘biology’ in the early 1800s by Lamarck and Treviranus, and also prior to the appearance of terms such as ‘organism’ under the pen of Leibniz in the early 1700s, the question of ‘Life’, that is, the status of living organisms within the broader physico-mechanical universe, agitated different corners of the European intellectual scene. From modern Epicureanism to medical Newtonianism, from Stahlian animism to the discourse on the ‘animal economy’ in vitalist medicine, models (...) of living being were constructed in opposition to ‘merely anatomical’, structural, mechanical models. It is therefore curious to turn to the ‘passion play’ of the Scientific Revolution – whether in its early, canonical definitions or its more recent, hybridized, reconstructed and expanded versions: from Koyré to Biagioli, from Merton to Shapin – and find there a conspicuous absence of worry over what status to grant living beings in a newly physicalized universe. Neither Harvey, nor Boyle, nor Locke (to name some likely candidates, the latter having studied with Willis and collaborated with Sydenham) ever ask what makes organisms unique, or conversely, what does not. In this paper I seek to establish how ‘Life’ became a source of contention in early modern thought, and how the Scientific Revolution missed the controversy. (shrink)

A tese de que o conceito espinosista de ideia de afecção, introduzido na Ética, expressa o sentido mais preciso do que seja, para o autor, o conceito de ideia da imaginação. Este texto pretende problematizar essa leitura, procurando fornecer subsídios para a hipótese de que ela não é nem inequivocamente corroborada pelo texto da Ética, nem exigida pela doutrina aí apresentada. -/- It is widely accepted by scholars that Spinoza’s concept of idea of affection, introduced in the Ethics, states his (...) notion of the idea of imagination. In this paper I address this reading, claiming that it is not either unequivocally corroborated by the text of the Ethics, or required by the doctrine developed there. (shrink)

The articles in the special issue "Experience in natural philosophy and medicine" discuss the roles and notions of experience in the works of a range of early modern authors, including Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, the Dutch atomist David Gorlaeus, William Harvey, and Christian Wolff. The articles extend the evidential basis on which we can rely to identify trends, changes and continuities in the roles and notions of experience in the period of the Scientific Revolution. They shed light on the longstanding (...) influence of traditional views and the emergence of early modern experimental philosophy. This introduction highlights the benefits of considering medicine in connection with natural philosophy when studying early modern views on experience and summarizes the articles. (shrink)

Instead of focusing on the Malebranche-Edwards connection regarding occasionalism as if minds are distinct from the ideas they have, I focus on how finite minds are particular expressions of God's will that there be the distinctions by which ideas are identified and differentiated. This avoids problems, created in the accounts of Fiering, Lee, and especially Crisp, about the inherently idealist character of Edwards' occasionalism.

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 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 presentation 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 – neither mechanical nor teleological. (shrink)

Terms for consciousness, used with a cognitive meaning, emerged as count nouns in the 17th century. This transformation repeats an evolution that had taken place in late antiquity, when related vocabulary, used in the sense of conscience, went from being mass nouns designating states to count nouns designating faculties possessed by every individual. The reified concept of consciousness resulted from the rejection of the Scholastic-Aristotelian theory of mind according to which the mind is not a countable thing, but a pure (...) potentiality. This rejection was motivated by an acute sense of the mind’s fallible subjectivity. While conditioned by recent historical events, the 17th century’s pervasive sense of subjectivity also reveals a heavy debt to Hellenistic philosophy, which had been recently rediscovered. But whereas Hellenistic thought, mistrustful of theoria, only reifies conscience, early modern thinking, more mistrustful of praxis and seeking its grounding in theoria, goes a step further and reifies consciousness. Partly modeled on theological ideas, the resulting concept of consciousness is plagued by paradoxes that have becomes notorious for their intractability. But essentially the same model of consciousness underwrites contemporary theory, embroiling contemporary debates in the same controversies that dominated the 17th century. Sidestepping these difficulties by returning to the Scholastic-Aristotelian theory of mind would be a tall order, but it is not impossible. Alfred North Whitehead's theory of consciousness offers an example. His novel theory of time enables Whitehead to rehabilitate the Aristotelian concept of passive mind in a wholly naturalistic way. (shrink)

A concise review of skeptician in the Carterian model with a discussion of the reframing of the Cartesian paradigm by John McDowell in the 20th century.

