An invaluable complement to the standards works in early modern philosophy, this anthology introduces an important selection from the largely unknown writings of women philosophers of the early modern period. Readings comment on major works of the period and are easily integrated into courses in the history of modern philosophy. Included are letters to prominent philosophers, philosophical tracts arguing a particular view, and comments on controversies of the day. Each section is prefaced by (...) a headnote giving a biographical account of its author and setting the piece in historical context. Atherton's introduction provides a solid framework for assessing these works and their place in modern philosophy. -- from back cover. (shrink)

This entry provides a presentation of grammar according to its early modern sense, as the art of speaking a particular language, as well as of the universal grammar of this period, whose scope is theoretical and which transcends any particular language.

(2008). Caravaggio’s Complexion: The Humoral Characterization of Artists in the Early Modern Period∗. Intellectual History Review: Vol. 18, Humanism and Medicine in the Early Modern Era, pp. 61-74.

Erasmus was one of the most widely read and controversial authors of the early modern period, inspiring a broad range of reader reactions. The present volume addresses various aspects of Erasmus's reception, including how the author's name was sometimes used to bolster decidedly "un-Erasmian" ideals.

(2010). The representation of animals in the early modern period. Annals of Science: Vol. 67, The Representation of Animals in the Early Modern Period, pp. 299-301. doi: 10.1080/00033790.2010.488139.

BOOK REVIEWS 463 awareness is included in every thought without need for a second thought of the first. Awareness of the object of thought could be connected with the volition, or judgment, that the thought represents some particular thing. Nadler's article deals with a related issue by concentrating on Malebranche, propos- ing that he is a kind of "direct realist." This is, of course, quite contrary to the spirit of most interpretations of Malebranche. The relevance of Nadler's thesis in this (...) context is that it makes it harder to characterize clearly what philosophical points might have been at issue between Arnauld and Malebranche aside from the dispute over the ontological status of ideas. There is, finally, a second article by Kremer on "Grace and Free Will in Arnauld." Arnauld himself attached much more importance to his work in theology than his better remembered work in philosophy. Kremer's article, however, shows that Arnauld sometimes intertwined philosophical and theological concerns such that it is not neces- sary to be a theologian to appreciate the issues. If the current surge of interest in Arnauld's distinctive, original contributions to philosophy stimulates further work, much of it will probably engage his own overarching theological concerns. ALAN NELSON University of California, Irvine Margaret Atherton, editor. Women Philosophers of the Early Modern Period. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1994. Pp. ix + 166. Cloth, $29.95... (shrink)

This book describes how and why the early modern period witnessed the marginalisation of astrology in Western natural philosophy, and the re-adoption of the cosmological view of the existence of a plurality of worlds in the universe, allowing the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Founded in the mid-1990s, the discipline of astrobiology combines the search for extraterrestrial life with the study of terrestrial biology – especially its origins, its evolution and its presence in extreme environments. This book offers (...) a history of astrobiology's attempts to understand the nature of life in a larger cosmological context. Specifically, it describes the shift of early modern cosmology from a paradigm of celestial influence to one of celestial inhabitation. Although these trends are regarded as consequences of Copernican cosmology, and hallmarks of a modern world view, they are usually addressed separately in the historical literature. Unlike others, this book takes a broad approach that examines the relationship of the two. From Influence to Inhabitation will benefit both historians of astrology and historians of the extraterrestrial life debate, an audience which includes researchers and advanced students studying the history and philosophy of astrobiology. It will also appeal to historians of natural philosophy, science, astronomy and theology in the early modern period. (shrink)

En juillet 2016, Frederik A. Bakker, Delphine Bellis et Carla Rita Palmerino ont organisé à l’Université de Radboud, aux Pays-Bas une conférence sur l’histoire de la cosmologie et de ses problèmes depuis Aristote jusqu’à la correspondance de Leibniz et Clarke. L’ouvrage Space, Imagination and Cosmos from Antiquity to the Early Modern Period est le résultat de cette rencontre internationale. Le premier chapitre est une introduction générale qui explique la position épistémologique du projet. S...

Being mainly concerned with the origins and development of formal logic, current “histories of logic” often devote scarce, if any, space to logic in the early modern period. In standard narratives, emphasis is put, on one side, on Aristotle’s Organon and on the Stoics’ logic of propositions, and on the other side, on the development of mathematical logic from Boole and Frege on. The picture often emerging from such reconstructions represents early modern philosophers—net of their (...) criticisms of Aristotelian syllogism— as largely estranged from the discipline. It is true that, the medieval period’s concern with semantic and inference issues has been accounted... (shrink)

Special issue of the Journal for Early Modern Studies (4.1., Spring 2005) Guest Editor: Lucian Petrescu. -/- .

