Dutch Cartesianism and the Birth of Philosophy of Science

Cover......Page 1
Copyright......Page 6
Acknowledgments......Page 7
Contents......Page 9
Introduction......Page 13
1.1 HPS, &HPS, HOPOS (and history of philosophy)......Page 20
1.2 Descartes’s foundationalism: A historiographical appraisal......Page 23
1.3 From foundation to philosophy of science: Leading problems......Page 30
2.1 Regius and the Utrecht Crisis  (1641)......Page 35
2.2 A medical standpoint on philosophy......Page 38
2.3 Regius’s clash with Descartes......Page 41
2.4 Medicine and the method of natural philosophy......Page 46
2.5 The necessity of a foundation?......Page 50
3.1 Critiques and replies......Page 51
3.1.1 The critiques of Descartes......Page 54
3.1.2 The co-ordinated strategy of defence of Cartesianism......Page 57
3.2 Logic as introduction to Cartesian philosophy: Clauberg’s Defensio cartesiana and Logica vetus et nova......Page 63
3.3 Metaphysics and natural theology in the foundation of philosophy and art......Page 67
3.4 The ‘re-duplication’ of metaphysics and the birth of ontology......Page 76
4.1 Cartesianism in Leiden in the 1650s: Physics without metaphysics......Page 81
4.2 Philosophy, theology, and ethics (and the separation thesis)......Page 84
4.3 Cartesianism and rational ethics: Geulincx between Reformed theology and Spinozism......Page 88
4.3.1 The architectonic of philosophy......Page 90
4.4 Geulincx’s threefold metaphysics: Autology, somatology, and theology......Page 95
4.4.1 An Aristotelian axiom......Page 97
4.4.2 The body......Page 100
4.4.3 The freedom of God......Page 104
4.5 The foundation of experience and intellectual evidence......Page 109
4.5.1 The hierarchy of knowledge......Page 112
4.6 Physics de-metaphysicised......Page 116
5.1 The ‘misuse’ and ‘corruption’ of Cartesianism......Page 117
5.2 De Raey’s foundation of scientific knowledge: Logic as metaphysics......Page 124
5.2.1 The intersections of logic and metaphysics in early modern philosophy......Page 126
5.3 The developments of De Raey’s logic......Page 131
5.3.1 A bifurcation in the academic curriculum......Page 135
6.1 Late Cartesianism in Leiden and Amsterdam......Page 138
6.2 Burchard de Volder’s ‘Cartesian empiricism’......Page 139
6.2.1 From Descartes to De Volder: Iatrochemistry in Leiden......Page 142
6.2.2 Experimental teaching in Leiden: De Volder and Senguerd......Page 144
6.2.3 From Cartesianism to Newtonianism......Page 147
6.3 The quest for principles: philosophy of science without a foundation......Page 154
6.4 The foundation of the principles of nature: A vindication of Descartes’s metaphysics......Page 160
6.5 Foundation and philosophy of science go separate ways: De Volder and De Raey......Page 169
6.6.1 A novelty in the philosophical reflections on language......Page 171
6.6.2 The realm of sensibility......Page 177
6.6.3 Intellectual ideas and modi considerandi......Page 179
6.7 Dutch Cartesian philosophy at the turn of the century......Page 181
7.1 Leiden University in the early eighteenth century......Page 183
7.2 The introduction of Newtonianism in Leiden by ’s Gravesande......Page 184
7.2.1 The didactic of Newton’s physics......Page 187
7.3 Mathematics and experience in the discovery of natural laws......Page 190
7.4 A first foundation: The survival axiom......Page 193
7.5 Logic and metaphysics as the introduction to natural philosophy......Page 194
7.6 The theological foundation of moral evidence......Page 199
7.7 ’s Gravesande’s Newtonian philosophy......Page 206
8 Conclusion: From ancilla theologiae to philosophy of science: a systematic assessment......Page 210
Bibliography......Page 216
Index......Page 247