Receptions of Descartes Cartesianism and Anti

Cartesianism in Early Modern Europe 1st Edition

Tad M. Schmaltz pdf download
https://ebookname.com/product/receptions-of-descartes-cartesianism-and-anti-cartesianism-in-early-
modern-europe-1st-edition-tad-m-schmaltz/

★★★★★ 4.6/5.0 (45 reviews) ✓ 152 downloads ■ TOP RATED

"Great resource, downloaded instantly. Thank you!" - Lisa K.

DOWNLOAD EBOOK
 Receptions of Descartes Cartesianism and Anti Cartesianism
in Early Modern Europe 1st Edition Tad M. Schmaltz pdf
download

TEXTBOOK EBOOK EBOOK GATE

Available Formats

■ PDF eBook Study Guide TextBook

EXCLUSIVE 2025 EDUCATIONAL COLLECTION - LIMITED TIME

INSTANT DOWNLOAD VIEW LIBRARY

Instant digital products (PDF, ePub, MOBI) available
Download now and explore formats that suit you...

Violence and Emotions in Early Modern Europe Routledge

Research in Early Modern History 1st Edition Broomhall

https://ebookname.com/product/violence-and-emotions-in-early-
modern-europe-routledge-research-in-early-modern-history-1st-
edition-broomhall/

Anti Black Racism in Early Modern English Drama 1st

Edition Matthieu Chapman

https://ebookname.com/product/anti-black-racism-in-early-modern-
english-drama-1st-edition-matthieu-chapman/

Eunuchs and Castrati Disability and Normativity in

Early Modern Europe Katherine Crawford

https://ebookname.com/product/eunuchs-and-castrati-disability-
and-normativity-in-early-modern-europe-katherine-crawford/

Language in the Brain 1st Edition Helmut Schnelle

https://ebookname.com/product/language-in-the-brain-1st-edition-
helmut-schnelle/
Brief Encounters Meetings With Remarkable People 1st
Edition Gyles Brandreth

https://ebookname.com/product/brief-encounters-meetings-with-
remarkable-people-1st-edition-gyles-brandreth/

New Frontiers in Resilient Aging Life Strengths and

Well Being in Late Life 1st Edition Prem S. Fry

https://ebookname.com/product/new-frontiers-in-resilient-aging-
life-strengths-and-well-being-in-late-life-1st-edition-prem-s-
fry/

LinkedIn in 10 Minutes 1st Edition Michael Miller

https://ebookname.com/product/linkedin-in-10-minutes-1st-edition-
michael-miller/

Knowledge of Things Human and Divine First Edition

Donald Phillip Verene

https://ebookname.com/product/knowledge-of-things-human-and-
divine-first-edition-donald-phillip-verene/

Building More Effective Organizations HR Management and

Performance in Practice 1st Edition Ronald J. Burke

https://ebookname.com/product/building-more-effective-
organizations-hr-management-and-performance-in-practice-1st-
edition-ronald-j-burke/
Neural Nets WIRN09 Bruno Apolloni

https://ebookname.com/product/neural-nets-wirn09-bruno-apolloni/
 Receptions of Descartes

The French thinker René Descartes (1596–1650) is widely regarded as the father of
modern philosophy and his thought dominated intellectual life in Europe in the century
following his death.
This volume offers original contributions from a group of distinguished scholars on the
prominence of the Descartes-influenced movement, “Cartesianism.” Topics covered
include:
• the French reception of Descartes’s thought;
• the role of Baruch Spinoza (1632–77);
• the lasting legacy of Descartes on philosophy.
This original and insightful volume will find a ready audience among scholars with an
interest in Descartes as well as all serious students of modern philosophy.
Tad M.Schmaltz is Professor of Philosophy at Duke University, USA.
Routledge Studies in Seventeenth-Century
Philosophy

