This book introduces student to the three major figures of modern philosophy known as the rationalists. It is not for complete beginners, but it is an accessible account of their thought. By concerning itself with metaphysics, and in particular substance, the book relates an important historical debate largely neglected by the contemporary debates in the once again popular area of traditional metaphysics. in philosophy. (Do Not USE).

This intelligent and often subtle introduction to rationalist metaphysics focuses on the development of the concept of substance in Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. After briefly reviewing the Aristotelian background in the introduction, Woolhouse spends the first three chapters presenting the broad outlines of each thinker’s account of substance. These are followed by three chapters devoted more specifically to the metaphysics of extended substance and to foundational issues in early modern physics. Next come two chapters on thinking substance and (...) its relation to extended substance, and finally a chapter on the relation between created and uncreated substance, which Woolhouse describes as "an organizing centre of the whole book". (shrink)

This paper wishes to make a contribution to the study of how seventeenth-century scholasticism adapted to the new intellectual challenges presented by the Reformation. I focus in particular on the theory of accidents, which Reformed scholastic philosophers explored in search of a philosophical understanding of the rejection of the Catholic and Lutheran interpretations of the Eucharist. I argue that the Calvinist scholastics chose the view that actual inherence is part of the essence of accidents because it was coherent (...) with their theology. In this paper, I bring to attention the Reformed scholastic philosophy which was taught in the Scottish universities in the first half of the seventeenth century, an area so far neglected by scholars. In so doing, I compare Scottish scholasticism with coeval Calvinist sources, and highlight the differences from authoritative Catholic and Lutheran philosophers. The conclusion is that Calvinist scholasticism, both Scottish and Continental, brought about fundamental changes in seventeenth-century metaphysics, which are coherent with a humanist interpretation of Aristotle, and anticipate some themes of early modern philosophy. (shrink)

Inherited primarily from Aristotle and his scholastic commentators, the concept of substance plays a central role in early modern metaphysics. Roger Woolhouse's book is the first monograph-length introduction devoted to this important philosophical concept. Aimed primarily at the advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate, this wide-ranging and clearly-written book offers a judiciously compendious but rich account of the doctrine of substance in the hands of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz.

This essay presents an alternative to contemporary substantivalist and relationist interpretations of quantum gravity hypotheses by means of an historical comparison with the ontology of space in the seventeenth century. Utilizing differences in the spatial geometry between the foundational theory and the theory derived from the foundational, in conjunction with nominalism and platonism, it will be argued that there are crucial similarities between seventeenth century and contemporary theories of space, and that these similarities reveal a host (...) of underlying conceptual issues that the substantival/relational dichotomy fails to distinguish. (shrink)

In response to scholarship which has shown that seventeenth-century Scottish scholasticism was influenced by John Duns Scotus (1265/66–1308), Jean-Pascal Anfray has argued that Scottish scholasticism was only indirectly influenced by Scotism, especially by Jesuit thinkers like Francisco Suárez (1548–1618), using the Aberdeen Doctor James Sibbald (1595–1647) and his theory of the body-soul composite as a litmus test. In reply to Anfray’s claims, this article undertakes three interconnected tasks. First, it renews calls for philosophical Scotism to be defined according (...) to a principles-based approach focusing on Scotus’s metaphysics of essence in contrast to a quasi-falsificationist approach. Second, it shows how Sibbald adopts the Scotist metaphysics of essence over the very different Suárezian metaphysics of essence. Third, it demonstrates how Sibbald endorses Scotus’s qualified pluralism in accounting for the body-soul composite. Sibbald thus turns out to be more directly Scotist (and less Suárezian) than first thought. (shrink)

In 1685, during the heyday of Scottish Cartesianism, regent Robert Lidderdale from Edinburgh University declared Cartesianism the best philosophy in support of the Reformed faith. It is commonplace that Descartes was ostracised by the Reformed, and his role in pre-Enlightenment Scottish philosophy is not yet fully acknowledged. This paper offers an introduction to Scottish Cartesianism, and argues that the philosophers of the Scottish universities warmed up to Cartesianism because they saw it as a newer, better version of their own traditional (...) Reformed scholasticism, chiefly in metaphysics and natural philosophy. (shrink)

This essay demonstrates the inadequacy of contemporary substantivalist and relationist interpretations of quantum gravity hypotheses via an historical investigation of the debate on the underlying ontology of space in the seventeenth century. Viewed in the proper context, there are crucial similarities between seventeenth century theories of space and contemporary work on the ontological foundations of spacetime theories, and these similarities challenge the utility of the substantival/relational dichotomy by revealing a host of underlying conceptual issues that do (...) not naturally align with that distinction. (shrink)

The Cambridge History of 17th Century Philosophy offers a uniquely comprehensive and authoritative overview of early-modern philosophy written by an international team of specialists. As with previous Cambridge histories of philosophy the subject is treated by topic and theme, and since history does not come packaged in neat bundles, the subject is also treated with great temporal flexibility, incorporating frequent reference to medieval and Renaissance ideas. The basic structure of the volumes corresponds to the way an educated seventeenth (...) - century European might have organized the domain of philosophy. Thus, the history of science, religious doctrine, and politics feature very prominently. The narrative that unfolds begins with an intellectual world dominated by a synthesis of Aristotelianism and scholastic philosophy, but by the end of the period the mechanistic or "corpuscularian" philosophy has emerged and exerted its full impact on traditional metaphysics, ethics, theology, logic, and epistemology. (shrink)