Desde sua constituição como domínio do saber no fim do século XVI, a psicologia divide-se rapidamente em duas tendências com orientações diferentes. A primeira, de inspiração naturalista, situa-se no prolongamento do comentário da Física aristotélica e se desenvolve principalmente nas universidades protestantes de Marburgo e Leiden. Nesses estabelecimentos onde reinava então um espírito humanista, racionalista e tolerante, toma lugar a primeira forma de dualismo da alma e do corpo. Mas na mesma época, em círculos místicos e herméticos, desenvolve-se uma outra (...) concepção da psicologia, cujo método interpretativo inspira-se na exegese bíblica e emprega procedimentos terapêuticos, cuidados [cure] da alma e cuidados magnéticos, sustentados sobre a influência psicológica. (shrink)

Desde sua constituição como domínio do saber no fim do século XVI, a psicologia divide-se rapidamente em duas tendências com orientações diferentes. A primeira, de inspiração naturalista, situa-se no prolongamento do comentário da Física aristotélica e se desenvolve principalmente nas universidades protestantes de Marburgo e Leiden. Nesses estabelecimentos onde reinava então um espírito humanista, racionalista e tolerante, toma lugar a primeira forma de dualismo da alma e do corpo. Mas na mesma época, em círculos místicos e herméticos, desenvolve-se uma outra (...) concepção da psicologia, cujo método interpretativo inspira-se na exegese bíblica e emprega procedimentos terapêuticos, cuidados da alma e cuidados magnéticos, sustentados sobre a influência psicológica. (shrink)

Several recent studies of early modern natural philosophy have claimed that corpuscularism and experimental philosophy were sharply distinct or even conflicting views. This chapter provides a different perspective on the relation between corpuscularism and experimental philosophy by examining Domenico Guglielmini’s ‘Philosophical Reflections’ on salts (1688). This treatise on crystallography develops a corpuscularist theory and defends it in a way that is in line with the methodological prescriptions, epistemological strictures, and preferred argumentative styles of experimental philosophers. The examination of the ‘Reflections’ (...) shows that early modern philosophers could consistently endorse, at the same time, corpuscularism and experimental philosophy. (shrink)

Conventionally lauded as the luminous Age of Reason in which the fogs of religious superstition lifted to reveal a new world of tolerance and human dignity, the Enlightenment also possessed what one might term its “dark side”. A small number of writers and visual artists – such as Sade, Choderlos de Laclos (author of Les Liaisons dangereuses) and Francisco Goya – recognised that the newfound paths of Reason and empiricism could lead in unexpected directions and reveal aspects of human experience (...) very much at odds with Enlightenment ideals. This paper focuses on aspects of the work of Goya. Struck down in his mmid-forties by an illness that left him deaf for life, Goya encountered a domain of irremediable suffering to which the categories of Enlightenment thought seemed to have nothing to say. The result was the three series of etchings known as the Caprichos, the Disasters of War and the Disparates, the so-called “black paintings” (such as Saturn devouring his children), and a number of related works including the celebrated Third of May 1808. These works represent a radical repudiation of the underlying confidence in humanity represented by Enlightenment thought. Rejecting what André Malraux terms the “ornate image of man” underpinning eighteenth century baroque art, they are a world away from Watteau’s fêtes galantes or Fragonard’s idyllic rustic scenes, replacing the “ornate image” with a relentless catalogue of humiliation, suffering and atrocity. Created semi-clandestinely, the etchings and black paintings, foreshadow modern art’s abandonment of Renaissance and Enlightenment humanism, and have often been read as prophetic of the twentieth-century nightmare world of total war and extermination camps. They reveal a sinister netherworld in which man is simply victim and all trace of humanism has been erased. (shrink)