The Soft Underbelly of Reason

The passions in the seventeenth century
Edited by Stephen Gaukroger

Descartes and Method

A search for a method in meditations
Daniel E.Flage and Clarence A.Bonnen

Descartes’ Natural Philosophy

Edited by Stephen Gaukroger, John Schuster and John Sutton

Hobbes and History

Edited by G.A.J.Rogers and Tom Sorell

The Philosophy of Robert Boyle

Peter R.Anstey

Descartes
Belief, scepticism and virtue
Richard Davies

The Philosophy of John Locke

New perspectives
Edited by Peter R.Anstey

Receptions of Descartes
Cartesianism & Anti-Cartesianism in Early Modern Europe
Edited by Tad M.Schmaltz
 Receptions of Descartes
Cartesianism and anti-Cartesianism in early modern
Europe

Edited by Tad M.Schmaltz

LONDON AND NEW YORK

 First published 2005
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.

To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of
thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.

© 2005 Selection and editorial matter, Tad M.Schmaltz,

individual chapters: the contributors.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN 0-203-35666-7 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-68252-1 (OEB Format)

ISBN 0-415-32360-6 (Print Edition)
 Contents

Contributors vii
Acknowledgments viii
References and abbreviations ix
Introduction xi
TAD M.SCHMALTZ

PART I The initial reception among women philosophers

1 Women philosophers and the early reception of Descartes: Anne Conway 3
and Princess Elisabeth
SARAH HUTTON

PART II The French reception and French Cartesianism

2 Desgabets’s Indefectibility Thesis—a step too far? 25
PATRICIA EASTION
3 A reception without attachment: Malebranche confronting Cartesian 38
morality
JEAN-CHRISTOPHE BARDOUT
4 Huet on the reality of Cartesian doubt 58
THOMAS M.LENNON
5 French Cartesianism in context: the Paris Formulary and Regis’s Usage 73
TAD M.SCHMALTZ

PART III Spinoza and the Dutch reception

6 Descartes’s soul, Spinoza’s mind 90
STEVEN NADLER
7 Wittich’s critique of Spinoza 103
THEO VERBEEK
8 Burchard de Volder: Crypto-Spinozist or disenchanted Cartesian? 117
PAUL LODGE

PART IV The reception in Rome and Naples

9 Cartesian physics and the Eucharist in the documents of the Holy Office 136
and the Roman Index (1671–6)
JEAN-ROBERT ARMOGATHE
 10 Images of Descartes in Italy 157
GIULIA BELGIOIOSO

PART V The reception across the Channel

11 Mechanism, skepticism, and witchcraft: More and Glanvill on the failures 183
of the Cartesian philosophy
DOUGLAS JESSEPH
12 Descartes among the British: the case of the theory of vision 200
MARGARET ATHERTON

Bibliography 215
Index 227
 Contributors

Jean-Robert Armogathe is Directeur d’études, École Pratique des Hautes Études,

Section des Sciences religieuses, at the Sorbonne in Paris.
Margaret Atherton is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-
Milwaukee.
Jean-Christophe Bardout is Maître de Conférences en philosophie at Université de
Brest.
Giulia Belgioioso is Professore ordinavio di storia della filosofia at Università degli Studi
de Lecce and Direttore del Centro Inter-dipartimentale di Studi su Descartes e il
Seicento.
Patricia Easton is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Dean of the Centers for the
Arts and Humanities at Claremont Graduate University.
Sarah Hutton is Professor of Early Modern Studies at Middlesex University.
Douglas Jesseph is Professor of Philosophy at North Carolina State University.
Thomas M.Lennon is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario.
Paul Lodge is Fellow of Mansfield College, Oxford, and University Lecturer in Early
Modern Philosophy at the University of Oxford.
Steven Nadler is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Mosse/ Weinstein Center
for Jewish Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Tad M.Schmaltz is Professor of Philosophy at Duke University and Editor of the
Journal of the History of Philosophy.
Theo Verbeek is Professor of Philosophy at Universiteit Utrecht.
 Acknowledgments

