Andrea Strazzoni, PhD Dissertation, PRINT II

225 Pages·2015·2.32 MB·English

The Foundation of Early Modern Science:
Metaphysics, Logic and Theology

Andrea Strazzoni
Strazzoni, A.

The Foundation of Early Modern Science: Metaphysics, Logic and Theology

ISBN: 978-94-6299-183-5

© A. Strazzoni, 2015

All rights reserved

Cover design: Theatrum physicum, University of Leiden, 1743, from the Gemeentearchief Leiden

Printed by Ridderprint BV

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The Foundation of Early Modern Science: Metaphysics, Logic and Theology
De fundering van de vroegmoderne wetenschap: metafysica, logica en theologie

Thesis
to obtain the degree of Doctor from the
Erasmus University Rotterdam by command of the rector magnificus
Prof.dr. H.A.P. Pols
and in accordance with the decision of the Doctorate Board

The public defense shall be held on
Thursday, 5 November 2015 at 13:30 hrs
by
Andrea Strazzoni
born in Cremona, Italy

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Doctoral Committee
Promotor:
Prof.dr. L. van Bunge

Other members:
Prof.dr. C.H. Lüthy
Prof.dr. J.A. van Ruler
Prof.dr. Th.H.M. Verbeek

Copromotor:
Dr. H.A. Krop

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Acknowledgments

Being of itself a solitary and lengthy work, the writing of a doctoral dissertation is impossible
without the active support of other scholars, institutions, family and friends. In fact, this study
which took five years to complete could not have been realized without the exceptional backing of
the Faculty of Philosophy of the Rotterdam Erasmus University, which has provided me with both
an excellent scholarly environment to work within, and the material support to carry out a research
which considerably expanded my perspectives on philosophy and life. I would like to thank Wiep
van Bunge, Henri Krop, Han van Ruler and Paul Schuurman first for accepting me in 2010 as a PhD
student in their midst, and then patiently followed my work to its completion. They enhanced and
expanded my scientific perspectives and method in the next years. A special thank is due to Henri,
who supervised my work in all its stages and came behind all my writings. Moreover, I want to
thank Willy Ophelders for his constant support to my activities both at the University and in my
conferences attendance, and Michiel Wielema for his careful revision of this dissertation.
This work would have been impossible without the ceaseless support of my parents as well. They
gave me a complete free hand constantly reminding me of the fact that such a work is the best for
my education and an excellent preparation for life. All these years they accompanied my efforts
with proud and love.
Moreover, my life in Rotterdam and the time spent at the Faculty was made joyful by the company
of my friends: Attilia, Melissa, Morten, René and Sine were witness of all memorable moments in
the Netherlands.
Last but not least, I want to thank my beloved Vasilisa, who accompanied the last months of my life
as a promovendus.
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Table of contents
Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 9!
1. The prologue: Regius’s rejection of Cartesian metaphysics .......................................................... 23!
1.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 23!
1.2 A medical standpoint on philosophy .................................................................................. 26!
1.3 Descartes’s enthusiasm ....................................................................................................... 29!
1.4 From innatism to Revelation .............................................................................................. 31!
1.5 From enthusiasm to recte percipere .................................................................................... 34!
1.6 Inference to the best explanation ........................................................................................ 39!
1.7 The rejection of pura mathesis ........................................................................................... 44!
1.8 The necessity of a foundation ............................................................................................. 46!
2. The metaphysical foundation of philosophy by Johannes Clauberg .............................................. 49!
2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 49!
2.2 The introduction of philosophy as the initiation to philosophy .......................................... 51!
2.3 Metaphysics and logic ........................................................................................................ 53!
2.4 Physics and natural theology .............................................................................................. 61!
2.5 The place of natural theology in the foundation of philosophy and arts ............................ 64!
2.6 The role of ontosophia in the system of sciences ............................................................... 71!
2.7 A “threefold” foundation: logic, metaphysics and ontology .............................................. 75!
3. The logico-metaphysical foundation of physics of Johannes de Raey .......................................... 77!
3.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 77!
3.2 The radical Cartesians ........................................................................................................ 79!
3.3 Philosophical and vulgar knowledge .................................................................................. 83!
3.4 The task of logic ................................................................................................................. 86!
3.5 A Cartesian philosophy of language .................................................................................. 91!
3.6 The theory of meaning ....................................................................................................... 93!
3.7 The analysis of language .................................................................................................... 95!
3.7.1 The names of passions ............................................................................................ 96!
3.7.2 The names of thoughts ............................................................................................ 99!
3.8 The system of philosophy................................................................................................. 104!
4. The rational-theological foundation of physics and ethics of Arnold Geulincx .......................... 107!
4.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 107!
4.2 Cartesianism and theology ............................................................................................... 109!
4.3 The architectonic of philosophy ....................................................................................... 112!
4.4 From logic to theology ..................................................................................................... 116!
4.4.1 An Aristotelian axiom .......................................................................................... 118!
4.4.2 The body ............................................................................................................... 120!
4.5 The freedom of God ......................................................................................................... 125!
4.6 The foundation of experience and intellectual evidence .................................................. 129!
4.7 The hierarchy of knowledge ............................................................................................. 132!
4.8 Physics without metaphysics? .......................................................................................... 136!
5. The metaphysical foundation of empirical physics of Burchard de Volder ................................ 137!
5.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 137!
5.2 The role of empiricism ..................................................................................................... 140!
5.3 The principles of nature .................................................................................................... 147!
5.4 The foundation of the principles of nature ....................................................................... 151!
5.5 Foundation and philosophy of science go separate ways ................................................. 160!
6. The aftermath: metaphysics, logic and theology in ‘s Gravesande’s foundation of Newtonian
physics .............................................................................................................................................. 163!
6.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 163!
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6.2 The teaching and the method of Newtonian physics ........................................................ 167!
6.3 Mathematics and experience in the discovery of natural laws ......................................... 170!
6.4 The survival axiom ........................................................................................................... 172!
6.5 A logico-metaphysical introduction ................................................................................. 174!
6.6 The theological foundation of moral evidence ................................................................. 179!
6.7 Newtonian philosophy in context ..................................................................................... 185!
6.8 From law to philosophy of science ................................................................................... 187!
Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................... 189!
Bibliography ..................................................................................................................................... 197!
Primary sources ...................................................................................................................... 197!
Secondary literature ................................................................................................................ 203!
Samenvatting .................................................................................................................................... 213!
Summary .......................................................................................................................................... 218!
Curriculum Vitae .............................................................................................................................. 223!