This paper reconstructs the natural philosophical method of Geminiano Montanari, one of the most prominent Italian natural philosophers of the late seventeenth century. Montanari’s views are used as a case study to assess recent claims concerning early modern experimental philosophy. Having presented the distinctive tenets of seventeenth-century experimental philosophers, I argue that Montanari adheres to them explicitly, thoroughly, and consistently. The study of Montanari’s views supports three claims. First, experimental philosophy was not an exclusively British phenomenon. Second, in spite of (...) some portrayals of experimental philosophy as an ‘atheoretical’ or ‘purely descriptive’ enterprise, experimental philosophers could consistently endorse a variety of natural philosophical explanations and postulate theoretical entities. Third, experimental philosophy and mechanical philosophy were not, as such, antagonistic. They could be consistently combined in a single philosophical enterprise. (shrink)

It can be said that Rousseau is one of the most acute thinkers of the corruption of civilisation. In fact, the Second Discourse and the Essay on the Origins of Languages could be read as elaborate analyses of advancing social and cultural decline inasmuch as mankind is continually moving away from the original state of natural innocence. But Rousseau’s idea of corruption is not straightforward. I try to show that in the Essay, Rousseau emphasizes the natural causes for corruption. I (...) argue that an opposition between necessity and contingency, which more accurately represents the two modes operating in Rousseau’s doctrine, should replace the standard nature/culture divide. The contingency of natural catastrophes is found to be ultimately responsible for the corruption in the social realm, which is therefore largely driven by natural causes. (shrink)

The chapter focuses on attributions of the transparency of thought to early modern figures, most notably Descartes. Many recent philosophers assume that Descartes believed the mind to be “transparent”: since all mental states are conscious, we are therefore aware of them all, and indeed incorrigibly know them all. Descartes, and Berkeley too, do make statements that seem to endorse both aspects of the transparency theses (awareness of all mental states; incorrigibility). However, they also make systematic theoretical statements that directly countenance (...) “unnoticed” thoughts or mental states, that is, thoughts or mental states of which the subject is unaware and has no knowledge. Descartes, having identified the essence of mind with thought or representation, distinguishes bare states of mind from states of which we have reflective awareness, thereby providing a theoretical tool for understanding both his seeming endorsement of transparency and his actual denial of it: Descartes distinguished between a basic perceptual state, or a basic awareness, and reflectively conscious states that involve explicit noticing and cognizing on the part of the subject. Leibniz (as is better known) directly endorsed a similar distinction between bare perception and reflective consciousness, using the term “perception” for the first and “apperception” for the second. In these cases, bare perceptions are not transparently available to the subject, and so in fact the subject does not have knowledge, hence does not have incorrigible knowledge, of all its occurrent mental states. This chapter gives evidence to support these claims; elaborates the complex psychology of the subject found in Descartes and other early moderns; and notes some ways in which these early moderns contributed to the genesis of the modern subject. Finally, it compares McDowell’s conception of the Cartesian mind with the conceptions of mind found in the writings of Descartes, Berkeley, and Leibniz, finding that his characterization caricatures the positions of early modern philosophers. McDowell's characterization has four elements: consciousness as essence of mind; intentionality as exclusively mental; the veil of perception; and the transparency of mind. Only the second point, about intentionality, fully fits Descartes. As a consequence of his own misdirection, McDowell misses the actual basis of his difficulty in connecting mind with world, which arises from a point of agreement between him and Descartes: the removal of intentionality from material sensory systems. But whereas Descartes could relocate (nonconceptual) sensory intentionality in mental states, McDowell is left to account for it with his overly cognitivized scheme of perceptual content as exclusively conceptual. (Paper first given at the European Society for Early Modern Philosophy, 2007.). (shrink)