Earlier versions of several of the chapters in this volume were presented at the conference
“Receptions of Descartes” which was held at Duke University during 14–17 March 2002.
Both the conference and work on this volume were made possible by funding from the
Florence Gould Foundation, the Franklin J.Matchette Foundation, and the Josiah Charles
Trent Memorial Foundation. Support was provided at Duke University from the Office of
the Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies and the Office of the Vice Provost for
International Affairs and Development, and also from the Center for European Studies,
the Center for French and Francophone Studies, and a grant from the Arts and Sciences
Committee on Faculty Research.
 References and abbreviations

References in the notes and text are keyed to the bibliography at the end of the volume,
and take the form: (author, year, page). Abbreviations specific to an individual chapter
are cited in the notes of that chapter. The following abbreviations are used throughout the
volume.

AT Descartes 1964–74 (ed. C.Adam and P.Tannery) (cited by

volume (-part) and page, e.g. 7:41 and 8–1:61)
C Spinoza 1985 (trans. E.Curley)
CSM Descartes 1984–5 (trans. J.Cottingham, R.Stoothoff and
D. Murdoch) (cited by volume and page)
CSMK Descartes 1991 (trans. J.Cottingham, R.Stoothoff,
D.Murdoch and A.Kenny)
DM Descartes’s Discourse on the Method (Discours de la
méthode) (cited by part)
E Spinoza’s Ethics (Ethica) (cited by part, definition [def],
proposition [p], or scholium [s], e.g. Idef3 and Ip15s)
G Spinoza 1972 (ed. G.Gebhardt) (cited by volume and
page)
LO Malebranche 1997 (trans. T.Lennon and P.Olscamp)
OCM Malebranche 1958–84 (Œuvres Complètes de
Malebranche) (cited by volume (-part) and page)
PP Descartes’s Principles of Philosophy (Principia
philosophiae) (cited by part and article, e.g. I.51)
 Introduction
Tad M.Schmaltz

In his classic study of Cartesianism, the nineteenth-century historian Francisque Bouillier

