Early Modern Philosophy Research Articles

Experiment, Speculation, and Religion in Early Modern Philosophy ed. by Alberto Vanzo and Peter R. Anstey

Experiment, Speculation, and Religion in Early Modern Philosophy ed. by Alberto Vanzo and Peter R. Anstey

Late Scholastic Analyses of Inductive Reasoning

The late scholastic era was, among others, contemporary to the “emergence of probability”, the German academic philosophy from Leibniz to Kant, and the introduction of Newtonian physics. Within this era, two branches of the late-scholastic analysis of induction can be identified, one which can be thought of as a continual development of earlier scholastic approaches, while the other one absorbed influences of early modern philosophy, mathematics, and physics. Both branches of scholastic philosophy share the terminology of modalities, probability, and forms of (inductive) arguments. Furthermore, induction was commonly considered valid as a result of being a covert syllogism. Last but not least, there appears to be a difference in emphasis between the two traditions’ analyses of induction: while Tolomei discussed the theological presuppositions of induction, Amort’s “leges contingentium” exemplify the principles of induction by aleatory phenomena and Boscovich’s rules for inductive arguments are predominately concerned with the generalisation of macro-level observations to the micro-level.

From Crusades to Colonization: Violence in Secular and Religious Political Theory

This paper examines the transition in political philosophy between the medieval and early-modern periods by focusing on the emergence of sovereignty doctrine. Scholars such as Charles Taylor and John Rawls have focused on the ability of modern-states to overcome conflicts between different religious confessionals. In contrast, this paper seeks to examine some of the peace-promoting features of Latin-Christendom and some of the conflict-promoting features of modern-secular states. The Christian universalism of the medieval period is contrasted with the colonial ventures promoted by the Peace of Westphalia. This paper’s goal is not to argue that secularism is in fact more violent than religion. Rather, it seeks to demonstrate the major role that religion played in early modern philosophy and the development of sovereignty doctrine. It argues against the view that the modern, secular state is capable of neutrality vis-à-vis religion, and also combats the view that the secular nature of modern international law means that it is neutral to the different beliefs and values of the world’s peoples. These observations emphasize the ways in which state power and legitimacy are at the heart of the secular turn in political philosophy.

Quid est causa? The Debate on the Definition of ‘Cause’ in Early Jesuit Scholasticism

AbstractFrancisco Suárez’s thought has often been interpreted as paving the way for early modern philosophy, and causation is one of the themes in which his name is regularly associated with modern ideas. This is, however, an extrinsic relation – despite our lamentably poor knowledge of early modern scholasticism, Suárez’s doctrines can only be properly understood in relation to their proximate scholastic context. This article attempts a reevaluation of the importance of this context through an analysis of the definition of ‘cause’ in early modern scholasticism, focusing on the influence of Jesuit authors such as Toledo, Perera, and Fonseca on Suárez’s famous definition of ‘cause’, often considered as an anticipation of Descartes’ reduction of causality to efficiency. As it turns out, the proximate context of this definition provides not only the debate to which Suárez responds, but also the common conception of causality that Suárez tries to define more properly than his predecessors.

The Issue of Sociability in the Early Modern Moral Philosophy*

The idea of sociability - a person’s disposition and ability to communicate and live in the community - goes through the whole history of philosophy. Due to the peculiarity of translations, this term and the whole tradition related to it have been lost to the Russian reader. The article discusses some tendencies in comprehending the idea of sociability in early modern moral philosophy. The key to this consideration is F. Hutcheson’s essay On the Natural Sociability of Mankind, the title of which contains the very term “sociability” and which presents the main essential points in a discussion of the issue in the first third of the 18 th century. One can distinguish two main approaches to the problem. According to one of them, sociability determined by various human natural needs is the basis of social relations, and a person becomes a moral agent as a social being (H. Grotius, T. Hobbes, S. Pufen-dorf, B. Mandeville). According to another approach, sociability is a manifestation of a person’s natural tendency to care for the good of others, and its consistent implementation leads to the formation of community and supports its stability (Cambridge Platonists, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, J. Butler, D. Hume, A. Smith). Representatives of both approaches recognized contradiction in manifestations of sociability or in its nature. I. Kant theoretically overcame the confrontation between these approaches and conceptualized the contradiction and associated it with the human nature. According to Kant, the “unsociable sociability” is given in the fact that a person has a tendency to sociability but also a tendency to self-assertion at the expense of others. However, despite the presence of asocial features (evil principle), Kant considered the person’s inherent sociability (good principle) as a prerequisite for culture and as one of the most important conditions of possibility of morality.