The category of sympathy marks a number of basic divisions in early modern approaches to action explanations, whether for human agency or for change in the wider natural world. Some authors were critical of using sympathy to explain change. They call such principles “unintelligible” or assume they involve “mysterious” action at a distance. Others, including Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, appeal to sympathy to capture natural phenomena, or to supply a backbone to their metaphysics. Here I (...) discuss how concerns about sympathetic actions form at least a partial background for differing seventeenth-century conceptions of what it is to explain action. I argue that critics of sympathy generally insist on an “atomistic” approach to action explanation, which makes primitively relational phenomena come out as problematic. Proponents of sympathy, by contrast, allow for a more holistic approach to action explanation, which allows for such basic connections. Hence, divergent attitudes toward sympathetic action in part explain differences in approaches to explanation. I conclude by showing how some of these core concerns fade into the background when in the eighteenth-century sympathy gets psychologised and individualised. (shrink)

The Seventeenth century is one of the most important periods in the history of Western philosophy, witnessing philosophical, scientific, religious and social change on a massive scale. In spite of this, there are remarkably few comprehensive, single volume surveys of the period as a whole. The Routledge Companion to Seventeenth Century Philosophy is an outstanding and comprehensive survey of this momentous period, covering the major thinkers, topics and movements in Seventeenth century philosophy. It is (...) divided into seven parts: Historical Context Metaphysics Epistemology Mind and Language Moral and Political Philosophy Natural Philosophy and Mathematics Philosophical Theology. An outstanding team of international contributors provide students and scholars of philosophy and related disciplines with a superb guide to Seventeenth century philosophy. Additional features include annotated further reading at the end of each chapter and biographical entries on the most important philosophers. (shrink)

This work is a collection of the philosophical correspondences of English women thinkers of the late seventeenth century. It includes letters to and from some of the most famous philosophers of the age, including Locke and Leibniz. Their letters range over a wide variety of philosophical subjects, from religion and ethics to knowledge and metaphysics. The introductory essays and annotations to this work make these women's ideas accessible and comprehensible to modern readers. Taken as a whole, the (...) collection significantly enhances our appreciation of women's involvement in the shaping and development of philosophy from 1650 to 1700. (shrink)

The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy offers a uniquely comprehensive and authoritative overview of early-modern philosophy written by an international team of specialists. As with previous Cambridge histories of philosophy the subject is treated by topic and theme, and since history does not come packaged in neat bundles, the subject is also treated with great temporal flexibility, incorporating frequent reference to medieval and Renaissance ideas. The basic structure of the volumes corresponds to the way an educated seventeenth- (...) class='Hi'>century European might have organised the domain of philosophy. Thus, the history of science, religious doctrine, and politics feature very prominently. The narrative that unfolds begins with an intellectual world dominated by a synthesis of Aristotelianism and scholastic philosophy, but by the end of the period the mechanistic or 'corpuscularian' philosophy has emerged and exerted its full impact on traditional metaphysics, ethics, theology, logic, and epistemology. (shrink)

Scottish philosophy of the seventeenth century was an important part of a wider European philosophical discourse. After situating such thought in its political and religious contexts, the contributors to this volume investigate the writings of a variety of Scottish thinkers in the areas of logic, metaphysics, politics, ethics, law, and religion.

Review of Thompson, J. W. (2022). The Metaphysics of Resurrection in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