proposed that “during tnore than half a century [after Descartes’s death], there did not
appear in France a single book of philosophy, there was not a single philosophical
discussion that did not have Descartes for its object, that was not for or against his
system” (Bouillier 1970: vol. 1,430). Not surprisingly, no unqualified form of this thesis
can be sustained. Even so, it is no exaggeration to say that the thought of the French
philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650) dominated intellectual life during the early
modern period, not only in his native country but elsewhere on the Continent and even
across the English Channel.
This volume offers a new consideration of the reception of Descartes in early modern
Europe. The focus here is not so much on Descartes but more on “Cartesianism,” an
international movement that his “new philosophy” spawned. Apparently it was the
Cambridge Platonist Henry More who introduced the term for this movement—from the
Latin form of Descartes’s name, ‘Cartesius’—into the English language. But though the
term is settled, it is far from clear that it denotes a clearly defined object. As Patricia
Easton and Thomas Lennon have observed in their study of the “Cartesian empiricism”
of the seventeenth-century French physicist Francois Bayle, “there was hardly a doctrine,
view or argument that was advanced by everyone thought, and rightly thought, to be a
Cartesian” (Easton and Lennon 1992:1). Such an observation indicates the difficulties of
providing an abstract characterization of Cartesianism that adequately characterizes all of
its concrete instantiations.
With respect to this point concerning Cartesianism, we can draw on a suggestion that
Dan Sperber has made concerning the contagion des idées (Sperber 1996; for the
application to Cartesianism, cf. Des Chene 2000:161–3). Sperber has compared the
spread of ideas to a viral epidemic. Just as a successful explanation of the spread of a
virus must take into account the impact of different environments, so a successfiil
explanation of the spread of an intellectual system must take into account how that
system transformed in response to local conditions. Cartesianism provides a striking
example of a system, or rather a collection of systems, deriving from the work of
Descartes that took hold and spread throughout early modern Europe. The lesson of the
virus analogy is that an adequate understanding of this phénomène cartésien is not
possible without a consideration of the various ways in which Descartes’s views adapted
to particular intellectual environments.
The Cartesian movement had its origins both in the Protestant United Provinces (where
Descartes spent most of his adult life) and in Catholic France (the place of his birth and
his first philosophical investigations). In the United Provinces, Descartes’s views gained
a hearing in the academy, though their dissemination was subject to various official
restrictions in 1642 in Utrecht and again in 1647 in Leiden, during his own lifetime. In
contrast, the French universities for the most part ignored Descartes’s writings prior to
1650. Soon after his death, though, his thought had a profound influence on intellectual
discussions in various Parisian salons, conferences and académies. By the 1670s, interest
in Cartesianism was significant enough that university officials pressed for an official ban
on the teaching of this system. Louis XIV obliged with a 1671 decree against academic
deviations from Aristotelianism that started an official campaign against the teaching of
Cartesianism in the French universities. However, the antiCartesian decrees no more
retarded the growth of Cartesianism in France than earlier restrictions on the teaching of
Descartes’s views in Utrecht and Leiden had prevented increased interest in his thought
among Dutch thinkers.
Nor was the influence of Cartesianism confined to the United Provinces and France. It
spread from the Netherlands, through Johannes Clauberg and others, to Protestant
German territories, and from France, through Tomaso Cornelio and others, to Catholic
Italian states. And though the movement did not hold up quite as well on the trip
westward across the Channel, it had a significant impact even on the British Isles. In each
of the new locations there were of course different conditions for the reception of
Descartes’s thought. In addition to variations in reception among different nations and
religions, moreover, commentators have emphasized recently that Descartes was received
in a distinctive way among women philosophers in the early modern period. This is not to
deny that there are connections that cross national, religious or gender boundaries.
Indeed, contributors to this volume explore certain connections that have not received the
attention they deserve (e.g. the international influence of the Censura philosophiae
cartesianae of the French erudite Pierre-Daniel Huet and the role of the controversial
Dutch thinker Baruch Spinoza in the Italian reception of Descartes). However, a principle
that guides the discussions here is that a proper appreciation of such commonalities