From Crusades to Colonization: Violence in Secular and Religious Political Theory

This paper examines the transition in political philosophy between the medieval and early-modern periods by focusing on the emergence of sovereignty doctrine. Scholars such as Charles Taylor and John Rawls have focused on the ability of modern-states to overcome conflicts between different religious confessionals. In contrast, this paper seeks to examine some of the peace-promoting features of Latin-Christendom and some of the conflict-promoting features of modern-secular states. The Christian universalism of the medieval period is contrasted with the colonial ventures promoted by the Peace of Westphalia. This paper’s goal is not to argue that secularism is in fact more violent than religion. Rather, it seeks to demonstrate the major role that religion played in early modern philosophy and the development of sovereignty doctrine. It argues against the view that the modern, secular state is capable of neutrality vis-à-vis religion, and also combats the view that the secular nature of modern international law means that it is neutral to the different beliefs and values of the world’s peoples. These observations emphasize the ways in which state power and legitimacy are at the heart of the secular turn in political philosophy.

Leibniz on Slavery and the Ownership of Human Beings

Leibniz puts forward an intriguing argument against the moral permissibility of chattel slavery in a text from 1703. This argument has three independent layers or sub-arguments. The first is that slavery violates natural rights. The second is that moral laws such as the principles of equity and piety oppose slavery, or at least severely limit the permissible actions toward slaves. The third and final layer is that slavery can at most be justified if the slave is permanently incapable of conducting herself well. Yet, it is very doubtful that any actual human beings satisfy that description. This paper analyzes and evaluates Leibniz’s argument, which scholars have so far largely neglected. Even though some elements of the argument are not original to Leibniz, it is of considerable importance for the scholarship of early modern philosophy: it sheds light on Leibniz’s views not only on the moral status of slavery itself, but also on moral rights and obligations more generally.

New Perspectives on Agency in Early Modern Philosophy

ABSTRACTThis introductory article outlines the themes and aims of this special issue, which offers new perspectives on early modern debates about agency in two ways: First, it recovers writings on agency and liberty that have been widely neglected or that have received insufficient attention, including writings by Anne Conway, Henry More, Ralph Cudworth, William King, Gabrielle Suchon, Elizabeth Berkeley Burnet, Mary Astell, and Anthony Ashley Cooper, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury. Second, it reveals the richness of early modern debates about agency and liberty.

‘One common matter’ in Descartes' physics: the Cartesian concepts of matter quantities, weight and gravity

ABSTRACTIt is common to assume that Descartes did not have a conception of an object's matter density independently of its size, but this is a rather incomplete assessment of the early modern natural philosopher's theory. Key to our understanding of Descartes's physics is a consideration of the ratios between the quantities of the different types of matter in which an object consists. As these ratios determine the degree of an object's porosity and elasticity, they also affect in Descartes's theory the phenomena of gravity and weight.

Introduction: Debates on Experience and Empiricism in Nineteenth Century France

Introduction: Debates on Experience and Empiricism in Nineteenth Century France

Quaker Epistemology

Abstract Quakerism emerged in the seventeenth century, during a time when philosophical debates about the nature of knowledge led to the emergence of modern science. The Quakers, in some conversation with early modern philosophers, developed a distinctive epistemology rooted in their concept of the Light Within, which functioned as a special internal sense giving access to divine insight. The Light Within provided illumination both to properly understand the Bible and to ‘read’ the Book of Nature. This epistemology can be thought of as an expanded experiential empiricism that integrates our ethical and religious knowledge with our scientific knowledge. This epistemology has carried through in Quaker thought to the present day and can be helpful in the context of today’s epistemological crisis.

