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61. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 3 > Issue: 1
Stefan Heßbrüggen-Walter Philosophy and its History: Aims and Methods in the Study of Early Modern Philosophy by Mogens Lærke, Justin E. H. Smith, Eric Schliesser (eds.)
62. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 3 > Issue: 1
Sergius Kodera The Laboratory as Stage: Giovan Battista della Porta’s Experiments
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This article surveys the vast range of different literary genres to which Giovan Battista Della Porta (1535-1615) contributed; it thereby encompasses not merely Porta’s contributions to a specific form of science, his numerous texts on physiognomics and his influential Magia naturalis , but also his no less prolific literary production for the theater, since I argue that his scientific production can best be understood when viewed alongside it. In fact, when read together, these different orientations his work took represent an amazingly coherent form of early modern thought--although one remarkably different from later forms of science in that it constitutes a kind of performative natural philosophy, which I call scienza. This article, therefore, presents Porta less as a forerunner of modern science, instead situating his work for the laboratory as well as for the stage in the context of a peculiar form of theatricality. In short, Porta’s magus emerges as a very peculiar kind of stage director--an expert in the manipulation of appearances and audiences, and a dexterous creator of marvels. His practice echoes the very modes of dissimulation that were characteristic for the social comportment of a courtier in Baroque culture. The following article develops these ideas by pointing to some specific examples, namely Porta’s histrionic use of the magnet as described both in the second edition of the Magia naturalis (1589) and in some of his comedies, and his method of gathering and displaying fragmented parts of the human body for his work on palmistry (written between1599 and 1608).
63. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 3 > Issue: 1
Mihnea Dobre Primary and Secondary Qualities. The Historical and Ongoing Debate by Lawrence Nolan (ed.)
64. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 3 > Issue: 2
Books Received
65. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 3 > Issue: 2
Samuel Kahn Defending the possible consent interpretation from actual attacks
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In this paper, I defend the possible consent interpretation of Kant’s formula of humanity from objections according to which it has counterintuitive implications. I do this in two ways. First, I argue that to a great extent, the supposed counterintuitive implications rest on a misunderstanding of the possible consent interpretation. Second, I argue that to the extent that these supposed counterintuitive implications do not rest on a misunderstanding of the possible consent interpretation, they are not counterintuitive at all.
66. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 3 > Issue: 2
Oberto Marrama L’essenza del corpo: Spinoza e la scienza delle composizioni by Andrea Sangiacomo
67. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 3 > Issue: 2
Charles T. Wolfe Letters to Serena, edited with an introduction by Ian Leask, by John Toland
68. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 3 > Issue: 2
Patrick Brissey Rule VIII of Descartes’ Regulae ad directionem ingenii
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On the developmental reading, Descartes first praised his method in the first instance of Rule VIII of the Regulae ad directionem ingenii, but then demoted it to provisional in the “blacksmith” analogy, and then found his discrete method could not resolve his “finest example,” his inquiry into the essence and scope of human knowledge, an event that, on this reading, resulted in him dropping his method. In this paper, I explain how Rule VIII can be read as a coherent title and commentary that is a further development of the method of the Regulae.
69. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 3 > Issue: 2
Evan R. Ragland Between Certain Metaphysics and the Senses: Cataloging and Evaluating Cartesian Empiricisms
70. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 3 > Issue: 2
Guidelines for Authors
71. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 3 > Issue: 2
John Toland “On the Manner, Place and Time of the Death of Giordano Bruno of Nola”, translated from the Latin and annotated by Bartholomew Begley
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The papers offers a translation, with introduction and explanatory notes, of John Toland’s 1709 letter in Latin to Baron Hohendorf relating to his discovery of Caspar Schoppe’s eyewitness account of the trial and execution of Giordano Bruno in Rome in 1600. Toland, referring to Bayle’s Dictionnaire, argues that this discovery removes any doubt about the manner of Bruno’s death. Toland points out where Schoppe and the inquisitors had misunderstood or wilfully misrepresented Bruno, and then offers a short exposition and critique of some of Bruno’s ideas.
72. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 3 > Issue: 2
Andrea Strazzoni L’Essai de logique de Mariotte: Archéologie des idées d’un savant ordinaire by Sophie Roux
73. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 3 > Issue: 2
Fabrizio Baldassarri Descartes et la chimie by Bernard Joly
74. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 3 > Issue: 2
Karen Pagani To Err is Human, to Forgive Supine: Reconciling (and) Subjective Identity in Rousseau’s Émile et Sophie, ou Les Solitaires
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This essay interrogates the degree to which the views on anger and reconciliation expressed in Les Solitaires relate to Rousseau’s thoughts on subjectivityand, especially, the radically dissimilar psychological experiences of the individual-acting-as-such and that of the citizen qua citizen. I argue that the conflict and the tragedy with which both Émile and Sophie are confronted in Les Solitaires is cast by Rousseau as a necessary step in their acquisition of a more self-conscious moral perspective that enables both protagonists to articulate and reconcile their bifurcated identities as individuals and as citizens. Through an analysis of Émile’s deliberations concerning the appropriateness of forgiveness in the case of Sophie’s infidelity, I suggest that the very sophistication of the protagonists’ reflections on their unfortunate circumstances reveals their acute awareness as to the difficulties and alienation that inexorably results from the social contract and, it follows, from all contracts that are derived therefrom (particularly that of marriage). As such, the text must be read as a further development upon the principles of education established in Émile, ou de l’Éducation, as well as a devastating and, for Rousseau, out of character condemnation of marriage.
75. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 4 > Issue: 1
Anne Davenport Atoms and Providence in the Natural Philosophy of Francis Coventriensis (1652)
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During the Interregnum, English natural philosophers and chymists became deeply interested in Pierre Gassendi’s revival of Epicurean atomism. In the English context, strategies to accommodate atomism to Christian doctrines were fraught with religious and political implications. English Roman Catholics differed from their Protestant compatriots in insisting that God did not cease to operate miracles at the close of the apostolic age. The English friar known as Franciscus à Sancta Clara embraced atomism on the grounds that a new and better science of material causes was indispensable for the accurate assessment of God’s recent and future miracles.
76. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 4 > Issue: 1
Luís Miguel Carolino Mixtures, Material Substances and Corpuscles in the Early Modern Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition: The Case of Francisco Soares Lusitano (1605–1659)
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This paper analyzes the theory of mixtures, material substances and corpuscles put forward by the Portuguese Thomistic philosopher Francisco Soares Lusitano. It has been argued that the incapacity of the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition to reconcile an Aristotelian theory of mixtures with hylomorphism opened the way to the triumph of atomism in the seventeenth century. By analyzing Soares Lusitano’s theory of mixtures, this paper aims to demonstrate that early modern Thomism not only rendered the Aristotelian notion of elements compatible with the metaphysical bases of hylomorphism, but further incorporated an explanation of physical phenomena based upon the notion that bodies were basically made up of small and subtle corpuscles. By doing so, it shows that, contrary to what is so often claimed, early modern corpuscularism was not intrinsically incompatible with late Aristotelian philosophy.
77. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 4 > Issue: 1
Richard Davies Mysterious Mixtures: Descartes on Mind and Body
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As is well known, Descartes’ doctrine on the relations of mind and body involves at least the following two theses: (i) the real distinction of mind and body is compatible with their substantial union; and (ii) the siting of the mind at the tip of the pineal gland is compatible with its presence throughout the body. Th is essay seeks to perform three main tasks. One is to suggest that, so far as Descartes is concerned, the doctrine that arises out of the combination of (i) and (ii) blocks off the problems that are alleged to arise for mind-body interaction. A second is to illustrate how, in a certain vision of Descartes’ thought, (i) and (ii) are more closely connected to each other than is generally explicitly recognised. And a third is to illustrate how one grade of mixture of stuff-types that the ancient Stoics envisaged both provides a model for answering Descartes’ demands and has a reputable pedigree within the tradition to which he was heir.
78. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 4 > Issue: 1
Dana Jalobeanu The Toolbox of the Early Modern Natural Historian: Note-Books, Commonplace-Books and the Emergence of Laboratory Records
79. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 4 > Issue: 1
Tzuchien Tho What is (not) Leibniz’s Ontology? Rethinking the Role of Hylomorphism in Leibniz’s Metaphysical Development
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A central controversy in the reception of Leibniz’s philosophy, not only during his lifetime, but also in the immediately posthumous period (1720’s) and more recently, concerns the role that substantial forms play in Leibniz’s ontology. Interpreters like Garber argue that the Leibnizian defense of the quasi-Scholastic substantial forms in the 1680’s-1690’s demonstrate an ontology of corporeal substance irreducible to an idealist ontology. On the other hand interpreters likeAdams argue that corporeal substances reduce to a fully idealist ontology and that this period in Leibniz’s work only demonstrate a modification of idealism. In this paper I argue that without clarifying the ambiguous status of what constitutes “ontology” for Leibniz, the stakes of this longstanding debate are unclearand the anti-idealist position appears to be a self-defeating one. By turning to a thorough reading of Leibniz’s transition from the middle to the late years and noting key turns in its historical reception (vis à vis Wolff and others), I argue that the anti-phenomenalist position becomes meaningful in light of an idealist ontology rather than in spite of it. My aim is not to defend either idealism or anti-idealism but rather to reconfi gure the nature of the controversy concerning substantial forms by outlining the limits of current debates over Leibniz’s ontology.
80. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 4 > Issue: 1
D. C. Andersson Jakó Zsigmond (ed.), Koleseri Samuel tudomanyos levelezese 1709-1732