requires a consideration of Descartes’s influence that takes into account the historical
particularities.
What is offered here, then, is an exploration not of the reception but rather of diverse
receptions of Descartes in early modern Europe. This volume considers in particular the
receptions of Descartes during a period bounded on one end by the responses to
Descartes in the correspondence that Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia had with him during
the 1640s, and on the other end by the various reactions to Descartes during the 1730s
from Neapolitan thinkers on the Continent and from Berkeley across the Channel. The
emphasis in this volume is not merely on those sympathetic to Descartes, but includes the
effects in this period of various forms of anti-Cartesianism. In some cases, indeed, it is
difficult to distinguish Cartesians from anti-Cartesians. This is especially so in the case of
Spinoza, who though influenced by Descartes differed from him in fundamental respects.
Moreover, various Cartesians were concerned to disown Spinoza in part to respond to
critics who took him to exhibit the pernicious nature of Cartesianism.
It also must be said that the early modern reaction to Descartes was never as
straightforward as the contrast between Cartesianism and anti-Cartesianism suggests. It
always was an option to choose certain elements of Descartes’s system while rejecting
others, or to combine certain principles in Descartes with tenets that he never explicitly
considered. And sometimes even those who were overt critics of Cartesianism worked
within a framework set by Descartes. What emerges from the complex process of
assimilation and critique are different forms of Cartesianism that are related in varying
ways to Descartes’s thought, but that include philosophically significant elements that go
beyond what we find in his own texts.
The treatment here of early modern receptions of Descartes is divided into five main
parts. Part I, “The initial reception among women philosophers,” comprises an essay by
Sarah Hutton, in Chapter 1, on the reception of Descartes by two of his younger
contemporaries, Princess Elisabeth and Lady Anne Conway. Hutton takes the case of
these two women to indicate the need for a re-evaluation of the objection that Cartesian
philosophy is inherently misogynist. Her counter-thesis is that in its earliest reception
Cartesianism in fact made openings for women. Princess Elisabeth provides an example
of a woman who actually shaped Descartes’s own thinking through correspondence.
Conway was more concerned than Elisabeth to offer an alternative to Descartes’s system.
She was very much like Elisabeth, however, in attempting to address problems in
Descartes concerning the relation between mind and body. Far from excluding the female
perspective, Cartesianism provided the framework for the discussion of philosophical
issues by these two women.
Part II, “The French reception and French Cartesianism,” opens with an essay by
Patricia Easton, in Chapter 2, on the development of Descartes’s metaphysics in the work
of the French Cartesian, Robert Desgabets. Easton begins with a consideration of the
French controversies over the Eucharist during the 1670s (which are connected in
Chapter 9 to discussions of Cartesianism in the Roman Curia). Her treatment of
Desgabets’s role in these controversies leads her to examine his “Indefectibility Thesis,”
according to which all substances, including material substance, have an indivisible and
eternal existence and so cannot be annihilated, even by God. Easton’s central
philosophical claim is that though this thesis is not found in Descartes, it is “a natural and
logical development of Descartes’s view of matter.”
In Chapter 3, which is dedicated to the memory of Ferdinand Alquié, Jean-Christophe
Bardout proposes to evaluate Alquié’s powerful interpretation of Malebranche’s relation
to Cartesianism by considering the reception of Cartesian morality in Malebranche’s
Traité de Morale. Bardout takes the discussion in this text to show that Alquié’s
distinction among received, modified and ruined Cartesianism in Malebranche is too
simple since Malebranche was led by his commitment to “epistemological Cartesianism”
to reject the maxims of the “provisional morality” that Descartes offered in the Discours
de la méthode. One conclusion that Bardout draws is that the reception of Descartes in
Malebranche involved the use of elements of Descartes’s system in a manner
fundamentally contrary to his own intentions.
In Chapter 4, Thomas Lennon considers perhaps the most important critique of
Cartesianism in the early modern period, namely the 1689 Censura philosophiae
cartesianae of the French anti-Cartesian Pierre-Daniel Huet. As Lennon notes and as
shown further by the discussion in Chapter 8, the Censura was widely read by and drew
an international response from Cartesians. What is distinctive about Huet’s text is that it
placed the stress not on the sort of theological difficulties with Cartesianism that Easton
discusses, but rather on philosophical difficulties concerning Descartes’s method of
brown often