The essays in this collection have been written for Gerd Buchdahl, by colleagues, students and friends, and are self-standing pieces of original research which have as their main concern the metaphysics and philosophy of science of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They focus on issues about the development of philosophical and scientific thought which are raised by or in the work of such as Bernoulli, Descartes, Galileo, Kant, Leibniz, Maclaurin, Priestly, Schelling, Vico. Apart from the initial bio-bibliographical piece (...) and those by Robert Butts and Michael Power, they do not discuss Buchdahl or his ideas in any systematic, lengthy, or detailed way. But they are collected under a title which alludes to the book, Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science: The Classical Origins, Descartes to Kant (1969), which is central in the corpus of his work, and deal with the period and some of the topics with which that book deals. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy by Daniel Garber, Michael AyersDonald RutherfordDaniel Garber, Michael Ayers, editors. The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp. xii + 1616. Cloth, $175.Over a decade in preparation, this latest addition to the Cambridge History of Philosophy is an enormous achievement—both in its size and the contribution it makes to redefining [End Page (...) 165] the landscape of seventeenth-century philosophy. The editors make no bones about their intention to rewrite the history of early modern philosophy, reversing the trend dominant through much of this century of reading seventeenth-century philosophers in the light of twentienth-century “interests and preconceptions” (4). As they note, the movement to historicize our understanding of seventeenth-century philosophy has been underway for some time in the English-speaking world, furthered in many cases by contributors to these volumes. From this perspective, the present work represents, if not the culmination, at least a progress report on these efforts and the success they have achieved.As in previous volumes of the Cambridge History, the subject matter is treated thematically. Consistent with their larger goal, the editors have further attempted to organize the volumes in a way that remains faithful to the expectations of the period. Part I sets the stage with chapters that establish the larger social and historical context: “The institutional setting” (Richard Tuck); “The intellectual setting” (Stephen Menn); and “European responses to non-European culture: China” (D.E. Mungello). For the rest, the editors write, “the structure of the collection corresponds to one way, at any rate, in which an educated European of the seventeenth century might have organized the domain of philosophy” (2). First comes logic (including method and general ontology); then, the primary categories of being (God, body, soul); finally, the basic operations of the soul (understanding, will, action), whose treatment comprehends the topics of epistemology and ethics.Part II, “Logic, Language, and Abstract Objects,” opens with three short chapters by Gabriel Nuchelmans that survey the terrain of seventeenth-century logic according to the traditional divisions of term, proposition/judgment, and argument. These are followed by contributions on “Method and the study of nature” (Peter Dear); “Universal, essences, and abstract entities” (Martha Bolton); and “Individuation” (Udo Thiel).The discussion of metaphysics proper begins in Part III with the most fundamental being: God. Included here are chapters that examine specific theological issues—“The idea of God” (Jean-Luc Marion); “Proofs of the existence of God” (Jean-Robert Armogathe); “The Cartesian dialectic of creation” (Thomas M. Lennon)—as well as ones that deal more broadly with the crucial connection between philosophy and religion: “The relation between theology and philosophy” (Nicholas Jolley) and “The religious background of seventeenth-century philosophy” (Richard Popkin).Part IV, “Body and the Physical World,” forms the single largest part of the book and its intellectual core. It opens with two chapters—“The scholastic background” (Roger Ariew and Alan Gabbey) and “The occultist tradition and its critics” (Brian Copenhaver)—that effectively mark out the boundaries of the “new philosophy” that emerges in conjunction with the development of seventeenth-century science. These are followed by a series of chapters that examine particular features of that philosophy: “Doctrines of explanation in late scholasticism and in the mechanical philosophy” (Steven Nadler); “New doctrines of body and its powers, place, and space” (Daniel Garber, John Henry, Lynn Joy, and Alan Gabbey); “Knowledge of the existence of body” (Charles McCracken); “New doctrines of motion” (Alan Gabbey); “Laws of nature” (J.R. Milton); and “The mathematical realm of nature” (Michael Mahoney). [End Page 166]The final section of Volume I takes up the third main category of being: “Spirit.” It begins with Daniel Garber’s overview of the positions of the major figures, “Soul and mind: Life and thought in the seventeenth century,” followed by chapters on “Knowledge of the soul” (Charles McCracken); “Mind-body problems” (Daniel Garber and Margaret Wilson); “Personal identity” (Udo Thiel); and “The passions in metaphysics and the theory of action” (Susan James).Volume II of the History is devoted to topics that, in one way or another, elaborate operations of the soul. Part V, “The... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 69 in pre-Socratic scholarship. But he does not do justice to the religious mood which pervades the whole poem (a mood which is set by the prologue which casts the whole work into the form of some kind of religious revelation). The prologue is considerably more than a mere literary device, and the poem is more than logic. Generally, Jaeger9 and Guthrie are surely correct in (...) their judgment that any adequate interpretation of Parmenides' work (as well as that of the other early Greek thinkers) must be willing to take into account its essentially theological character and religious inspirationl~ not always grasped through strict analysis and exegesis. g Theolooy of the Early C-reekPhilosophers, trans. Edward S. Robinson (Oxford, 1947), p. lff, 90ft. agCf. Guthrie's excellent statement: "...Parmenides was at one with Heraclitus in claiming a prophetic or apocalyptic authority for his teaching." And again, the Greeks believed in "an inspiration whereby-the poet is granted deeper insight into the truth than other men" (p. 6). ED. L. MILLER University of Colorado AN UNKNOWN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH TRANSLATION OF SEXTUS EMPIRICUS* I. Introduction Included in a collection of manuscripts and early printed books recently acquired by the Library of the University of California, Los Angeles, from the Paris bookdealer Paul Jammes ~ are three manuscripts attributed to a certain Nicolas de la Toison, Baron de Bussy. Two of the three volumes contain extensive Latin commentaries on the major writings of Aristotle.2 The third is a miscellaneous volume written in three different hands, which contains, among other things, a complete French translation of the extant writings of Sextus Empiricus (c. A.D. 160-210).3 I * I would like to express my thanks to Mr. Richard O'Brien, Western European Bibliographer of the UCLA Library, for his help in numerous ways, who made it possible for me to consult this material during my sojourn in Los Angeles, even before it had been officially catalogued by the Library. I would also like to thank Professors Donald Kalish and Robert Yost of the UCLA Department of Philosophy for their support in making it possible for the collection to be purchased. 1For a brief description of the collection as a whole see Charles B. Schmitt, "Acquisition of Early French Books and Manuscripts", UCLA Librarian, XIX (1966)~25. 2These two manuscripts are bound m red leather with gold tooling. Thear present shelf mark is Collection 968, Box 2. On the spines is written: (1) PHILOSOPHIA.TO.I, and (2) METAPHYSIC ET PHYSICA TO.2. They measure approximately 10 X 14 cm. and each contains about 600fois. At the beginning of Vol. I, in a later hand (19th century?), we read: "Nicolas de la Thoison, baron de Bussy, qui 6crivit ces m6moires, 6tait conseiller laic au Parlement de Bourgogne. Il fur pourru par la r6signation de Pierre Catherine le IV Ddcembre M.DC.XLV et regu le XXIX janvier M.DC.XLVI. I1portait: de queueles dune bands d'or charges en coeur d'une quints feuiUe d'azur--ainsi qu'on le volt dans le Parlement de Bourgogne [Dijon, 1649]de Pierre PaiUot, p. 326." There is also a drawing of the coat-of-arms which has been described. That the de la Toison coat-of-arms is a quintefeuille is verified by Theodore de Renesse, Dictionnaire des figures h$raldiques (Brussels, 1894-1903) III, 461. The passage cited above from the manuscript is directly quoted from Pierre Paillot, Le Parlement de Bouroongne [I], son origins, son $tablissemerit, et son progr~s (Dijon, 1649), p. 326. s A description of this manuscript will be found in the Appendix. 70 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY shall here only give a preliminary survey of this third manuscript, pointing out some of the more interesting features and mentioning some problems connected with it which should be investigated further in more detail. As is now well-known the writings of Sextus Empiricus, which form the major extant compendium of ancient skeptical philosophy, had quite a significant impact on sixteenth and seventeenth-eentury thought, after their reintroduction in the sixteenth century. ~ Sextus' works were available in printed Latin editions after 15695 and the Greek text was printed in... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century, and: Anne Conway: A Woman PhilosopherJane DuranWomen Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century, by Jacqueline Broad; 204 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. $65.00. Anne Conway: A Woman Philosopher, by Sarah Hutton; 280 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. $75.00.Recent work on women philosophers has, in general, approached the topic from two vantage points: on the one hand, a (...) number of anthologies have been published, wherein commentators present a small portion of the woman thinker's work, often without the background necessary for a fuller understanding. On the other hand, some few women philosophers have been the subject of full-length works, but these have tended, by and large, to be women thinkers of the twentieth century, with whose work we are already familiar. Two recent books, one by Jacqueline Broad and the other by Sarah Hutton, go a long way toward improving the situation.Work by Eileen O'Neill, Sarah Hutton and Margaret Atherton, among others, has helped familiarize us with the notion that the seventeenth century—that era so commonly associated with Descartes and the rise of modern philosophy—was also a time of rich theorizing by women philosophers. Jacqueline Broad's book possesses many virtues: it has the finely-tuned style of the careful historian, while at the same time not failing to demonstrate acquaintance with a range of contemporary feminist commentary. Part of the problem in addressing women thinkers of the past is another version of what we are now tempted to call the essentialism problem: does it make sense to think that there is a style that might be demarcated as "feminine," or that might, in some way, pertain uniquely to women theorists? These are difficult issues, but a partial response to the question is to try to remember that it is not for no reason that women thinkers have, indeed, been left out of the canon. As Broad herself says, women philosophers "are now mere footnotes to the standard historical-intellectual accounts of the early modern period" (p. 1).Broad does a superb job of navigating between the need to set out the plain tenets of the thinker's philosophy, and the desire to try to tie it into these larger questions. In six chapters, she addresses the work of Elizabeth of Bohemia, [End Page 200] Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway, Mary Astell, Damaris Masham and Catharine Trotter Cockburn The chapters on Elizabeth, Margaret Cavendish and Mary Astell are particularly strong—here part of the difficulty is that we do have familiar commentaries addressing the work of these women, and it is hard to try to see them in a new light. We are accustomed, for example, to think of Elizabeth merely as Descartes's correspondent. As is the case with information that is currently coming to bear on the question of Harriet Taylor Mill's input into the work of John Stuart Mill, it is difficult for us to see Elizabeth as a thinker in her own right, or, indeed, to give her the credit that Descartes himself gave her; as Broad notes, he had described her as "the only person I have so far found who has completely understood all my previous works" (p. 13). Margaret Cavendish's reputation has suffered from the somewhat scattered approach of her writings, and Broad cites her "reputation for eccentricity" (p. 38). Nevertheless, the sheer volume of her work and its allusion to the problems addressed by the Cambridge Platonists (areas also worked on by Anne Conway) demands that she be taken far more seriously than she has in the past. Astell has become known largely for her more overtly feminist works, such as A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, but she was also the author of several other pieces addressing issues in metaphysics, and again the amount of her work and its citation during her own time would militate against the notion that it should not receive thorough examination.Broad does a wonderful job of setting out the main philosophical questions found in these theorists' works, and she excels at pitting their views against those of the various male philosophers whose work—according to... