Dutch Cartesianism and the Birth of Philosophy of Science

Dutch Cartesianism and the Birth of Philosophy of Science PDF

Author: Andrea Strazzoni

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2018-11-19

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 3110569698

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How did the relations between philosophy and science evolve during the 17th and the 18th century? This book analyzes this issue by considering the history of Cartesianism in Dutch universities, as well as its legacy in the 18th century. It takes into account the ways in which the disciplines of logic and metaphysics became functional to the justification and reflection on the conceptual premises and the methods of natural philosophy, changing their traditional roles as art of reasoning and as science of being. This transformation took place as a result of two factors. First, logic and metaphysics (which included rational theology) were used to grant the status of indubitable knowledge of natural philosophy. Second, the debates internal to Cartesianism, as well as the emergence of alternative philosophical world-views (such as those of Hobbes, Spinoza, the experimental science and Newtonianism) progressively deprived such disciplines of their foundational function, and they started to become forms of reflection over given scientific practices, either Cartesian, experimental, or Newtonian.

Spinoza and Dutch Cartesianism

Spinoza and Dutch Cartesianism PDF

Author: Alexander X. Douglas

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 0198732503

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Situates Spinoza's philosophy in its immediate historical context and argues that much of it was conceived with the purpose of rebutting a claim about the limitations of philosophy made by some of his contemporaries.

Early Modern Cartesianisms

Early Modern Cartesianisms PDF

Author: Tad M. Schmaltz

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 0190495227

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This new comparative study considers the impact of Descartes's thought on early modern philosophy, theology and science. This consideration reveals that competing Cartesianisms emerged in the Netherlands and France during a period dating from the last decades of Descartes's life to the century or so following his death in 1650.

Descartes Embodied

Descartes Embodied PDF

Author: Daniel Garber

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 9780521789738

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A central theme unifying the essays in this volume on the work of Descartes is the interconnection between Descartes' philosophical and scientific interests, and the extent to which these two sides of the Cartesian programme illuminate each other.

The Oxford Handbook of Descartes and Cartesianism

The Oxford Handbook of Descartes and Cartesianism PDF

Author: Steven Nadler

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2019-05-02

Total Pages: 728

ISBN-13: 0192517201

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The Oxford Handbook of Descartes and Cartesianism comprises fifty specially written chapters on René Descartes (1596-1650) and Cartesianism, the dominant paradigm for philosophy and science in the seventeenth century, written by an international group of leading scholars of early modern philosophy. The first part focuses on the various aspects of Descartes's biography (including his background, intellectual contexts, writings, and correspondence) and philosophy, with chapters on his epistemology, method, metaphysics, physics, mathematics, moral philosophy, political thought, medical thought, and aesthetics. The chapters of the second part are devoted to the defense, development and modification of Descartes's ideas by later generations of Cartesian philosophers in France, the Netherlands, Italy, and elsewhere. The third and final part considers the opposition to Cartesian philosophy by other philosophers, as well as by civil, ecclesiastic, and academic authorities. This handbook provides an extensive overview of Cartesianism - its doctrines, its legacies and its fortunes - in the period based on the latest research.