Two stories have dominated the historiography of early modern philosophy: one in which a seventeenth century Age of Reason spawned the Enlightenment, and another in which a skeptical crisis cast a shadow over subsequent philosophy, resulting in ever narrower "limits to knowledge." I combine certain elements common to both into a third narrative, one that begins by taking seriously seventeenth-century conceptions of the topics and methods central to the rise of a "new" philosophy. In this revisionist story, differing approaches to (...) the central subject matter of early modern metaphysics--knowledge of substances through their essences and causal powers--arise as a result of disagreements about the powers of the human cognitive faculties. Methodological writings are seen as attempts to direct readers in the proper use of their cognitive faculties. The early modern rejection of the Aristotelian theory of cognition ranks equally in importance with rejection of Aristotelian doctrines about nature. Skepticism is more often than not a tool to be used in teaching the reader the proper use of the cognitive faculties, or indeed in convincing the reader of the existence or inexistence of certain cognitive faculties or powers. Instead of early modern "epistemology" or "theory of knowledge," one speaks, with seventeenth century writers, of theories of the cognitive faculties and their implications for the possibility of human knowledge. The early modern rejection of Aristotelian logic can then be seen as reflecting a negative assessment about the fit between syllogistic reasoning and logic as an art of reasoning or thinking which refines the use of the cognitive faculties. -/- Central to this new historiography is the story of the relation between the intellect and senses as cognitive faculties or powers. The development of philosophy from Descartes to Kant can be portrayed as a series of claims about the power of the intellect to know the essences of things, with resulting consequences for ontology and the foundations of natural philosophy. I illustrate this revised narrative by comparing three conceptions of the intellect in three philosophical settings, provided by several late scholastic Aristotelians, Descartes, and Locke. I have two aims: first, to exhibit the central role played by the conception of intellect or understanding in these authors, and, second, to locate their discussions of the cognitive faculties in relation to recent understandings of psychology, epistemology, logic, mind, and their relations. Early modern writings do not easily fit into the modern categories of epistemology and psychology; more generally, the early modern concern with the workings of mind does not coincide with recent conceptions of naturalism. These findings can help us to see problems with our current categories. (shrink)

Keskityn tässä esitelmässä varhaismodernistisen filosofian unia koskeviin näkemyksiin, johon monet myöhemmät teoriat unien ja muistin suhteesta perustuvat. Lähtökohtani on Descartesin ja Hobbesin välinen väittely unien luonteesta, mutta käsittelen myös monia muita näkemyksiä aiheesta.

This chapter poses questions about the existence and character of the Scientific Revolution by deriving its initial categories of analysis and its initial understanding of the intellectual scene from the writings of the seventeenth century, and by following the evolution of these initial categories in succeeding centuries. This project fits the theme of cross cultural transmission and appropriation -- a theme of the present volume -- if one takes the notion of a culture broadly, so that, say, seventeenth and eighteenth (...) or nineteenth century European intellectual cultures are deemed sufficiently distinct that one can speak of the "transmission" of texts and ideas from the one to the other as cross cultural. I maintain that a process of transforming and assimilating seventeenth century achievements manifests itself in two distinct cultures of interpretation, one developed by historians of philosophy, the other by scientists and historians of science. The first, following actor's categories, interprets the revolution in the seventeenth century as a philosophical displacement, partly fomented by a radical change in astronomical theory; the second, retrospectively applying the post nineteenth century sense of the term "science" to seventeenth century events, finds a "scientific" revolution, or the birth of modern science. The chapter proposes interpreting the Scientific Revolution as a revolution in natural philosophy and metaphysics. (shrink)

I argue that Galileo regarded unaccelerated motion as requiring cause to sustain in. In an inclined plane experiment, the cause ceases when the incline ceases. When the incline ceases, what ceases is acceleration, not motion. Hence, unaccelerated motion requires no cause to sustain it.

This paper discusses how Gassendi and other 17th century atomists treated the distinction between primary and secondary qualities.

ABSTRACT. In his Letters on the motion impressed by a moving mover, Gassendi offers a theory of the motion of composite bodies that closely follows Galileo’s. Elsewhere, he describes the motion of individual atoms in very different terms: individual atoms are always in motion, even when the body that contains them is at rest; atomic motion is discontinuous although the motion of composite bodies is at least apparently continuous; and atomic motion is grounded in an intrinsic vis motrix, motive power, (...) while composite bodies simply persist in their state of motion or rest in the absence of outside intereference. Gassendi does not make much effort to explain how his accounts of atomic and composite motion fit together, and it’s difficult to see how they could possible be integrated. My goal is to explain, given this difficulty, why he accepted both the Galilean theory of the motion of composite bodies and the Epicurean theory of atomic motion. (shrink)