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.2 (2004) 223-224 [Access article in PDF] Jacqueline Broad. Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. x + 191. Cloth, $55.00. In this impressive study of early Modern Philosophy, Jacqueline Broad analyzes the influence that Cartesianism has had in the development of feminist thought. Her work covers the early modern philosophy of Elisabeth of Bohemia, (...) Margaret Cavendish, Ann Conway, Mary Astell, Damaris Cudworth Masham and Catherine Trotter Cockburn. She points out the paradoxical relationship between current feminist philosophy and the writings of early Modern women. Broad concentrates on the metaphysical issues of mind-body dualism, thinking matter, and the role of reason in knowledge.Recent feminists have argued that even though Cartesianism appears to emphasize an egalitarian concept of reason, it entails a male bias which excludes women from philosophy. Broad covers the work of Genevieve Lloyd, Hilda Smith, Margaret Atherton and other feminists. Her goal is to show that the common Cartesian interpretation of early women's writings obscures the anti-Cartesian and anti-dualist aspects of their thought. Like Lloyd, she argues that historically women were associated with a lesser form of reason following the rise of Cartesianism.The conflict between reason and femininity is noted in the complexity of early Modern thought. Broad argues that even though Elisabeth is remembered as a critic of Descartes, many of her suggestions are not as anti-dualist as some scholars believe. Broad highlights the critical content of Elisabeth's letters to Descartes and discusses her criticisms of dualism and her Cartesian method of discovering truth and certainty. On the basis of her letters she contends that Elisabeth can be regarded as a precursor to feminist philosophers who give an equal role to the body and emotions in their metaphysical and ethical writings.Like Elisabeth, Margaret Cavendish rejects Cartesian dualism. The common thread that runs through early Modern feminist philosophy is the argument that interaction between two unlike substances is inconceivable. Broad argues that like Cavendish, Anne Conway ascribes spiritual characteristics to the body and material properties to the soul. According to Broad, their ontological views amount to a rejection of the stereotypes of femininity.Broad argues that Mary Astell's metaphysical views diverge from the modern Cartesians of her time. Although she is indebted to Descartes, Broad contends that she supports a metaphysical system which avoids some of the gender biases identifiable in Cartesianism. Astell, for example, does not find a life based on reason as a rival to a life concerned with the body; her emphasis on rationality is simply a reaction to the stereotype of women as irrational material beings.Damaris Masham is generally considered a philosophical rival of Astell, but Broad argues that Masham's arguments are focused on the same presuppositions as Astell's. She argues that both philosophers champion women's education, criticize the occasionalism of Norris and believe in interaction between the corporeal and incorporeal worlds. Broad emphasizes the common theological outlook inspired by Cambridge Platonism. Contrary to the interpretation of Ruth Perry, she finds that there is sufficient evidence that Masham was positively inspired by the second part of Astell's Serious Proposal.Broad concludes with an analysis of Catherine Cockburns' metaphysics and moral philosophy. According to Cockburn, women's ignorance is simply the result of being discouraged from rational pursuits. Cockburn's defense of Locke's notion of thinking matter and her rejection of Cartesian notions of substance mark the end of the Cartesian influence on women philosophers in England. [End Page 223]Broad has shown that a reverence for reason and dualistic theories do not necessarily go hand in hand. She points out that early Modern feminist thinkers are not simply handmaidens to the great philosophical masters. As other scholars have argued, one can find unique approaches to substance as well as original moral positions.This text is a significant contribution to the literature on early Modern philosophy. Broad's in depth analysis will not fail to interest scholars in metaphysics, the history of philosophy and moral theory. Kathy... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.2 (2004) 223-224 [Access article in PDF] Jacqueline Broad. Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. x + 191. Cloth, $55.00. In this impressive study of early Modern Philosophy, Jacqueline Broad analyzes the influence that Cartesianism has had in the development of feminist thought. Her work covers the early modern philosophy of Elisabeth of Bohemia, (...) Margaret Cavendish, Ann Conway, Mary Astell, Damaris Cudworth Masham and Catherine Trotter Cockburn. She points out the paradoxical relationship between current feminist philosophy and the writings of early Modern women. Broad concentrates on the metaphysical issues of mind-body dualism, thinking matter, and the role of reason in knowledge.Recent feminists have argued that even though Cartesianism appears to emphasize an egalitarian concept of reason, it entails a male bias which excludes women from philosophy. Broad covers the work of Genevieve Lloyd, Hilda Smith, Margaret Atherton and other feminists. Her goal is to show that the common Cartesian interpretation of early women's writings obscures the anti-Cartesian and anti-dualist aspects of their thought. Like Lloyd, she argues that historically women were associated with a lesser form of reason following the rise of Cartesianism.The conflict between reason and femininity is noted in the complexity of early Modern thought. Broad argues that even though Elisabeth is remembered as a critic of Descartes, many of her suggestions are not as anti-dualist as some scholars believe. Broad highlights the critical content of Elisabeth's letters to Descartes and discusses her criticisms of dualism and her Cartesian method of discovering truth and certainty. On the basis of her letters she contends that Elisabeth can be regarded as a precursor to feminist philosophers who give an equal role to the body and emotions in their metaphysical and ethical writings.Like Elisabeth, Margaret Cavendish rejects Cartesian dualism. The common thread that runs through early Modern feminist philosophy is the argument that interaction between two unlike substances is inconceivable. Broad argues that like Cavendish, Anne Conway ascribes spiritual characteristics to the body and material properties to the soul. According to Broad, their ontological views amount to a rejection of the stereotypes of femininity.Broad argues that Mary Astell's metaphysical views diverge from the modern Cartesians of her time. Although she is indebted to Descartes, Broad contends that she supports a metaphysical system which avoids some of the gender biases identifiable in Cartesianism. Astell, for example, does not find a life based on reason as a rival to a life concerned with the body; her emphasis on rationality is simply a reaction to the stereotype of women as irrational material beings.Damaris Masham is generally considered a philosophical rival of Astell, but Broad argues that Masham's arguments are focused on the same presuppositions as Astell's. She argues that both philosophers champion women's education, criticize the occasionalism of Norris and believe in interaction between the corporeal and incorporeal worlds. Broad emphasizes the common theological outlook inspired by Cambridge Platonism. Contrary to the interpretation of Ruth Perry, she finds that there is sufficient evidence that Masham was positively inspired by the second part of Astell's Serious Proposal.Broad concludes with an analysis of Catherine Cockburns' metaphysics and moral philosophy. According to Cockburn, women's ignorance is simply the result of being discouraged from rational pursuits. Cockburn's defense of Locke's notion of thinking matter and her rejection of Cartesian notions of substance mark the end of the Cartesian influence on women philosophers in England. [End Page 223]Broad has shown that a reverence for reason and dualistic theories do not necessarily go hand in hand. She points out that early Modern feminist thinkers are not simply handmaidens to the great philosophical masters. As other scholars have argued, one can find unique approaches to substance as well as original moral positions.This text is a significant contribution to the literature on early Modern philosophy. Broad's in depth analysis will not fail to interest scholars in metaphysics, the history of philosophy and moral theory. Kathy... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 34.4 (2001) 322-334 [Access article in PDF] From Mysticism to Skepticism: Stylistic Reform inSeventeenth-century British Philosophy and Rhetoric Ryan J. Stark The idea of stylistic plainness captured the imaginations of philosophers in the seventeenth century. Francis Bacon's early attacks on "sweet falling clauses" and Thomas Sprat's invectives against "swellings of style" are especially quotable, and have been cited often by scholars from R. (...) F. Jones to Ian Robinson as evidence that a new attitude toward style emerged in the seventeenth century in conjunction with the new science. Still, even Robinson, who acknowledges the scientific influence on prose, cannot reconcile the plain style ideology with the less-than-sparse styles of the plain style advocates themselves. "The paradox," Robinson notes, "is that Sprat's language is itself imaginative and rhetorical," adding that Sprat denounced "the imagination... in a quite strongly imaginative way" with his "anti-rhetorical rhetoric" (160). This problem leads Robinson to charge that Sprat, Joseph Glanville, Bishop John Wilkins, and the other plain style advocates contradicted themselves by using highly metaphorical styles to criticize metaphorical styles, or were hypocrites in a stronger phrasing, even "painted hypocrites," to borrow a metaphor from one of Wilkins's complaints against metaphorical language.I will address this persistent argument that members of the Royal Society contradicted themselves by using elaborate metaphors to denounce elaborate metaphors, calling into question the very premise of the plain style mandates. The fact that members of the Royal Society continued to use figurative language in their writings is irrelevant. The plain style advocates did not attempt to remove figurative language from all discourses, or even scientific discourses. 1 "Plainness," instead, denotes a lack of occult influence in language. This forgotten philosophical meaning of "plainness" shows clearly that the plain style advocates did not share an antipathy toward ornamental styles, as is often suggested; rather, they shared an antipathy toward entelechial conceptions of style. The Royal Society's [End Page 322] arguments against obscure styles are arguments against the assumptions of a magical worldview, that enchanted cosmos occupied by Faustus and Macbeth, not arguments against any specific type of sentence structure or kind of metaphor. Technical issues of grammar and syntax played a minor role in these stylistic debates. In an ontological sense, the plain style advocates from Bacon to Sprat reconceptualized the very nature of linguistic form. This reconceptualization is best described as a movement away from mystical understandings of style and toward skeptical understandings of style, and this shift from mysticism to skepticism marks the stylistic reformation in the seventeenth century. 1. Entelechies and ornaments Bacon complains famously against "tropes and figures," "sweet falling of clauses," and "watery writings" in an introductory section of The Advancement of Learning entitled "Discredits to Learning from the Follies of the Learned--Ciceronianism, Scholasticism, Alchemy, and Natural Magic" (24-26). 2 Bacon includes a section for distempers of learning that do not fit neatly into categories, called "Other Errors of Learned Men Which Hinder the Progress and Credit of Learning." The coupling of these styles with alchemy and natural magic is not incidental. Bacon and the subsequent plain style advocates of the Royal Society target Ciceronian and scholastic styles specifically because of their strange cosmic elements, not because of their grammatical structures. For the new scientists, these vital styles recall a mystical worldview full of celestial influences, magical emblems, oneiric visions, and attendant spirits. The introductory section of Bacon's Advancement of Learning codifies in the newly scientific community the negative association between mysterious styles (e.g., Ciceronian, Senecan, baroque, metaphysical) and various kinds of occult behavior. Perhaps more so than any other English text, Bacon's Advancement banishes those mystical high styles of the late Renaissance to the mists and shadows of the credulous past, as Cowley describes in his "Ode to the Royal Society," to the "Kingdom of Darkness and Night" in Pope's Dunciad, or to "the island of savage women and moonlight" in Tennyson's "Locksley Hall."In Sciri Tuum Nihil Est, Glanville defends the plain style programs... (shrink)

