(1993). Balthasar Bekker's Cartesian hermeneutics and the challenge of Spinozism. British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 55-79.

In Spinoza Past and Present Wiep van Bunge explores various aspects of Spinoza’s works and the often conflichting ways in which the Dutch philosopher’s views have been interpreted from the seventeenth century onwards.

This book attempts to provide a general interpretation of the history of philosophy in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic.

Life -- Influences -- Early critics -- Glossary -- Short synopses -- Spinoza scholarship.

This is a truly remarkable first book, based on a Ph.D. thesis. It brilliantly manages to address both the general reader and the experts, is skillfully written and beautifully illustrated. The fate of Epicureanism during the Renaissance has recently drawn considerable attention and produced a series of important monographs by such established authors as Catherine Wilson, Alison Brown, and Stephen Greenblatt. Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance is such a welcome addition to the existing literature because of its special methodology: Palmer (...) concentrates on the marginalia preserved in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century manuscripts and early editions of De Rerum Natura, a first complete manuscript of.. (shrink)

Mara van der Lugt’s Dark Matters is elegant in its composition and beautifully written. It offers a brilliant attempt to give both early modern optimism and pessimism their due as philosophical sta...

This volume consists of 21 papers delivered at an international Spinoza conference on Disguised and Overt Spinozism around 1700, held at the Erasmus University ...

In this "Dictionary," more than four hundred biographical entries encompass all the Dutch thinkers who exercised a major influence on the intellectual life of the Golden Age, as well as those who developed their ideas and beliefs through interaction with other scholars. Additional entries describe foreign philosophers who lived in the country temporarily and whose work was influenced by their stay. These include John Locke, Rene Descartes and Pierre Bayle.

This book contains 15 essays on the philosophy, theology and reception of Pierre Bayle, who is now generally regarded as one of the key authors of the early Enlightenment.

In this review of Winfried Schröder's study of the origins of atheism it is argued that Schröder has brilliandy managed to present a coherent interpretation of the early modern corpus of so-called 'clandestine manuscripts'. His view, however, that from an 18th-century perspeaive it was 'unscientific' to propound atheism seems questionable as does his insistence on the absence of such classical philosophers as Spinoza in early modern atheistic texts. Yet as a guide to 17th-and 18th-century clandestine literature Schröder's book is unequalled.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Plutarchan Hypomnema on Self–LoveLuc Van der StocktHypomnemata and QuellenforschungPlutarch's "hypomnemata statement" in the introduction to De Tranquillitate Animi has elicited much industrious activity from the scholarly world, and rightly so. The sentence (464F) invites one naturally to apply the method of classical hermeneutics (as understood by Babilas 1961, 30, 51–52), consisting in the confrontation of an author's oeuvre (its inventio, dispositio, and elocutio) with all the elements of (...) its generating "context" (historical circumstances, literary antecedents, biography and psychology of the author, immediate reasons for the composition, etc.) that might shed some light on the work in question and help to understand it. In the case of De Tranquillitate Animi Plutarch himself mentions his hypomnemata as one of the elements that contributed to this work, thus provoking his reader to investigate the relationship between these hypomnemata and the text in hand.Under the positivist paradigm generated and promoted by the physical sciences, the interpretation of texts suffered from reduction: its aim became explanation by reducing the thematic, structural, and stylistic data of a text to its antecedents, that is, by simply equating text and context; moreover, this context was frequently reduced to literary antecedents. In the present case, it was the conviction of several scholars that De Tranquillitate Animi could be explained by reducing it to an amalgamation of literary sources (Quellen) and by assuming that the hypomnemata represented these sources without further ado.The consequences of this approach were considerable: in general, Quellenforschung created the image of "Plutarch the eclectic," copying and pasting together literary sources, and De Tranquillitate Animi in particular became a textbook case of his modus operandi—it was but a patchwork of the opinions of Panaetius, or Ariston, or Epicureanism,1 [End Page 575] and one even finds a meritorious scholar who is indignant because Plutarch "mutilates" his source by disturbing its composition!2 From the conflicting scholarly opinions, from their highly hypothetical nature, and from such awkward appreciations as that just mentioned, it is easy to see that the positivist approach failed really to understand Plutarch: his personality and writing activity were so utterly neglected that one wonders why ultimately even the sentence μνημάτων was not regarded as "aliunde petita"!3Nowadays the assumptions of Quellenforschung are rejected: Plutarch's personal contribution in the invention, composition, and style of his works in general is widely recognized. In regard to his writing technique, and especially the role of the hypomnemata in it, it has been observed that the very mention of the hypomnemata in De Tranquillitate Animi does not mean that Plutarch was simply copying, let alone copying only one source;4 moreover, we are not entitled to view hypomnemata as sources5 without any qualification. As to the general tendency of the work, Stoic influences in the presentation of its theme have been seriously questioned.6While fully agreeing with the critique of Quellenforschung and sympathizing with the more positive results of our recent understanding of Plutarch, I cannot but consider the question of Plutarch's hypomnemata a continuing challenge: their importance for his "Compositionsweise"7 cannot be doubted, even if we are somewhat at a loss concerning their size, content, and nature. With the aim of advancing our [End Page 576] knowledge in this matter,8 I here identify a hypomnema, make some observations on Plutarch's treatment of it, and consequently show its relevance for the interpretation of the meaning intended by Plutarch. But before doing so, an analysis of the "hypomnemata statement" and its immediate context seems appropriate: the sentence may trigger our search and condition our expectations.An Analysis of the "Hypomnemata Statement" and its ContextThe composition of De Tranquillitate Animi took place in urgent circumstances:9 Paccius, we are told, has asked for some exegesis of Pla-to's Timaeus and (apparently in dire need)10 for some advice on tranquility of mind. The obvious messenger, Eros, has been called away urgently to Rome by Fundanus, another representative of the genus irascibile.11 Plutarch adopts emergency measures: First, he does not want to disappoint his friend Paccius completely. Thus in this "letter– essay" (Betz 1978, 199) he will deal with the theme... (shrink)