This Oxford Handbook examines the radical transformation of worldview taking place in the period from the middle of the 16th century to the early 18th century. The intention of the volume is to cover both well-known and undeservedly less well-known philosophical texts by placing these works in their historical context which includes tight interconnections with other disciplines as well as historical and political events. By proceeding in this manner the editors hope to recover a meaning of “philosophy” that comes closer (...) to the way its early modern proponents would have understood and practiced it. The editors also point to the reader-friendly character of this Handbook: in addition to grouping chapters in five categories, cross-references to chapters or pages dealing with the same issues make it possible for readers to consult the book selectively. (shrink)

This collection of essays addresses the topic of the unity of knowledge by analyzing early modern ways of organizing and systematizing knowledge and by bringing to light the complex interactions between the different traditions which contributed to the making of modernity.

I explain and assess here Huygens’ concept of relative motion. I show that it allows him to ground most of the Law of Inertia, and also to explain rotation. Thereby his concept obviates the need for Newton’s absolute space. Thus his account is a powerful foundation for mechanics, though not without some tension.

Starting with Aristotle and moving on to Darwin, Marco Solinas outlines the basic steps from the birth, establishment and later rebirth of the traditional view of living beings, and its overturning by evolutionary revolution. The classic framework devised by Aristotle was still dominant in the 17th Century world of Galileo, Harvey and Ray, and remained hegemonic until the time of Lamarck and Cuvier in the 19th Century. Darwin's breakthrough thus takes on the dimensions of an abandonment of the traditional finalistic (...) theory. It was a transition exemplified in the morphological analysis of useless parts, such as the sightless eyes of moles, already discussed by Aristotle, which Darwin used as a crowbar to unhinge the systematic recourse to final causes. With many excerpts, a chronological sequence and an analytical approach, this book follows the course of the two conceptions that have shaped the destiny of life sciences in western culture. (shrink)

In this publisher's preface to 'Beobachtungen über den Geist des Menschen und dessen Verhältniß zur Welt' - outstanding, but, despite its merits, so far almost totally unknown philosophical treatise of the late Enlightenment, published in 1790 under a pseudonym 'Andrei Peredumin Koliwanow', I show that the real author of this book was an educator Christlieb Feldstrauch (1734 - 1799).

The articles in the symposium “Teaching Early Modern Philosophy: New Approaches” provide theoretical reflections and practical advice on new ways of teaching undergraduate survey courses in early modern philosophy. This introduction lays out the rationale for the symposium and summarizes the articles that compose it.

FRANCIS SUÁREZ’S VIEWS ON THE RELATION BETWEEN THE ABSOLUTE POWER OF GOD AND THE NATURAL LAW The article presents Francis Suárez’s views concerning the problem of the possibility of granting dispensation from the natural law by the absolute power of God. Suárez’s opinions on this matter were shown in his comprehensive work on the philosophy of law: De legibus ac Deo legislatore, in Book II De lege aeterna, naturali, et jure gentium, chapter XV entitled Utrum Deus dispensare possit in lege (...) naturali etiam de absoluta potestate. Analyzing the notion of natural law Suárez accepts the Thomistic formula, according to which, the created world is a collection of things with invariable natures. These natures require us to fulfil certain moral obligations and to act in a proper manner. And for this reason, natural law, included in the Decalogue, is invariable and even God is not able to grant its dispensation. The commandments involve an intrinsic principle of justice and obligation and for this reason they are not liable to dispensation. God cannot act contrary to His own nature and His being just, so He would not order people to do something intrinsically unjust. Doctor Eximius justifies moral norms expressed in the Decalogue axiologically, not in a voluntaristic way, by referring to God’s will alone. Suárez criticises both strong theological voluntarism, attributed to Ockham, as well as weak theological voluntarism, attributed to John Duns Scotus. Keywords: FRANCIS SUÁREZ, ABSOLUTE POWER OF GOD, NATURAL LAW. (shrink)