"The French philosopher Nicolas Malebranche popularized the doctrine of occasionalism in the late seventeenth century. Occasionalism is the thesis that God alone is the true cause of everything that happens in the world, and created substances are merely "occasional causes." This doctrine was originally developed in medieval Islamic theology, and was widely rejected in the works of Christian authors in medieval Europe. Yet despite its heterodoxy, occasionalism was revived starting in the 1660s by French and Dutch followers of (...) the philosophy of René Descartes. Since the 1970s, there has been a growing body of literature on Malebranche and occasionalism. There has also been new work on the Cartesian occasionalists before Malebranche - including Arnold Geulincx, Geraud de Cordemoy and Louis de la Forge. But to date there has not been a systematic, book-length study of the reasoning that led Cartesian thinkers to adopt occasionalism, and the relationship of their arguments to Descartes' own views. This book expands on recent scholarship, to provide the first comprehensive account of seventeenth century occasionalism. Part I contrasts occasionalism with a theory of divine providence developed by Thomas Aquinas, in response to medieval occasionalists; it shows that Descartes' philosophy is compatible with Aquinas' theory, on which God "concurs" in all the actions of created beings. Part 2 reconstructs the arguments of Cartesians - such as Cordemoy and a Forge - who used Cartesian physics to argue for occasionalism. Finally, it shows how Malebranche's case for occasionalism combines philosophical theology with Cartesian metaphysics and mechanistic science"--. (shrink)