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Introduction

In recent years, a new discipline has emerged within the broader field of the history of philosophy:
the history of philosophy of science. The growth of this specialty has been substantiated by the birth
of the The International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science and of its Journal (2011-),
aiming to «construe this subject broadly, to include topics in the history of related disciplines and in
all historical periods, studied through diverse methodologies»1. As noted by Peter Dear,

where once philosophers were taken to lead historians in setting the agenda and questions for HPS, contemporary
philosophers of science who look to history do so by following the lead of historians; many philosophers of science are
now historians of the philosophy of science. […] Perhaps the chief movers in this endeavor are Daniel Garber and
Roger Ariew, both specialists in Cartesianism2.

Thomas Uebel has explained the rapid growth of this field as a consequence of a «change in
methodological attitude that late 20th century philosophy of science prided itself on, a change
sometimes characterised as a naturalistic turn or even a turn to scientific practice: either way it
involves the self-conscious rejection of a priori reflection about grand philosophical themes related
to science and instead demands detailed knowledge of current scientific theories and experimental
practices»3. Accordingly, the history of philosophy of science is a reflection on scientific practices
in their historical development, i.e., it is philosophy of science applied to history of science, and can
be more properly defined as “philosophy of science by other means”. For Thomas Morman,
commenting upon Uebel, this definition has the positive effect of «forestall a profusion of undesired
meta(meta)disciplines which threaten the conceptual unity of an interdisciplinary research dealing
with the history and philosophy of scientific culture»4. However, Uebel’s definition excludes the
very possibility of a study of the self-reflection of past philosophers and scientists on their methods