This article relates the evolving relationship between republicanism and the problem of ‘empire’ to the changing social contexts within which republican political theory emerges in the early modern period. It is argued that the initial antagonism between republicanism and empire was a politically constituted dilemma that related to the specific configuration of economic and political power characteristic of pre-capitalist societies. With the development of capitalism in England in the early modern period, the problem of (...) empire becomes partially resolved due to the way in which the separation of economic and political power under capitalism reconstitutes the nature of empire itself. This new social context — characterized by new social, economic and political relationships specific to an emerging capitalist context — laid the foundations for the resolution of the ‘republican dilemma’ of empire and the ideological establishment of the first ‘Republican Empire’ in 18th century America. (shrink)

In this introduction, we explain our choice to approach the topic of space from a cosmological perspective, that is, by studying the conceptions of space that were implicitly or explicitly entailed by ancient, medieval and early modern representations of the cosmos, and the role that imagination played in those conceptions. We compare our approach with those of Alexandre Koyré and Edward Grant, and we present the two important issues this book intends to shed light on, namely the continuity (...) and discontinuity between ancient, medieval, and early modern conceptions of space and the cosmos; and the role that metaphysical, cosmological, and theological considerations played in the elaboration of new theories of space in the course of history. This chapter also presents the main, recurring themes of this book: the relation between place and space; the notion of imaginary spaces; the role played by thought experiments in discussions concerning the nature of space and the structure of the cosmos; the impact of the condemnation of 1277 on subsequent theories of space; and the relation between God’s immensity and the infinity of space. (shrink)

Some scholars have identified a puzzle in the writings of Mary Astell (1666–1731), a deeply religious feminist thinker of the early modern period. On the one hand, Astell strongly urges her fellow women to preserve their independence of judgement from men; yet, on the other, she insists upon those same women maintaining a submissive deference to the Anglican church. These two positions appear to be incompatible. In this paper, I propose a historical-contextualist solution to the puzzle: I (...) argue that the seeming inconsistency can be dispelled through a close examination of (i) the concepts of selfhood and self-government in Anglican women’s devotional texts of the period, and of (ii) the role that these concepts play in Astell’s feminist arguments. (shrink)

In this volume fifteen contributions discuss the role or roles of early modern forms of theatre in the formation of public opinion or its use in making statements in public or private debates.

Plato and Aristotle were very much alive between the fifteenth and the seventeenth centuries. The essays in this volume investigate the interaction, both in terms of harmony and contrast, between the two philosophers in early modernity, that is in a time when long-forgotten texts became available and a new philological awareness was on the rise. Dealing with famous and less famous early modern interpreters and philosophers, in a transnational and translinguistic perspective, this volume reveals the agendas behind (...) the discussions on Plato's and Aristotle's philosophies. In studying these texts, it is hard to imagine a more significant collision of big names with big ideas. This project takes us to the centre of the intellectual life of the period and its most exciting debates. (shrink)

M̀atter Matters is a work of genius. The work exhibits a breathtaking spread of erudition from antiquity to the present, mobilized to elucidate the early modern significance of the concept of matter. The slight play of words in the title expresses the principal thesis of the work, that mathematics is intelligible for Descartes if and only if matter exists as its object. Smith understands, better than anyone, how Descartes could claim, literally, that "my physics is nothing but geometry." (...) Many will be convinced, some dismayed, and all will be dazzled by this book.'---Thomas M. Lennon, The University of Western Ontario". (shrink)

The theory of notitiae naturales or κοιναὶ ἔννοιαι was part of the ancient Stoic epistemology. It served as precondition of any knowledge. Within the framework of the humanist rediscovery of ancient sources this theory became an important aspect of Philipp Melanchthon’s theological anthropology. This paper examines the polyvalent perspectives of the theory of notitiae naturales in Melanchthon’s philosophy and the role it played among Lutheran and Calvinist scholars, particularly regarding Rom 1: 19, where Paul stated some kind of a natural (...) knowledge of God. The idea of notitiae communes or “common notions” as an a priori precondition of knowledge was widely spread both on the continent and in England in early modernity. It came to an end by John Locke’s critique in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding. (shrink)