The work of Spinoza, Descartes and Leibniz is cited in an attempt to develop, both expositorily and critically, the philosophy of Anne Viscountess Conway. Broadly, it is contended that Conway's metaphysics, epistemology and account of the passions not only bear intriguing comparison with the work of the other well-known rationalists, but supersede them in some ways, particularly insofar as the notions of substance and ontological hierarchy are concerned. Citing the commentary of Loptson and Carolyn Merchant, and alluding to other (...) commentary on the Cambridge Platonists whose work was done in tandem with Conway's, it is contended that Conway's conception of the "monad" preceded and influenced Leibniz's, and that her monistic vitalism was in many respects a superior metaphysics to the Cartesian system. It is concluded that we owe Conway more attention and celebration than she has thus far received. (shrink)

This volume contains a collection of twenty-two essays composed by Popkin from 1979 to 1989 addressing themes in the history of philosophy. The content of the essays ranges in consideration from the kinds of skepticism found in Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, or Joseph Glanville to the "incurable skepticism" of Henry More, Blaise Pascal, and Søren Kierkegaard, to the influence of religious movements on such modern thinkers as Baruch Spinoza and Isaac Newton. The array of figures examined by Popkin and their (...) connections with religious or epistemological skepticism are the means through which he proposes an alternative to the traditional approaches which have been taken to the interpretation of seventeenth-century thought. (shrink)

