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81. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 4 > Issue: 1
Boris Demarest Justin E. H. Smith, Divine Machines: Leibniz and the Sciences of Life
82. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 4 > Issue: 1
Books Received
83. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 4 > Issue: 1
Guidelines for Authors
84. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 4 > Issue: 1
Andrea Sangiacomo Marco Sgarbi, The Italian Mind. Vernacular Logic in Renaissance Italy (1540-1551)
85. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 4 > Issue: 1
Contents of Volumes
86. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 4 > Issue: 1
Doina-Cristina Rusu Élodie Cassan (ed.), Bacon et Descartes. Geneses de la modernite philosophique
87. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 4 > Issue: 2
Annalisa Ceron Leon Battista Alberti’s Care of the Self as Medicine of the Mind: A First Glance at Theogenius, Profugiorum ab erumna libri III, and Two Related Intercenales
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This article sheds new light on the Theogenius and the Profugiorum ab erumna libri III, two Italian dialogues in which Leon Battista Alberti was influenced by Seneca’s On the Tranquillity of the Mind and Petrarch’s De remediis utriusque fortunae, but developed an innovative reflection on the care of the self as medicine of the mind. The novelty hinged not on his pessimistic diagnosis of the human condition, which linked the disquiet caused by the inconstancy of fortune with the natural instability of the mind, but rather on his ironic conception of therapy, which challenged the Stoic belief in the possibility of finding a definitive cure for hardship. To what extent and in what sense Alberti’s therapy exhibits an ironic stance is clarified by the analysis of two Intercenales, the Latin work which aimed to relieve the mind’s maladies through laughter. While Erumna made the case that the way of life championed by the Stoics as well as the choice of living the life of another man cannot alleviate human misery, Patientia mocked the efficacy of Stoic remedies such as patience and time. People can only hope to come to terms with the mind’s maladies and should bear their burdens cheerfully rather than despair of them: this is one of the most intriguing aspects of Alberti’s medicine of the mind.
88. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 4 > Issue: 2
Matthew Sharpe “Not for personal gratification, or for contention, or to look down on others, or for convenience, reputation, or power”: Cultura Animi in Bacon’s 1605 Apology for the Proficiency and Advancement of Learning
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This paper examines the apology for the life of the mind Francis Bacon gives in Book I of his 1605 text The Advancement of Learning. Like recent work on Bacon led by the ground-breaking studies of Corneanu, Harrison and Gaukroger, I argue that Bacon’s conception and defence of intellectual inquiry in this extraordinary text is framed by reference to the classical model, which had conceived and justified philosophising as a way of life or means to the care of the inquirer’s soul or psyche. In particular, Bacon’s proximities and debts to the Platonic Apology and Cicero’s defence of intellectual pursuits in Rome are stressed, alongside the acuity and eloquence of Bacon’s descriptions of the intellectual virtues and their advertised contributions to the theologically and civically virtuous life.
89. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 4 > Issue: 2
Patrick Brissey Reflections on Descartes’ Vocation as an Early Theory of Happiness
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In this paper, I argue that Descartes developed an early theory of happiness, which he rhetorically claimed to have stemmed from his choice of vocation in 1619. I provide a sketch of his theory in the Discours, noting, however, some problems with the historicity of the text. I then turn to his Olympica and associated writings that date from this period, where he literally asked, “What way in life shall I follow?” I take Descartes’ dreams as allegorical and provide an interpretation of his curious claim that poets are better equipped to discover truth than philosophers, made at a time when he chose to become a philosopher and not a poet. My way out of this conundrum is to identify in this text a philosophical psychology that I argue is consistent with the Regulae and the Discours, is part of what he took to be his “foundation of the wonderful science,” and is the essence of his early theory of happiness.
90. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 4 > Issue: 2
Tarek R. Dika Method, Practice, and the Unity of Scientia in Descartes’s Regulae
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For most commentators, the universality of Descartes’s method goes hand in hand with the uniformity with which it must be applied to any problem in any science. I will henceforth refer to this as the Uniformity Thesis. Finding themselves unable to identify such a uniformly applied method in any of Descartes’s extant treatises, many readers of Descartes have been led to conclude that Descartes’s method played little or no role in Cartesian science. My principle argument will be that Descartes did not, in fact, accept the Uniformity Thesis, and that the relevant textual evidence strongly suggests that he denied it. For Descartes, the method is universal, and can be employed to discover scientia, not because it can or ought to be uniformly applied to any problem in any science, but rather because practice in the method habituates the human ingenium to be sensitive to diff erent kinds of problem, such that the procedure for constructing and resolving a problem can, within definable limits, vary from application to application.
91. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 4 > Issue: 2
Christopher Davidson Spinoza as an Exemplar of Foucault’s Spirituality and Technologies of the Self
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Practices of the self are prominent in Spinoza, both in the Ethics and On the Emendation of the Intellect. The same can be said of Descartes, e.g., his Discourse on the Method. What, if anything, distinguishes their practices of the self? Michel Foucault’s concept of “spirituality” isolates how Spinoza’s practices are relatively unusual in the early modern era. Spirituality, as defined by Foucault in The Hermeneutics of the Subject, requires changes in the ethical subject before one can begin philosophizing, and claims to result in a complete transfiguration or perfection of the subject. Both these characteristics are present in Spinoza’s Emendation while both are lacking in Descartes’ Discourse. Turning to the Ethics’ practices of the self, I show how affects can be moderated through other affects, and that this text establishes a thorough training of the self which will strengthen one’s overall power well into the future. My treatment of the Ethics differs in emphasis from many other readings which focus on reason’s power over affects, or on cognitive therapy which moderates individual affects to lessen current sadness. In both works, Spinoza’s practices of the self promise significant changes to those who undergo them.
92. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 4 > Issue: 2
James A.T. Lancaster Rhetoric and the Familiar in Francis Bacon and John Donne
93. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 4 > Issue: 2
Sergius Kodera Dialogues between the Art of Healing and the Art of Persuasion in the Early Modern Period
94. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 4 > Issue: 2
List of External Reviewers: 2012-2015
95. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 4 > Issue: 2
Charles T. Wolfe Généalogie de la sensation. Physique, physiologie et psychologie en Europe, de Fernel à Locke
96. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 4 > Issue: 2
Guidelines for Authors
97. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 5 > Issue: 1
Sean Winkler The Problem of Generation and Destruction in Spinoza’s System
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In this paper, I address the problem of generation and destruction in Spinoza’s philosophical system. I approach this problem by providing an account of how Spinoza can maintain that contrary finite modes cannot inhere in the same substance, while substance itself does not change. One must distinguish between the formal essence of a mode and the existence of a mode and how these two entities are “in” substance. Formal essences are eternal and are in substance in a Platonic sense, while existent modes are temporal and are in substance insofar as they are parts of the whole of nature, or facies totius universi (face of the universe). Furthermore, the former are modes understood as pure relations, while the latter are modes understood as finite individuals. Formal essences are relations that specify how finite individuals will behave once they come into existence, while existent modes are individuals that express the relations defined by formal essences, as forces that possess a capacity to act and to be acted upon. According to these distinctions, I maintain that it is possible to develop a coherent account of contrariety and, consequently, of generation and destruction in Spinoza’s system.
98. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 5 > Issue: 1
Tzuchien Tho Actual and Ideal Infinitesimals in Leibniz’s Specimen Dynamicum
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This article aims to treat the question of the reality of Leibniz’s infinitesimals from the perspective of their application in his account of corporeal motion. Rather than beginning with logical foundations or mathematical methodology, I analyze Leibniz’s use of an allegedly “instantiated” infinitesimal magnitude in his treatment of dead force in the Specimen Dynamicum. In this analysis I critique the interpretive strategy that uses the Leibnizian distinction, drawn from the often cited 1706 letter to De Volder, between actual and ideal for understanding the meaning of Leibniz’s infinitesimal fictionalism. In particular, I demonstrate the ambiguity that results from sticking too closely with the idea that ideal mathematical terms merely “represent” concrete or actual things. In turn I suggest that, rather than something that had to be prudentially separated from the realm of actual things, the mathematics of infi nitesimals was part of how Leibniz conceived of the distinction between the actual and ideal within the Specimen Dynamicum.
99. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 5 > Issue: 1
Emanuele Costa Leibniz on Relations: From (Soft) Reductionism to the Expression of the Universe
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In this paper, I undertake an analysis of Leibniz’s theory of relations. My main argument focuses on distinguishing the ontological part of this theory from the logical/grammatical part, and showing that several studies of this subject are misplaced. I offer a clarification of the matter, presenting an argument that shows how Leibniz does not provide a unified theory for the two sides of his theory of relations. I proceed to argue about soft and hard reductionism, supporting the former. I show how Leibniz’s “re-writing project” about the elimination of dyadic predicates in the “perfect language” of philosophy fits in the picture of his theory without the implication of a nominalist position. Nevertheless, thanks to the distinguishing argument, I am able to argue for Leibniz’s conceptualism on the ontological side of the theory of relations, without using any logical/grammatical argument. I deploy an analysis of all the core themes in his theory, from compossibility to expressionism, from concogitabilitas to supervenience, showing how Leibniz’s position is neither nominalist nor realist, but rather a medial position that has to be understood in its own complexity.
100. Journal of Early Modern Studies: Volume > 5 > Issue: 1
Books Received