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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.
"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.
Seventeenth-century Holland was a culture divided. Orthodox
Calvinists, loyal to both scholastic philosophy and the
quasi-monarchical House of Orange, saw their world turned upside
down with the sudden death of Prince William II and no heir to take
his place. The Republicans seized this opportunity to create a
decentralized government favourable to Holland's trading interests
and committed to religious and philosophical tolerance. The now
ruling regent class, freshly trained in the new philosophy of
Descartes, used it as a weapon to fight against monarchical
tendencies and theological orthodoxy. And so began a great pamphlet
debate about Cartesianism and its political and religious
consequences. This important new book begins by examining key
Radical Cartesian pamphlets and Spinoza's role in a Radical
Cartesian circle in Amsterdam, two topics rarely discussed in the
English literature. Next, Nyden-Bullock examines Spinoza's
political writings and argues that they should not be seen as
political innovations so much as systemizations of the Radical
Cartesian ideas already circulating in his time. The author goes on
to reconstruct the development of Spinoza's thinking about the
human mind, truth, error, and falsity and to explain how this
development, particularly the innovation of parallelism - the
lynchpin of his system - allowed Spinoza to provide philosophical
foundations for Radical Cartesian political theory. She concludes
that, contrary to general opinion, Spinoza's rejection of Cartesian
epistemology involves much more than the metaphysical problems of
dualism - it involves, ironically, Spinoza's attempt to make
coherent a political theory bearing Descartes's name.
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