The ArgumentThe claim that Jan Swammerdam's empirical research did not support his theory of biological preformation is shown to rest on a notion of evidence narrower than that used by many seventeenth-century natural philosophers. The principles of evidence behind the use of mechanical models are developed. It is then shown that the Cartesian theory of biological reproduction and embryology failed to gain acceptance because it did not meet the evidential requirements of these principles. The problems in this and (...) other mechanistic theories prior to Swammerdam are found to arise from certain difficulties and tensions in the mechanical conception of nature, which Swammerdam's theory is able to resolve. The relation between Swammerdam's empirical research and his theory is examined and shown to satisfy the required notion of evidence.Leibniz' puzzling appeals to Swammerdam's research in support of his metaphysical doctrine of the spontaneous development of individual substances are then examined and shown to fall within the parameters of the notion of evidence. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Chinese Buddhism and the Threat of Atheism in Seventeenth-Century EuropeThierry MeynardWhen the Europeans first came to Asia, they met with the multiform presence of Buddhism. They gradually came to understand that a common religious tradition connected the different brands of Buddhism found in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Japan, and China. I propose here to examine a presentation of Buddhism written in Guangzhou by the Italian Jesuit Prospero Intorcetta (...) (1626-1696) around the year 1668. This text was later edited by the Flemish Jesuit Philippe Couplet (1623-1693) and published in Paris in 1687, within an encyclopedia on Chinese thought titled Confucius Sinarum Philosophus (The Chinese Philosopher Confucius, hereafter called CSP).In the first part of this study, I shall introduce the background of the Jesuit encounter with Buddhism, first in Japan and then in China, as well as their literary production on the subject. Then, I shall examine Intorcetta's presentation of Chinese Buddhism, especially his understanding of the two faces of Buddhism: Pure Land Buddhism, which he categorized as superstition, and Chan Buddhism, categorized as atheism. These two notions of superstition and atheism seem contradictory, but in fact they are derived from Intorcetta's interpretation of the Buddhist theory of the "two truths." I shall conclude with an evaluation of Intorcetta's account. Because this early presentation of Buddhism exists only in Latin, I have inserted excerpts that I have translated.Historical Background of the Encounter with BuddhismSince the sixteenth century, missionaries have traveled to different regions of Asia and collected information about the religions they encountered, including Buddhism. They also exchanged information among themselves, asking questions of colleagues in order to confirm and complete information. The missionary reports were sent to Europe for their superiors and were sometimes published as such, but more often incorporated into larger works. [End Page 3]The First Encounter, from Japan to ChinaAmong the first reports reaching Europe about Buddhism were the letters of the Spanish Jesuit Francis-Xavier (1506-1552), who drew information from Yajiro, a Japa nese he met in Malacca in 1547. During his own stay of more than two years in Japan, in 1549-1551, Francis-Xavier had exchanges with monks and could progress in his understanding of Buddhism. His letters were very influential among the network of Jesuit schools in Europe, being copied and read at many venues.1 Other missionaries in Japan, like Cosme de Torres (1510-1570), Luís Fróis (1532-1597), and Baltasar Gago (1515-1583), went further in understanding Buddhism.Also, when, at the end of the sixteenth century, the Jesuit missionaries approached Buddhism in China, their understanding was already shaped by fifty years of knowledge gained in Japan. Just as in Japan, the China Jesuits were interested in Buddhism because it provided them with an indigenous vocabulary in which to express Christian ideas. Thus, the missionary was perceived as a kind of Buddhist monk. The symbolic identification with Buddhism went even further than in Japan, because for more than ten years in Guangdong, from 1579 to 1595, they adopted Buddhist dress and shaved their heads.However, as the missionaries deepened their understanding of the Buddhist doctrine, they realized that many tenets could not be reconciled with Christianity. Since they were greatly concerned about disseminating the orthodox faith and avoiding dubious theories, which they believed to be the tricks of the devil, they distanced themselves from Buddhism and became closer to Confucianism, whose discourse, which focused on moral life in the present world, did not directly conflict with the supernatural truths of Christianity. While Michele Ruggieri (1543-1607) and Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) had initially started interacting with Chinese culture by using Buddhism, later on Ricci abandoned this approach and started to use Confucianism as the main medium. In the Tianzhu shiyi (True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven), Ricci wrote for his Chinese readers a strong refutation of the Buddhist doctrine from the standpoint of Aristotelian philosophy.2 He criticized the concept of selflessness (wuwo) on metaphysical grounds, writing that everyone should draw their existence from an ultimate origin. In his Della entrata della Compagnia di Gesù e Christianità nella China (Entry of the Society of Jesus into... (shrink)

Essays on Gilbert, Bacon, Galileo, Kepler, Harvey, van Helmont, and Descartes attempt, at a medium level of complexity, to relate the positions of these men to twentieth century views of the same questions. The stated purpose of the book is the assessment of the role of each man in the "methodological revolution"; although the methods are discussed, little attempt is made to put them into the context necessary for the reader to view them as revolutionary.—J. M. B.