We propose a new approach for tracing value change. Value change may lead to a mismatch between current value priorities in society and the values for which technologies were designed in the past, such as energy technologies based on fossil fuels, which were developed when sustainability was not considered a very important value. Better anticipating value change is essential to avoid a lack of social acceptance and moral acceptability of technologies. While value change can be studied historically and qualitatively, we (...) propose a more quantitative approach that uses large text corpora. It uses probabilistic topic models, which allow us to trace values that are latent. We demonstrate the approach for five types of value change in technology. Our approach is useful for testing hypotheses about value change, such as verifying whether value change has occurred and identifying patterns of value change. The approach can be used to trace value change for various technologies and text corpora, including scientific articles, newspaper articles, and policy documents. (shrink)

Innovation is a key component of most definitions of culture and intelligence. Additionally, innovations may affect a species' ecology and evolution. Nonetheless, conceptual and empirical work on innovation has only recently begun. In particular, largely because the existing operational definition (first occurrence in a population) requires long-term studies of populations, there has been no systematic study of innovation in wild animals. To facilitate such study, we have produced a new definition of innovation: Innovation is the process that generates in an (...) individual a novel learned behavior that is not simply a consequence of social learning or environmental induction. Using this definition, we propose a new operational approach for distinguishing innovations in the field. The operational criteria employ information from the following sources: (1) the behavior's geographic and local prevalence and individual frequency; (2) properties of the behavior, such as the social role of the behavior, the context in which the behavior is exhibited, and its similarity to other behaviors; (3) changes in the occurrence of the behavior over time; and (4) knowledge of spontaneous or experimentally induced behavior in captivity. These criteria do not require long-term studies at a single site, but information from multiple populations of a species will generally be needed. These criteria are systematized into a dichotomous key that can be used to assess whether a behavior observed in the field is likely to be an innovation. (shrink)

Social robots and their interactions with children are becoming increasingly sophisticated, with the emergence of child-robot relationships as a likely result. However, adequate measurement instruments that tap into concepts associated with child-robot relationship formation are scarce. We aimed to develop three measures that can be used to assess children’s closeness to, trust in, and perceived social support from, a social robot. We established the validity and reliability of these measures among 87 Dutch children aged 7 to 11 years old. Because (...) of their shortness, the measures can efficiently be applied by scholars aiming to gain insight into the general process of child-robot relationship formation and its specific sub-processes, that is, the emergence of closeness, trust, and perceived social support. (shrink)

Conflict adaptation reflects the increase in cognitive control after previous conflict between task-relevant and task-irrelevant information. Tonic arousal elicited by emotional words e...

Emotional memories are vivid and lasting but not necessarily accurate. Under some conditions, emotion even increases people’s susceptibility to false memories. This review addresses when and why emotion leaves people vulnerable to misremembering events. Recent research suggests that pregoal emotions—those experienced before goal attainment or failure (e.g., hope, fear)—narrow the scope of people’s attention to information that is central to their goals. This narrow focus can impair memory for peripheral details, leaving people vulnerable to misinformation concerning those details. In contrast, (...) postgoal emotions—those experienced after goal attainment or failure (e.g., happiness, sadness)—broaden the scope of attention leaving people more resistant to misinformation. Implications for legal contexts, such as emotion-related errors in eyewitness testimony, are discussed. (shrink)

Entry of new organizations, including multinational enterprises from emerging markets, raises the ethical question of will they benefit society. The concept of legitimacy answers this question because it is the overall assessment of the appropriateness of organizational ends and means. Moreover, gaining legitimacy enables EMNEs to succeed in new host countries. Past work examined collective level indicators of the legitimacy of MNEs, but recent research recognizes the importance of individuals’ perceptions as the micro-foundation of legitimacy. This study first uses new (...) pragmatism, deontology, and utilitarianism to demonstrate that legitimacy is fundamentally an ethical concept—a perspective that has been overlooked in management research. Second, this study uses a seven-step procedure to develop and validate a measure of individuals’ perceptions of the legitimacy of Chinese EMNEs operating in The Netherlands, a developed country. Six dimensions of legitimacy were identified. The study also finds support for this legitimacy judgment process linking the dimensions: validating knowledge → propriety judgments → generalized judgment. This work provides additional micro-foundations to research on legitimacy and contributes to the ongoing process of construct validation. Future research could use the validated measure in other settings and use specific ethical theories in depth to refine the concept of legitimacy. (shrink)

The value of Plutarch’s perception of physical reality and his attitude towards the natural spectacle Plutarch was very interested in the natural world around him, not only in terms of its elementary composition and physical processes, but also with respect to its providential ordering and marvels. His writings teach us a lot about his perception of physical reality and about his attitude to the natural spectacle. He found his greatest inspiration in the ontological and epistemological framework of Plato’s Timaeus, but (...) a wide range of other authors were also of seminal interest to his project. Moreover, the highly literary value of Plutarch’s natural philosophical writings should not be underrated. It is therefore not surprising that recently scholars have started to reassess the ancient scientific value of Plutarch’s natural philosophical writings. Natural Spectaculars aims to give further impetus to this dynamic by treating several aspects of Plutarch’s natural philosophy which have remained unexplored up to now. (shrink)