How to Make the Passions Active: Spinoza and R.G. Collingwood

AbstractMost early modern philosophers held that our emotions are always passions: to experience an emotion is to undergo something rather than to do something. Spinoza is different; he holds that our emotions – what he calls our ‘affects’ – can be actions rather than passions. Moreover, we can convert a passive affect into an active one simply by forming a clear and distinct idea of it. This theory is difficult to understand. I defend the interpretation R.G. Collingwood gives of it in his book, The Principles of Art. An affect, it turns out, is passive when it is ambiguous whether we or somebody else is the subject of the affect. An affect is active when we fully accept the affect as our own. Here, I outline Collingwood's interpretation and then develop it further.

Morality is Not Like Mathematics: The Weakness of the Math‐Moral Analogy

AbstractIn both the early modern period and in contemporary debates, philosophers have argued that there are analogies between mathematics and morality that imply that the ontology and epistemology of morality are crucially similar to the ontology and epistemology of mathematics. I describe arguments for the math‐moral analogy in four early modern philosophers (Locke, Cudworth, Clarke, and Balguy) and in three contemporary philosophers (Clarke‐Doane, Peacocke, and Roberts). I argue that these arguments fail to establish important ontological and epistemological similarities between morality and mathematics. There are analogies between the two areas, but the disanalogies are more significant, undermining the attempt to confer on morality the same ontological and epistemological status that mathematics possesses.

Between Religion and Economics: Towards a Shift of Paradigm in Early Modern Economic Literature

At the beginning of the early modern age, philosophers, religious and political thinkers writing on economics had to deal with categories that were still based on the religious certainties of the medieval West, and with a paradigm built on Aristotelian dialectic between oikos (the family economy) and chrèmata (wealth). From this frame, articulated and innovative investigations on the contemporary economic world were born in the late Middle Ages of Europe: but up until the late seventeenth century, at least, the Aristotelian paradigm remained a rigid cage for most of the writers. Yet, both the impact of some theoretical work on the relationship between religion and economy, and some significant changing in European scenario started to break this cage. Evidence of a shifting of paradigm could be detected even in Counter-Reformation authors like the Italian Giovanni Botero.

Combating Starvation: Comparing Agrarianism, Ethics, and Statecraft in the Legend of Shen Nong and in Andō Shōeki’s Thought

This article examines different ways agrarian thought has been interpreted and employed by ancient Chinese and early modern Japanese philosophers to criticize and attempt to limit the state’s power, and, in at least one case, to try to strengthen it. It analyzes the manner in which arguably the most fundamental human activities of farming, weaving, and governing have been conceptualized in a normative way, and the extent to which thinkers and statesmen in these East Asian historical contexts debated their correct interrelation. The state’s critics were deeply concerned about the tragic occurrence of death by starvation during their ages, and by the conditions that allowed it to happen. They identified and advocated certain ethical values and political measures they believed would mitigate and help prevent this avoidable circumstance. Conversely, the state’s supporters appropriated agrarian thinking to demonstrate how the sovereign’s control of the realm and its subjects could be significantly enhanced by strategically apportioning the land in a particular way. Lastly, both groups of thinkers sought unity, ethically or geopolitically (or both), but they conceived of this ideal in contrasting ways.

The Contextualist Revolution in Early Modern Philosophy

The Contextualist Revolution in Early Modern Philosophy

Common Conceptions and the Metaphysics of Material Substance

This paper explores how, according to three early modern philosophers, philosophical theory should relate to our pre-theoretical picture of reality. Though coming from very different backgrounds, the Spanish scholastic, Domingo de Soto, and the English natural philosopher, Kenelm Digby, agreed that an ability to accommodate our pre-theoretical picture of the world and our ordinary way of speaking about reality is a virtue for a philosophical theory. Yet at the same time, they disagreed on what kind of ontology of the material world is implied by these. The Dutch Cartesian, Johannes de Raey, took a very different approach, and argued that the picture of reality we naturally develop from our early days onwards and the language associated with it have their use in domains such as law and medical practice, but are a poor guide to the ontology of the material world. Thus, if we are to arrive at a proper understanding of the nature of matter, we need to move beyond the picture of reality we naturally develop from our early days onwards in order to come to see that the nature of matter consists in bare extension.