My dissertation focuses on the moral philosophy of Descartes, Pascal, and Spinoza in the context of the revival of Stoicism within the seventeenth century. There are many misinterpretations about early modern ethical theories due to a lack of proper awareness of Stoicism in the early modern period. My project rectifies this by highlighting understated Stoic themes in these early modern texts that offer new clarity to their morality. Although these three philosophers hold very different metaphysical commitments, each embraces (...) a different aspect of Stoicism, letting it influence but not define his work. By addressing the Stoic themes on the morality of these three authors, I also hope to help better capture the intellectual climate of the time by bringing Stoic themes into the foreground. Stoicism is a Hellenistic philosophy that considered the passions a sickness of the intellect and the source of all human suffering; they believed the cure was virtue, which was obtained through replacing irrational passions with rational beliefs. Stoicism had a revival in the Renaissance ushering in a wave of Neostoic authors who play an important role in shaping the intellectual landscape of the following centuries. My first two chapters discuss Descartes, who wrote a “provisional morality” early in his public life, only (as I show) to ignore the subject of ethics until near his death. In my first chapter I argue that, though many present-day scholars misread Descartes’ first ethics as part of his final ethics, this earliest “provisional morality” mimics Neostoic Skeptics such as Montaigne and is provisional because his method of doubt is also provisional. In my second chapter I show that Descartes’ late, and more developed, moral theory attempts to synthesize a variety of ancient, and seemingly contradictory, ethical traditions: Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Aristotelianism. In many ways Descartes embraces Stoic morality, but as a mechanist he does not view passions as an intellectual sickness; rather they are a physiological event, an amoral instrument that can be used to help control one’s irrational desires. I further defend my thesis externally by showing that this is the reading supported by Descartes’ contemporaries including critics such as Leibniz and early Cartesians such as Antoine Le Grand and Pierre-Sylvain Régis My third chapter discusses Pascal, who embraces Stoicism differently. Pascal offers Stoicism as the first tier of a binary ethics: modeled after Augustine’s city of God and city of man, it is an alternative moral code for those who are ignorant of the good and true happiness. Finally, in my fourth chapter, I discuss two common misinterpretations of Spinoza’s ethics: one of them neglects the Stoic influence on his thought while the other embraces it too strongly, portraying him as an unadulterated Stoic. Although there are ways that he is more Stoic than Descartes and Pascal, such as in his panpsychism and monism, this does not extend to his morality. Rather than accepting either of the two readings, I highlight anti- Stoic themes that are also present. I conclude that if the discussion is contained to his morality, Spinoza is no more Stoic than the other Neostoics I discuss in previous chapters. (shrink)

In Printing Spinoza Jeroen van de Ven systematically examines all seventeenth-century printed editions of Spinoza's writings, published between 1663 and 1694, as well as their variant 'issues'. In focus are Spinoza's 1663 adumbration of René Descartes's 'Principles of Philosophy' with his own 'Metaphysical Thoughts', the 'Theological-Political Treatise' (1670), and the posthumous writings (1677), including the famously-known 'Ethics'. Van de Ven's descriptive bibliography studies, contextualizes, and records all aspects of the publication history of Spinoza's writings from manuscript to print (...) and assesses their immediate reception. It discusses the printed books' codicology, philology, typographical and textual relationships, illustration programmes, as well as their dissemination in early Enlightenment Europe, in view of the physical aspects of 1,246 extant copies and their provenance. (shrink)

This volume is fifth in a series, Monuments of Western Thought. Most of the book consists of excerpts from the works of Bacon and Descartes The selections from Bacon are the preface and plan of The Great Instauration, parts of the New Organon, a bit of Advancement of Learning, and all of The New Atlantis. The selections from Descartes are a short passage from the Discourse on Method and all of the Meditations. The text is introduced by a historical sketch (...) of the intellectual, social, and political context in which Bacon and Descartes lived, and by brief intellectual biographies. The volume closes with short critical selections, pointing up and commenting on important issues in the source material. On Bacon: A. N. Whitehead deals with Bacon's concept of matter, the justification of induction, and Bacon's emphasis on quality; C. D. Broad discusses Bacon's concept of "Form" and its relation to the principle of limited variety; R. F. Jones discusses the Idols, especially the Idol of the Market-place, and Bacon's stress on experimentation; B. Farrington interprets Bacon's rejection of scholasticism as part of the contemporary effort to return to the Hebrew origins of Christianity. On Descartes: A. Koyré deals with consequences of the Cartesian identification of matter with extension; S. V. Keeling discusses the importance of the cogito and interprets it as giving knowledge of the existence of a substantival self; A. B. Gibson interprets Cartesian personalism as the foundation of a realism; M. Versfeld interprets Cartesian personalism as an error making knowledge impossible. Each section is followed by a few questions designed to force the student to think about what he has read and to return to the text.--L. G. (shrink)

While intended more for intellectual historians than for philosophers or Harvardians, this book will be found valuable by all three of these groups, hitherto considered distinct. The author announces three themes: the Harvard curriculum of moral philosophy in the seventeenth century; the transition in that century from scholasticism to Cartesianism, as visible in the great change in Harvard texts from 1650 to 1710; and a more specific argument that the influence of eighteenth-century sentimentalism was prepared by (...) seventeenth-century Puritan religious thought. These themes are articulated in chapters that are roughly chronological and show the stages of the critical transition, or change, from Aristotle to modern moral philosophy. One should note that Fiering has also produced a sequel to this book, Jonathan Edwards's Moral Thought and Its British Context, with the same publisher. (shrink)