Abstract My personal interest in an International Society for Intellectual History is determined by my interest in Dutch Cartesianism. The history of this phenomenon is essentially that of the transformation of a non-academic philosophy into an academic philosophy, which means a history of how concepts change through and in the confrontation with the institutional and political religious) contingencies of a certain period in Dutch history. Moreover, Cartesianism developed into a cultural phenomenon with a strong impact on religion, politics, and literature. I think this makes it an ideal subject of intellectual history and consequently an ideal focus for an international conference in intellectual history.
Descartes' method is an easy way to obtain perfect knowledge. In fact, however, perfect knowledge is impossible, so that Cartesianism is a sure road for Scepticism. The fundamental motive behind the accusation of scepticism, therefore, was to combat 'Vain curiosity. Until the first half of the seventeenth century, the use of this doctrine had been limited to preventing very particular questions, such as, for example, why God elects certain people and rejects certain others. In general, however, it applied to God rather than nature. This raises the question whether, in applying the idea of learned ignorance to natural knowledge, Voetius and Schoock changed its meaning. Their own idea was that they did not. According to them, God is free, so that any attempt to know His creation a priori amounts to a sacrilegious effort to penetrate into a sphere that was essentially closed to mortals, that of God's being. Keywords: Descartes; learned ignorance; scepticism; Voetius
Pollot (Polotti, Palotti) was born at Dronero (Piedmont), the son of a Protestant family. After the death of his father, his mother moved to Geneva, and Alphonse and his brother were sent to the Low Countries to serve in the Dutch army. Although during the siege of 's-Hertogenbosch (Bois-le-Duc) in 1629 he lost his right arm, he continued his military career until 1642, when he became attached to the court of the stadholder, Frederick-Henry of Orange, and, after the latter's death, to that of his widow, Princess Amalia. About 1650, he returned to Geneva, where he died in 1668. Pollot wrote to Descartes briefly after the publication of the Discourse on Method (1637). Although Descartes did not reply, a personal meeting must have followed, mediated possibly by Henricus Reneri. Descartes was impressed by Pollot's mathematical expertise, believing that he was one of the few to understand his Geometry (AT I 518). Later Pollot served as an intermediary between Descartes and Princess Elisabeth and advised Descartes during his conflict with Voetius. Pollot is seen as the main author of a series of objections to Descartes’ Discourse–written in the form of a letter by a certain “S.P.” (AT I 512–17; for Descartes’ reply see AT II 34–46, CSMK 96–102). Planned by Descartes as a sequel to the Discourse and coming after the objections of others, they were probably prearranged so as to cover the entire spectrum of questions discussed in the Discourse. Thus, there are questions, for example, on the cogito (e.g., why not “I breath, therefore I am”?), the animal soul, and subtle matter. Although it is likely that they were authored by Pollot, others, like Reneri and possibly even Constantijn Huygens, may have contributed as well. Pollot's unpublished copy of the Treatise on Man was one of the sources of the first edition of that work in 1662.
A dozen papers by internationally known scholars explore questions largely unthinkable without Richard Watson’s classic Downfall of Cartesianism: Descartes in Holland, Descartes and Simon Foucher, and issues raised by Descartes for philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, translation and toleration.
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.
Brégy was born the eldest son of a president of the chambre des comptes. In 1637 he became councilor in the Parlement of Paris and in 1644 conseiller du roi. In 1645 he was sent on missions to Poland and Sweden, where Queen Christina appointed him capitaine des gardes. In March 1649, he was to join a French embassy to Constantinople, but he returned to France (December 1649), took service in the army, and eventually became lieutenant general (1655). Nothing is known about his later years except that he died November 22, 1689. His wife Charlotte de Chazans (1619–93) was known as a poetess. During the short period that Descartes and Brégy were together in Sweden they became friends (AT V 454–55). Descartes wrote Brégy after the latter left Sweden (AT V 455–57). To prevent his letter from being lost in the mail, he included a ballet to be performed the next evening. This has led some to believe that Descartes wrote a ballet. However, the ballet actually performed in Stockholm on December 9, 1649, was a German translation (by Freinsheim) of a French original by Hélie Poirier: Die Uberwundene Liebe (Love defeated). On January 15, 1650, Descartes wrote again, complaining that during the Swedish winter “human thoughts freeze as easily as water,” and announcing that he will not wait for Brégy's return (expected in March) to go back (AT V 467, CSMK 383).
Rediscovered in the middle of the nineteenth century, for a long time it was only because of his relation with other more conspicuous philosophers, such as Spinoza, Leibniz and Kant, that interest in Geulincx arose. It has since become clear that he was an original thinker in his own right, who proposed an intriguing metaphysics and made interesting contributions to logic.
Abstract Starting from an analysis of chapter 4 of Spinoza’s Tractatus theologico-politicus the relation between ‘Divine Law’ and Spinoza’s claim that God cannot be a lawgiver is further examined. It is shown that Spinoza’s reinterpretation of the notion of ‘Divine Law’ as the rule of life leading to human perfection, that is, the intellectual knowledge and love of God is not consistent with some of the central tenets of the Ethics; that, as opposed to what is claimed by Spinoza himself, it is irrelevant to political philosophy; and that it mainly serves as a smoke screen for the denial of God’s legislative will, which in the seventeenth century was associated with atheism.
