The problem of universals in early modern philosophy

369 Pages·2017·2.29 MB·English

by  Stefano Di Bella

THE PROBLEM OF UNIVERSALS IN
EARLY MODERN PHILOSOPHY

THE PROBLEM OF
UNIVERSALS IN
EARLY MODERN
PHILOSOPHY
Edited by Stefano Di Bella
and Tad M. Schmaltz
1
1
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
List of Contributors ix
1. Introduction to Universals in Modern Philosophy—
Stefano Di Bella and Tad M. Schmaltz 1
2. Gassendi on the Problem of Universals—Antonia LoLordo 13
3. Hobbes, Universal Names, and Nominalism—Stewart Duncan 41
4. Spinoza on Universals—Samuel Newlands 62
5. Descartes on Universal Essences and Divine
Knowledge—Lawrence Nolan 87
6. Platonism and Conceptualism among the
Cartesians—Tad M. Schmaltz 117
7. Universals and Individuals in Malebranche’s
Philosophy—Mariangela Priarolo  142
8. Universals in English Platonism: More, Cudworth,
Norris—Brunello Lotti 166
9. Some Perspectives on Leibniz’s Nominalism
and Its Sources—Stefano Di Bella 198
10. Locke’s Essay and Leibniz’s Nouveaux Essais: Competing Theories
of Universals—Martha Brandt Bolton 220
11. Locke on General Ideas—E. J. Lowe 252
vi • Contents
12. Berkeley on Abstraction, Universals, and Universal
Knowledge—Tom Stoneham 267
13. Hume on Abstraction and Identity—Donald L. M. Baxter 285
14. Kant and Abstractionism about Concept
Formation—Alberto Vanzo  305
Works Cited 325
Index 345
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Several chapters in this volume were first presented at a workshop on the problem
of universals in early modern philosophy, held at the Scuola Normale Superiore
in Pisa, Italy, in November 2011. This workshop was part of a cycle of conferences
on the topic of universals, the central aim of which was to combine a historical
treatment of different periods of this problem (ancient, medieval, and modern)
with a consideration of theoretical perspectives drawn from the contemporary
philosophical debate. The idea of this ambitious project came from Francesco
Del Punta, a historian of medieval philosophy, who provoked us to explore the
continuities and transformations of treatments of this topic in modern philoso-
phy, outside the limits of the medieval philosophical agenda with which it is usu-
ally associated. While working on this volume, we lost Francesco and another
friend and colleague, Jonathan Lowe, who also contributed to the general project
from its very beginning and who is the author of a chapter of the present volume.
We dedicate this volume to the memory of Francesco and Jonathan.

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Donald L. M. Baxter is Professor and Department Head in the Department of
Philosophy at the University of Connecticut. He specializes in Metaphysics and
Early Modern (Western) Philosophy. He authored Hume’s Difficulty: Time and
Identity in the “Treatise” (Routledge, 2008) and coedited (with A. J. Cotnoir)
Composition as Identity (Oxford University Press, 2014).
Stefano Di Bella is Professor of History of Philosophy at the University of
Milan, Italy. His research interests are focused on the history of philosophy,
especially early modern, and metaphysics. He is the author of numerous articles
in early modern philosophy, and of the volumes Le “Meditazioni metafisiche” di
Descartes: Introduzione alla lettura (1997) and The Science of Individual: Leibniz’s
Ontology of Individual Substance (2005).
Martha Brandt Bolton is a Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. She
works on the history of seventeenth- and eighteenth- century philosophy and is
currently interested in theories of cognition and their metaphysical implications.
Stewart Duncan is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Florida.
He is the author of several articles on Hobbes, Leibniz, and other seventeenth-
century philosophers.
Antonia LoLordo is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Virginia. She
is the author of Pierre Gassendi and the Birth of Early Modern Philosophy and
Locke’s Moral Man, as well as papers on Descartes, Edwards, Gassendi, Locke,
Malebranche, Shepherd, and other early modern philosophers.
Brunello Lotti is Associate Professor of History of Philosophy at the University
of Udine, Italy. He is author of Ralph Cudworth e l’idea di natura plastica (Udine,
2004) and of L’iperbole del dubbio. Lo scetticismo cartesiano nella filosofia inglese
tra Sei e Settecento (Florence, 2010).
E. J. Lowe (1950– 2014) studied in Cambridge and Oxford and taught for many
years at the University of Durham. He was an original and influential philosopher.
His most important contributions were to philosophy of mind, philosophical