Cartesian Empiricisms

Cartesian Empiricisms PDF

Author: Mihnea Dobre

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-11-29

Total Pages: 333

ISBN-13: 940077690X

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Cartesian Empiricisms considers the role Cartesians played in the acceptance of experiment in natural philosophy during the seventeenth century. It aims to correct a partial image of Cartesian philosophers as paradigmatic system builders who failed to meet challenges posed by the new science’s innovative methods. Studies in this volume argue that far from being strangers to experiment, many Cartesians used and integrated it into their natural philosophies. Chapter 1 reviews the historiographies of early modern philosophy, science, and Cartesianism and their recent critiques. The first part of the volume explores various Cartesian contexts of experiment: the impact of French condemnations of Cartesian philosophy in the second half of the seventeenth century; the relation between Cartesian natural philosophy and the Parisian academies of the 1660s; the complex interplay between Cartesianism and Newtonianism in the Dutch Republic; the Cartesian influence on medical teaching at the University of Duisburg; and the challenges chemistry posed to the Cartesian theory of matter. The second part of the volume examines the work of particular Cartesians, such as Henricus Regius, Robert Desgabets, Jacques Rohault, Burchard de Volder, Antoine Le Grand, and Balthasar Bekker. Together these studies counter scientific revolution narratives that take rationalism and empiricism to be two mutually exclusive epistemological and methodological paradigms. The volume is thus a helpful instrument for anyone interested both in the histories of early modern philosophy and science, as well as for scholars interested in new evaluations of the historiographical tools that framed our traditional narratives.

Historical Dictionary of Descartes and Cartesian Philosophy

Historical Dictionary of Descartes and Cartesian Philosophy PDF

Author: Roger Ariew

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2015-04-09

Total Pages: 410

ISBN-13: 144224769X

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Descartes is perhaps most closely associated with the title, “the Father of Modern Philosophy.” Generations of students have been introduced to the study of philosophy through a consideration of his Meditations on First Philosophy. His contributions to natural science is shown by the fact that his physics, as promulgated by the Cartesians, played a central role in the debates after his death over Isaac Newton’s theory of gravitation. Descartes also made major contributions to the field of analytic geometry; we still speak today of “Cartesian coordinates” and the “Cartesian product.” This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Descartes and Cartesian Philosophy covers the history through a chronology, an introductory essay, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on various concepts in Descartes’ philosophy, science, and mathematics, as well as biographical entries about the intellectual setting for Descartes’ philosophy and its reception, both with Cartesians and anti-Cartesians. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Descartes.

Burchard de Volder and the Age of the Scientific Revolution

Burchard de Volder and the Age of the Scientific Revolution PDF

Author: Andrea Strazzoni

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2019-11-18

Total Pages: 755

ISBN-13: 3030198782

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This monograph details the entire scientific thought of an influential natural philosopher whose contributions, unfortunately, have become obscured by the pages of history. Readers will discover an important thinker: Burchard de Volder. He was instrumental in founding the first experimental cabinet at a European University in 1675. The author goes beyond the familiar image of De Volder as a forerunner of Newtonianism in Continental Europe. He consults neglected materials, including handwritten sources, and takes into account new historiographical categories. His investigation maps the thought of an author who did not sit with an univocal philosophical school, but critically dealt with all the ‘major’ philosophers and scientists of his age: from Descartes to Newton, via Spinoza, Boyle, Huygens, Bernoulli, and Leibniz. It explores the way De Volder’s un-systematic thought used, rejected, and re-shaped their theories and approaches. In addition, the title includes transcriptions of De Volder's teaching materials: disputations, dictations, and notes. Insightful analysis combined with a trove of primary source material will help readers gain a new perspective on a thinker so far mostly ignored by scholars. They will find a thoughtful figure who engaged with early modern science and developed a place that fostered experimental philosophy.

Defending Descartes in Brandenburg-Prussia

Defending Descartes in Brandenburg-Prussia PDF

Author: Pietro Daniel Omodeo

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-08-26

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 3031019644

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This volume is a study of the many dimensions of the early reception of Cartesianism in German-speaking Europe during the seventeenth century based on the case of the University of Frankfurt an der Oder. It investigates the broad context of that discussion, which was at once scientific, cultural, political and socio-institutional. Chapter by chapter, the book sheds light on the most relevant aspects of the environment of the time. It is aimed at historians of science and philosophy, as well as scholars investigating German-speaking Europe of the 17th century.

The Philosophers and the Bible

The Philosophers and the Bible PDF

Author: Antonella Del Prete

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-12-13

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 9004471952

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An innovative perspective on the relationship between philosophy and the Bible. The early modern philosophers’ interpretations of the Scriptures allow deciphering the breeding ground of the freedom of philosophizing, the theological-political debate, and the new conception of nature.