The Rise and Fall of Euro-American Inter-State War

The Rise and Fall of Euro-American Inter-State War Nicholas Mulder (bio) Keywords internationalism, war, peace, Kellogg-Briand Treaty, history of international law, aggression, conquest, self-defense, sanctions The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World Oona A. Hathaway and Scott J. Shapiro New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017. xxii + 430 pp. If one asked a group of historians, political scientists, and lawyers what they would consider the single most important treaty or international agreement of the last two centuries, one could expect a familiar set of names to be cited: Vienna, Versailles, the Geneva Conventions, Bretton Woods, Yalta, San Francisco, the GATT, Rome, Helsinki. Few would name the 1928 General Treaty for the Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy, also known as the Paris Peace Pact and the Kellogg-Briand Pact, as the most significant. Yet this is the claim put forward by Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro in The Internationalists. The book is an original and provocative work that is grippingly written and makes an ambitious set of arguments spanning several different fields including history, international relations, political science, and international law. Hathaway and Shapiro are distinguished legal scholars at Yale Law School, where Hathaway teaches and works mainly on international law (besides her legal scholarship, she has served as Special Counsel to the General Counsel for National Security Law at the Pentagon); Shapiro holds appointments at the Law School as well as the Philosophy Department at Yale. The Internationalists contains three layers of analysis. The first recovers the Kellogg-Briand Pact and underscores its singular importance to world history. Yet the Paris Peace Pact emerges from the book not so much as a significant episode in its own right—only a dozen or so pages are devoted to the way the treaty actually came to be—but rather as a pivotal point in the history of international law since the early seventeenth century. The essential argument of the book therefore resides at a deeper level, in what Hathaway and Shapiro call the turn from the Old World Order to the New World Order. The Old World Order is the umbrella term they use to describe the ensemble of basic assumptions underlying the law of nations between the early seventeenth and early twentieth century. Its premise was that war was the basic legal procedure for righting wrongs. International law did not care about which party to a conflict possessed a rightful claim, and whose cause was therefore the most just. War was the main arbiter of inter-state disputes, with the spoils and the mantle of justice accruing [End Page 133] to the victor. Four legal rules followed from this: first, territorial conquest was legal; second, gunboat diplomacy was normal and permitted; third, economic sanctions as an alternative to war did not exist, because imposing them violated the impartiality that was essential to remaining legally neutral; and fourth, once a state of war existed, soldiers could kill, maim, and slaughter without being held individually accountable. Hathaway and Shapiro anoint Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) as the archetypal thinker of this order. Although they trace the key features of his thinking, their picture of the Old World Order does not depend on Grotius's ideas alone. Hathaway and Shapiro provide a lucid tour d'horizon of the early modern philosophy of the laws of war. They point out the importance of war manifestos as expressions of grievances, shedding light on an understudied topic among historians of international law. Another chapter illuminates how the existence of a legal state of war allowed individuals to get away with murder. The overall picture that emerges is that of a legal universe that is radically different from the one we inhabit today. For centuries, war was not only tolerated, but also had an important regulative function in the international order because there were no overarching principles of right and wrong—in short, no substantive universal understanding of justice—upon which all countries agreed. The Old World Order is a stylized depiction of a historical era, but this is the point of the analysis: to create an ideal type of how the laws of war functioned. One of...