In the early modern period (16?18th centuries), churches and state administrations alike strove to eradicate Evil. Neither they nor society at large accepted a conceptual differentiation between crime and sin. The two worst kinds of Evil early modern societies could imagine were organized arson and witchcraft. Although both of them were delusions, they nevertheless promoted state building. Networks of itinerant street beggars were supposed to have been paid by foreign powers to set fire in towns (...) and villages. These vagrant arsonists can be regarded as the terrorists of the early modern period. Witches were persons who had allegedly made a compact with the devil. They were thought to randomly use maleficent magic to harm individuals as well as whole regions. When law enforcement agencies and suspicious peasants or townspeople tried to identify persons who might be arsonist terrorists or witches they used the category ?Evil?. Anyone who ignored the behavioral standards of society ever so slightly could be suspected of being utterly evil. The concept of Evil linked petty, commonplace immorality and the worst crimes imaginable to each other and to the mindless hatred of demons. This pre-modern concept of the banality of Evil was called into question by the legal reforms of the 17th century. It was finally rejected by the enlightenment that negated the imagined continuum of Evil. Witches and arsonist terrorists shared a number of characteristics. They were both said to form conspiracies that mirrored everyday society like an evil twin. The crimes they perpetrated lacked any purpose or reason, they were motivated by sheer malice. The worst forms of Evil had certain qualities of an epidemic: Witchcraft and terrorism were supposed to be always on the rise. The evil people were victimizers as well as victims. The imagery of Evil even implied that the evildoers resembled those they were supposed to have harmed. The fear of terrorist vagrants and witches as well as other conspiracy theories can be traced back to the Black Death. The plague of the 14th century not only sparked anti-Semitism. It lend force and credibility to the idea of an irrationally destructive, ever-growing secret organization as the epitome of Evil. (shrink)

British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Volume 19, Issue 5, Page 997-1001, September 2011.

How should one define “atheism”? The first response to such a question might be: “look it up in the dictionary”. The dictionary in question is, as Rosamund Moon has cleverly put it, the “Unidentifi...

© 2013 The Editors of The Philosophical QuarterlyWhy did matter matter for Descartes and Leibniz? The answer, Kurt Smith argues in this thought‐provoking book, is that without it mathematics would be unintelligible. A world without matter is insufficient for mathematics because the immaterial cannot be divided into discrete quantities. Without a divisible material structure, the determinate unities necessary for the additive quantities in turn necessary for mathematics are unactualisable. God needs matter to institute mathematics. However, with the creation of matter, (...) mathematical intelligibility necessarily follows. Smith's main aim, therefore, is to show that Descartes and Leibniz believed the biconditional: ‘Mathematics is intelligible if, and only if, matter exists’.The bulk of the book is dedicated to ‘analysis’ and ‘synthesis’. For Smith, analysis is a kind of transcendental process by which one discovers the basic conceptual categories necessary for the possibility of any object under investigation. A triangle's... (shrink)

What is, what was the human? This book argues that the making of the human as it is now understood implies a renogotiation of the relationship between the self and the world. The development of Renaissance technologies of difference such as mapping, colonialism and anatomy paradoxically also illuminated the similarities between human and non-human. This collection considers the borders between humans and their imagined others: animals, women, native subjects, machines. It examines border creatures (hermaphrodites, wildmen, and cyborgs) and border practices (...) (science, surveying, and pornography). (shrink)

ABSTRACT:I reflect critically on the early modern philosophical canon in light of the entrenchment and homogeneity of the lineup of seven core figures: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant. After distinguishing three elements of a philosophical canon—a causal story, a set of core philosophical questions, and a set of distinctively philosophical works—I argue that recent efforts contextualizing the history of philosophy within the history of science subtly shift the central philosophical questions and allow for a greater (...) range of figures to be philosophically central. However, the history of science is but one context in which to situate philosophical works. Looking at the historical context of seventeenth-century philosophy of mind, one that weaves together questions of consciousness, rationality, and education, does more than shift the central questions—it brings new ones to light. It also shows that a range of genres can be properly philosophical and seamlessly diversifies the central philosophers of the period. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: * Margaret Cavendish (1623–1673) * Anne Conway (1631–1679) * Aphra Behn (1640–1689) * Mary Astell (1666–1731) * Conclusion * Notes * References.