1 See www.hopos.org, accessed on 15th January 2015.
2 P. Dear, Philosophy of Science and its Historical Reconstruction, in S. Mauskopf, T.M. Schmaltz (eds.), Integrating
History and Philosophy of Science: Problems and Prospects, Dordrecht-Heidelberg-New York-London, Springer
2012, pp. 67-82: pp. 68-69.
3 T. Uebel, Some Remarks on Current History of Analytical Philosophy of Science, in F. Stadler (ed.), The Present
Situation in the Philosophy of Science, Dordrecht-Heidelberg-New York-London, Springer 2010, pp. 13-28: p. 13.
4 See T. Morman, History of Philosophy of Science as Philosophy of Science by Other Means? Comment on Thomas
Uebel, ibid., pp. 29-40: p. 30.
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and the conceptual premises of their theories, which Ariew and Garber have successfully
accomplished in the last two decades5. It is not by chance, in fact, that the initiators of the history of
philosophy of science are specialists in Cartesianism. In recent years, the historiography of
Cartesian philosophy has been boosted by renewed attention to the problem of the foundations of
philosophical knowledge. Instead of a crystallized dualistic approach to metaphysical problems – on
the one hand – and to natural philosophical method on the other, the philosophy of René Descartes
has been increasingly analysed in the light of the metaphysical problems entailed by his
methodology and vice versa6. Indeed, the breakthrough of the philosophy of Descartes brought
about a reflection on the method, the assumptions and the functions of philosophy, substantiated in
the development of foundational theories as premises of philosophy as such. His tenet that the
source of philosophical knowledge is to be found in the clear and distinct ideas of reason rather than
in sensory experience called for a reformulation of the principles of philosophy, and caused an
unprecedented interest in the foundation of philosophical knowledge both as the justification of the
very possibility of acquiring a certain, indubitable and secure knowledge of philosophy (scientia),
and as the definition of the main concepts, the method and the first principles of different
philosophical disciplines (scientiae)7.
In this dissertation I will assess whether it is legitimate to commence a history of the
philosophy of science with the study of Cartesian philosophy. From a historical point of view,

5 See R. Ariew, Descartes among the Scholastics, Leiden-Boston, Brill 2011 (revised edition of his Descartes and the
Last Scholastics, Ithaca, Cornell University Press 1999); D. Garber, Descartes’ Metaphysical Physics, Chicago,
University of Chicago Press 1992; id., Descartes Embodied. Reading Descartes’s Philosophy through Cartesian
Science, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 2001. Desmond Clarke has analyzed Cartesian physics, on the
other hand, from the standpoint of the history of philosophy of science as conceived by Uebel and Morman: see
D.M. Clarke, Descartes’ Philosophy of Science, Manchester, Manchester University Press 1982.
6 See M. Fichant, Science et métaphysique dans Descartes et Leibniz, Paris, PUF 1999; Garber 1992 and 2001; id.,
Physics and Foundations, in K. Park, L. Daston (eds.), The Cambridge History of Science. Volume 3, Early Modern
Science, New York, Cambridge University Press 2006, pp. 21-69. See the classic studies of E. A. Burtt, The
Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science: A Historical and Critical Essay, London, Routledge and
Kegan Paul 1932; E. W. Strong, Procedures and Metaphysics: A Study of the Philosophy of Mathematical-Physical
Science in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Berkeley, University of California Press 1936); A. Koyré,
Metaphysics and Measurement: Essays in Scientific Revolution, Cambridge (Massachusetts), Harvard University
Press 1968; G. Buchdahl, Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science: The Classical Origins, Descartes to Kant,
Cambridge (Massacchussets), MIT Press 1969; G. Hatfield, Metaphysics and the New Science, in D. Lindberg, R.
Westman (eds.), Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1990, pp. 93-
166. These texts are mentioned in Garber 2006, p. 22, n. 1.
7 On the meaning of “scientia” in the history of early modern philosophy, see P. Achinstein, Concepts of Science: A
Philosophical Analysis, Baltimore, J. Hopkins Press 1968; T. Sorell, G.A. Rogers, J. Kraye (eds.), Scientia in Early
Modern Philosophy. Seventeenth-Century Thinkers on Demonstrative Knowledge from First Principles, Dordrecht-
Heidelberg-London-New York, Springer 2010.
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