Locke and Cartesian Philosophy ed. by Philippe Hamou and Martine Pécharman

Reviewed by: Locke and Cartesian Philosophy ed. by Philippe Hamou and Martine Pécharman Matt Priselac Philippe Hamou and Martine Pécharman, editors. Locke and Cartesian Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. x + 227. Cloth, $65.00. The collected essays in Locke and Cartesian Philosophy, according to its editors, "advocate for a shift of emphasis" in the study of Locke and Descartes away from traditional questions related to their role in "the 'epistemological turn' of early modern philosophy" (3). Instead, "issues such as cosmic organization, the qualities and nature of bodies, the nature of ideas, [and] the substance of the soul" should receive more attention (3). The contributions address these questions as well as free will and Milton's detailed accounting of Locke's initial exposure to Descartes. The volume advocates for a shift in emphasis rather than a revolution by including several contributions in the traditional areas of the theory of ideas and epistemology. This is an excellent and engaging collection that makes its case well and is worth any early modern scholar's time. Each contribution deserves detailed engagement, but my discussion will be limited by space to two sets of contributions that exemplify the volume's spirit. First, the contributions from Martha Bolton, Lisa Downing, and Philippe Hamou strike a chord around substance. Bolton's contribution is bold. She develops an anti-Aristotelian picture of Descartes and Locke by arguing that middle-sized objects are not substances for [End Page 759] either. A familiar way to deny that mechanical bodies are Cartesian substances is to claim that there is only one extended substance. This is not Bolton's route, as she argues that there are indeed finite extended Cartesian substances. Mechanical bodies are not substances because they ontologically depend on such substances (and their modes). Similarly, nearly all of Locke's putative material substances turn out not to be substances, only corpuscles are. Middle-sized objects ontologically depend on arrangements—that is, modes—of these substances. At least concerning Locke, I was left wondering whether his conception of substance—a unifying principle through which the qualities of a thing exist—is weak enough to include such arrangements as substances. The weakness of Locke's conception of substance is at the heart of Lisa Downing's contribution. Downing argues that Locke does not attack Descartes's conception of body for its inability to account for body's impenetrability. Locke was aware of Descartes's explanation of impenetrability through Descartes's correspondence with More, which was in Locke's library. (Downing's explication of Descartes's account of impenetrability in said correspondence is admirable.) Instead, Locke's attack stems from his objection to Descartes's claim that there cannot be both corporeal substance as well as merely extended substance. Such an argument presumes greater explanatory power in our understanding of substance than Locke thinks we are entitled to. Philippe Hamou argues that the consciousness that defines Lockean persons deeply resembles Descartes's thinking substance. Hamou's interpretation of Locke has clear parallels to the Journal of the History of Philosophy 2016 Book Prize winner, Consciousness in Locke, by Shelley Weinberg, and shines in the commonalities it draws between such interpretations of Lockean consciousness and Descartes. Cartesian thinking substances and Lockean consciousness are always thinking (so long as they exist), intellectual, and indivisible. Excepting the label 'substance,' Lockean consciousness and Cartesian thinking substance are nearly indistinguishable. Substance thus plays out in intriguingly different ways across these articles. For Bolton, Locke's conception of substance is robust enough to rule out middle sized objects as substances. For Downing, Locke's conception of substance is weak enough to be a basis for rejecting Descartes's substance dualism. For Hamou, Locke's conception of substance is robust enough to rule out that consciousness is a substance. Locke's insistence here is especially curious given that, as Downing argued, it is important to him that pure space might exist. These are novel and deep tensions in Locke's conception of substance, ripe for further research. The second set of contributions focus on traditional comparisons between Locke and Descartes—ideas and epistemology. The articles exemplify the volume's spirit, however, in that they...

Modernity and Peace. The Lessons of Kant’s Applied Enlightenment

The article contains an analysis of the major lessons of Immanuel Kant’s philosophical project of perpetual peace in the context of development of contemporary political systems and international order. The author reviews the history of philosophical and legal accounts of perpetual peace, as well as the political context of Kant’s project. The third part of the article offers a detailed analysis of Kant’s proposals with regard to the institutional construction of constitutional republics and of a global federation of peoples. The author concludes that from the perspective of the ‘second Modernity,’ the experience of early Modern philosophers might assist in resuming a more active dialogue between philosophers and political leaders, as well as inviting contemporary philosophers to take a leadership role in the institutional construction of preconditions for civil peace and the prevention of wars in Eastern Europe.