Francis of Assisi's embrace of a leper,2 and the initial identification of the Friars Minor with the outcasts of society, was echoed in the renown of a number of Franciscan saints and beati as miraculous healers and patron saints for those suffering from certain illnesses.3 Some of them were also known for hospital service during epidemics.4 All this has created a long-standing association between the Franciscan order family and the care for the sick. Yet despite significant involvement of individual friars, (...) and some Franciscan friaries, Clarissan convents and associated confraternities with hospitals and comparable institutions during the medieval period and after,5 there was no systemic Franciscan engagement with... (shrink)

This article situates Edward Gresham'sAstrostereon, or A Discourse of the Falling of the Planet(1603), a little-known English astronomical treatise, in the context of the cosmo-theological debate on the reconciliation of heliocentrism with the Bible, triggered by the publication of Nicholas Copernicus'sDe revolutionibus orbium coelestiumin 1543. Covering the period from the appearance of the ‘First Account’ of Copernican views presented in Georg Joachim Rheticus'sNarratio Prima(1540) to the composition ofAstrostereonin 1603, this paper places Edward Gresham's commentary and exegesis against the background (...) of the views expressed by his countrymen and the thinkers associated with the Wittenberg University – such as Philipp Melanchthon, Caspar Peucer, and Christoph Rothmann. Comparing the ways in which they employed certain biblical passages – either in favour of or against the Earth's mobility – the paper emphasizes Gresham's ingenious reading of the Hebrew version of the problematic excerpts, and his expansion of the accommodation principle. (shrink)

This volume provides a much needed, historically accurate narrative of the development of theories of space up to the beginning of the eighteenth century. It studies conceptions of space that were implicitly or explicitly entailed by ancient, medieval and early modern representations of the cosmos. The authors reassess Alexandre Koyré’s groundbreaking work From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe and they trace the permanence of arguments to be found throughout the Middle Ages and beyond. By adopting a (...) long timescale, this book sheds new light on the continuity between various cosmological representations and their impact on the ontology and epistemology of space. Readers may explore the work of a variety of authors including Aristotle, Epicurus, Henry of Ghent, John Duns Scotus, John Wyclif, Peter Auriol, Nicholas Bonet, Francisco Suárez, Francesco Patrizi, Giordano Bruno, Libert Froidmont, Marin Mersenne, Pierre Gassendi, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Samuel Clarke. We see how reflections on space, imagination and the cosmos were the product of a plurality of philosophical traditions that found themselves confronted with, and enriched by, various scientific and theological challenges which induced multiple conceptual adaptations and innovations. This volume is a useful resource for historians of philosophy, those with an interest in the history of science, and particularly those seeking to understand the historical background of the philosophy of space. (shrink)

Cet article analyse une supplique adressée par une artisane turinoise au roi dans le but d’être admise dans la corporation des fabricants de boutons en bénéficiant d’une importante réduction des frais pour le chef d’œuvre. Le texte suggère la complexité et l’ambiguïté de l’identité des travailleuses de l’artisanat ; celle-ci est le résultat d’une stratification de facteurs culturels et économiques. La supplique montre que les femmes peuvent (et savent) négocier leur place dans le monde du travail. D’un côté, la suppliante (...) s’appuie sur des argumentations qui évoquent explicitement sa place dans l’économie familiale et font appel aux stéréotypes sur son sexe (et notamment à son rôle d’épouse et mère soucieuse d’assurer le bien-être de sa famille). De l’autre côté, en rappelant qu’elle a investi sa dot dans l’activité artisanale, elle évoque le risque d’en rester dépourvue (et devenant ainsi “indotata”) et la chute sociale et économique conséquente. (shrink)

Early modern study of plants blossomed in a network of observation, exchanges, collaborations, and epistolary discussions. Following Baconian methodology, Dutch scholars combined the labor of listing and describing plants with botanical experimentation. This empirical approach was a suitable context for Descartes, who exchanged information and performed observations on plants in collaboration with Dutch experimenters. In this article, I focus on (1) the reception of a few botanical experiments of Bacon’s Sylva Sylvarum in Huygens and Reneri, with whom Descartes (...) was in contact, and (2) Descartes’ collaboration with Reneri. While performing observations on plants together, Reneri acquired Descartes’ theoretical framework (as it arises in his disputations) and influenced the latter with a Baconian approach to the study of living nature. This combination of experimental knowledge and a theoretical framework shaped a Cartesian study of plants, as it later surfaced in Regius and ultimately paved the way to a modern science of plants. (shrink)

Before women could become visible as philosophers, they had first to become visible as rational autonomous thinkers. A social and ethical position holding that chastity was the most important virtue for women, and that rationality and chastity were incompatible, was a significant impediment to accepting women's capacity for philosophical thought. Thus one of the first tasks for women was to confront this belief and argue for their rationality in the face of a self-referential dilemma.