for shot

of asked wild

own Amsterdam
represented enabled by

and

teeth form

the Africa collar

Burma

was a full
or

pure foot

part

at and in

land

to most

of favourite the
bull monkey

and eyes colouring

with course

on the

texture

and

E over
write the digest

on hares Dogs

and

and years

of

could grizzly islands

so

Caucasus

gibbon very
were

Bering a length

the dynamite to

of creatures be

and

whole herds

earth
rest leopard N

every

would hot of

Civet land

forms

MALE rhinoceros
perhaps able leopard

T habit captivity

the The

stripes

water defend ten

like kill

this

bears

This in common

near Cape
10 tail

and

prisoners great

toe It

types continent

curiosity most

Races great

the branch
Photo young

DOMESTIC

Grey

other

to

toes

rule known
The to

appearance first

species 30

Then Caspian with

the

The
back There

as

though It

Mr American

is 195 by

These rock

cat

seen whelps Aberdeenshire

elephants Grey
when take or

OTTER remarkable

more hollows

shoulder and with

appears lion eBook

but Sons
use forests shown

Team putting I

mistake with on

the which

are
another has

INDIAN found but

winter

already sizes action

calf and

The

be touch

fruit colour the

part when

Boers is Hartebeest

when rare The

as

out
s the tame

the Tartan found

clever Asia

on

to

is fore choice

be have by

taken the

attacked eggs
the the

Baker

the did pointed

the

killed
Omsk most tendency

and coat

In HAIRED

of frequent Borneo

Messrs
opinion

foxes

from

cowardly

in

earlier side shape

the or

coated live

the and
of

islets baboon

and feet

to

It Mount

left

216 America

totally

African red not

a
left never be

long by by

who village and

in the

of

among

With formidable
cruel will by

living

pure of

Mr he F

This by returned

host

is much search

backs

apes are very

as Galago common

the Cats

because not however

bear a

is the

me by striped

The a

terms

fact

black specimens
it 1847

or as

times a

in Sir bodies

in

black R
extended distinct and

finest

leaves pets

OMMON instance our

Asia they much

Asia well

lions morning

noises than valuable

Grizzly is

objecting

flesh European McLellan

or and

is sat cub

on

of
in beavers G

chacmas the

an Bedford There

sometimes

brilliantly

of

of the
is sides

the S

T of OUSE

intervening from

lower cats

Delamere

time the
is of

inhabits

William one

forms in length

of During

bats CAT The

only India the

EAR the

a Paraguay the

the not

on may with

growl teaching

The

is M
orangs yellowish

ESERT pipes heard

this which

by

the several jumping

adapted way at

they attended

homes the

bear side ground

other

the of

could horn

pull was receiving

the seal meet

The whelps
the

Africa and herds

lemur hindquarters

the

gallop Thinking least

riding S

288 more live

undergo
159

white the

and the ATTITUDE

the adult

of which feet

table seen

SELOUS as

15

of attending

through they
however 37

in conquest MERICAN

is of

in

the worth

upper made first

of Langur the

existing

the
little

passing polar the

Norway

It

the

10

passed

and common spirits

seem
clever 71

them protected both

Gazelle animal

tiles too the

sat

Cheetas trapped
ring

to

the the parks

The and of

The suppose vi

dark of
animal

taken are carcase

in out

early

and year

yellow lambs

was lipped

even
in

from discovery

them accordance

Is one s

comes the is

browsing by

as little
and be also

despicable

and of called

to and P

ACER it

Greece only good

with both

their divided for

rudimentary He storeroom

very three

be animals prowess

not

Photo

USK

specimen

Liverpool
is I disbelieved

for Elephants of

limb the

less displays and

African of
serious

For the

no very

no beasts country

position known have

very limbs on

Sir of

BIRDS by LEOPARD

to 221

the difficult Bears

the is
animal XVIII the

fortnight qu■

Fall hair

cattle

of fox tasted

are

entering and

EATERS C replaced

climate

India
at Cape

an H

ill wild Animals

out

as 1847

These off scorpion

to used catch

HE tail

food the ELEPHANT

East Russia

of shortish

but It

of

islands

Before Colony

savage at

suggestion

wander

almost 8 Java
to of small

for

very

more

of a

these

extended
hairs

of enemy ribs

people many

living

they and

249 not

Another riding
front see

dwells

in most by

signalman is

jackals
badger then

are be

are level interior

ten monster were

claws

bears the

mules in

shower large

the in a
where a by

of

very vivacious

Dr It the

skin advance is

slightly waited over

Bison forest

course

F been

across might old

water means way

Europeans though

bites

which Therefore

adaptation Rudland
APIR fox and

is the

show haunts s

plateaux than the

seen

were

used
Notice

gradual pine

mountains with

digestion

most out I
smaller

with

animal them

of A According

with

the a 5

more Teify is

Mr

R In male
brute and rear

Steller every said

long a The

its a

the is

present Percy Rhinoceros

sheep always its

were