The paper presents Suárez’s view on the individuation of beings, which he developed in his Disputatio V, De unitate individuali eiusque principio. The aim, apart from simply presenting Doctor Eximius’s thought, is also to compare his views with his scholastic predecessors. When considering the question of individuation, Suárez remained under a considerable influence of the medieval tradition, which, however, he transformed in his writings according to his own convictions. He used the language of Duns Scotus when speaking of individuation and (...) determining it in terms of indivisibility, but rejected the idea of individuation by matter, classically attributed to the Thomistic School. Postulating the individuation principle, identified with the entity, and not with the act of existence nor the being of haecceitas, Suárez departed from non-classical interpretations of the thought of Thomas Aquinas as well as from the Scotistic solutions, and postulated a view that to some extent resembled that of Ockham and Bonaventure, although Suárez does not explicitly refer to the latter. (shrink)

Commentators commonly assume that Descartes regards it as a function of the passions to inform us or teach us which things are beneficial and which are harmful. As a result, they tend to infer that Descartes regards the passions as an appropriate guide to what is beneficial or harmful. In this paper I argue that this conception of the role of the passions in Descartes is mistaken. First, in spite of a number of texts appearing to show the contrary, I (...) argue that Descartes does not regard it as the role of the passions to inform us about what is beneficial or harmful. Second, although Descartes calls the passions good and useful, I argue that Descartes does not think we should allow ourselves to be guided by them. When we recognize that the function of the passions is largely motivational and not informative, we can more easily understand Descartes's practical advice in The Passions of the Soul that happiness requires us to guide our passions instead of letting our passions guide us. (shrink)

During the seventeenth century the major cognitive faculties--sense, imagination, memory, and understanding or intellect--became the central focus of argument in metaphysics and epistemology to an extent not seen before. The theory of the intellect, long an important auxiliary to metaphysics, became the focus of metaphysical dispute, especially over the scope and powers of the intellect and the existence of a `pure' intellect. Rationalist metaphysicians such as Descartes, Spinoza, and Malebranche claimed that intellectual knowledge, gained independently of the senses, provides the (...) framework for constructing a new theory of nature. Other writers, including Hobbes and the early Gassendi, denied the existence of a distinct intellectual faculty, and so challenged the metaphysicians' abilities directly to perceive the essences of substances. The theory of the senses, which had long been a part of philosophical discussion, took on a new urgency, for adherents of the new corpuscularian philosophy needed to replace the dominant Aristotelian theory of real sensory qualities and sensible species. The revival of skepticism and a renewed interest in method also brought the faculties into prominence, for skeptical challenges typically were directed toward the faculties of sense and understanding, and the theory of method was conceived as providing instructions for the proper use of one's cognitive equipment. The theory of the faculties, then, is an important key to theories of knowledge in the seventeenth century. Indeed, rather than speaking of seventeenth century epistemology, it would be less anachronistic and more informative to speak of theories of cognition. The familiar (and over-stated) point that epistemology became fundamental to metaphysics during that century can then be restated as the point that the theory of faculties became central in metaphysical dispute. (shrink)

It is often suggested that certain forms of early modern philosophy are naturalistic. Although I have some sympathy with this description, I argue that applying the category of naturalism to early modern philosophy is not useful. There is another category that does most of the work we want the category of naturalism to do ? one that, unlike naturalism, was actually used by early moderns.

This paper argues that early modern experimental philosophy emerged as the dominant member of a pair of methods in natural philosophy, the speculative versus the experimental, and that this pairing derives from an overarching distinction between speculative and operative philosophy that can be ultimately traced back to Aristotle. The paper examines the traditional classification of natural philosophy as a speculative discipline from the Stagirite to the seventeenth century; medieval and early modern attempts to articulate a scientia experimentalis; and the tensions (...) in the classification of natural magic and mechanics that led to the introduction of an operative part of natural philosophy in the writings of Francis Bacon and John Johnston. The paper concludes with a summary of the salient discontinuities between the experimental/speculative distinction of the mid-seventeenth century and its predecessors and a statement of the developments that led to the ascendance of experimental philosophy from the 1660s. (shrink)