Epicureanism at the Origins of Modernity

317 Pages·2008·1.14 MB·English

by  Catherine Wilson

Epicureanism at the Origins of Modernity
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Epicureanism
at the Origins
of Modernity
Catherine Wilson
CLARENDON PRESS · OXFORD
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Preface
A systematic survey of Epicurean philosophy in the seventeenth century
would be an accomplishment requiring many volumes, many more years,
andtheeffortsofmanyinvestigators.Theaimofthepresentstudyisamore
limitedone:itistoargueforthe contribution ofEpicurean natural,moral,
and political philosophy to early modern theory and practice. I wanted to
showhowthetheoryofatoms,andthepolitical contractualismandethical
hedonism that were conceptually bound to it, were addressed, adopted,
and battled against by the canonical philosophers of the period. And I
wanted to establish that an intellectually compelling and robust tradition
tookmaterialismastheonlyvalidframeofreference,notonlyforscientific
inquiry but for the solution of the deepest problems of ethics and politics.
Literary excursions to and fro over the millennia are apt to raise some
eyebrows.Themethodologicalperilsofstudiesofreceptionarewellknown
to historians; the preference in intellectual history has been for studies of
thedecadeorthegeneration,notofthecentury,andthepositiveinfluences
ofimmediatepredecessorsandcontemporariesareeasiertodocumentthan
philosophical anxieties over what a philosopher wrote in the third century
bce. Was it really the same atom in the texts of the ancients and the
texts of the early moderns? I make no a priori assumptions about identity
of reference. Rather, that the ancient atom and the early modern atom
were linked by a continuous and documentable history of reading and
responding is a hypothesis to be demonstrated. The descriptive parallels in
ancientandearlymoderntextshavetobeevaluatedagainstthebackground
of the different contexts in which Epicurean doctrines were discussed and
debated. The force of Christian doctrine and institutions in the modern
era, and the technological ambitions of the moderns, stand in contrast to
the relative disorganization of ancient religion, and to ancient patrician
attitudes towards novelty and improvement. Much of my story concerns
the import of those differences. Nevertheless, the moderns read the old
textsandinterpretedtheirowncontemporariesinlightofthem.Inaphilo-
sophical sense as well, the ancients and the early moderns thought about
vi preface
the same atom, whereas we now think about a different entity, one whose
existence is confirmed by experiments and observations inconceivable in
the seventeenth century.
The literary history of atomism frayed and fragmented, as experimental
science came to define itself in opposition to metaphysics and natural
philosophy. Paradoxically, our contemporary insistence on the physicality
of nearly everything that really exists, and on the primacy of experience
and experiment over faith and intuition, has tended to mask the role
of the Epicurean tradition. The quantifiable, the experimentally testable,
have been extracted from the discipline of natural philosophy and handed
over to science. Metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and
metaethics proudly distinguish themselves from the natural and social
sciences,andfromempiricalapproachestonormativity,forphilosophy has
historically derived its prestige from its promise to reveal the mysteries of
the incorporeal, the divine, and the posthumous by supersensory means.
To skirt them or scorn them is to find one’s practice dismissed, in good
or badhumour, asnot philosophy. I hope nevertheless to have shownthat
whateverpositionthereadermighttakeonthequestionoftheubiquityand
exclusivity of the physical, or on the persistence of metaphysical illusion,
the identification of Epicurean topics and themes and the analysis of their
reception offers a useful framework for understanding and interpreting the
history of early modern thought. I hope as well to have shown that the
phrase ‘soulless materialism’ is scarcely applicable to a philosophy in which
color, friendship, flowers, curiosity, and complexity play leading roles.
Manyinstitutions andpeoplehaveassistedtheseresearches.Foressential
financial support, I would like to thank the Social Sciences and Research
Council of Canada; for generousinstitutional support and accesstocollec-
tions, Trinity College, Cambridge, and its Wren Library, the Max-Planck
Institut fu¨r Wissenschaftsgeschichte in Berlin, the Department of the His-
tory and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge, and the Warburg Institute,
London. For discussion, critical comment, inspiration, and assistance, I
am especially indebted to Ga´bor Boros, Lorraine Daston, Saul Fisher,
DanielGarber,StephenGaukroger,DavidGlidden,MichaelHunter,Brad
Inwood,SusanJames,MonteJohnson,JillKraye,NevenLeddy,TomLen-
non, Jon Miller, Margaret Osler, Malcolm Oster, David Rueger, Richard
Serjeantson,QuentinSkinner,JamesSnyder,andRichardSorabji.Theyare
not responsible for errors, and do not necessarily share the author’s views.
preface vii
Portionsofthisworkhavebeenpreviouslypublishedunderthefollowing
titles:
‘Leibniz and Atomism’, Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science,
15 (1982), 175–99, repr. in Roger Woolhouse (ed.), Leibniz: Critical
Assessments (London: Routledge, 1995), iii. 342–68; ‘Berkeley and the
Microworld’,Archivfu¨rGeschichtederPhilosophie,76(1994),37–64;‘Atoms,
Minds and Vortices in De Summa Rerum’, in Stuart Brown (ed.), The
Young Leibniz (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1999), 223–43; ‘Corpuscular Effluvia:
BetweenImaginationandExperiment’,inClausZittelandWolfgangDetel
(eds.), Ideals and Cultures of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe: Concepts,
Methods, Historical Conditions and Social Impact, 2 vols. (Berlin: Akademie-
Verlag, 2002), i. 161–84; ‘Epicureanism in Early Modern Philosophy:
Leibniz and his Contemporaries’, in Brad Inwood and Jon Miller (eds.),
Hellenistic and Early Modern Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2003),90–115; ‘Some Responses to Lucretian Mortalism’, in Ga´bor
Boros(ed.),DerEinflussdesHellenismusaufderPhilosophiederFruehenNeuzeit
(Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2005)137–59; ‘The Theory and Regulation of
LoveinSeventeenth-century Philosophy’,inGa´borBoros,MartinMoors,
and Herbert De Dijn (eds.) The Concept of Love in Modern Philosophy:
Descartes to Kant (Budapest/Leuven: Eo¨tvo¨s/Leuven University Presses,
2008),142–161;‘TheProblemofMaterialismintheNewEssays’,inLeibniz
selon les Nouveaux Essais sur l’entendement humain, ed. F. Duchesneau
and S. Auroux, (Paris/Montreal: Vrin/Bellarmin-Fides, 2006), 249–64;
‘What is the Importance of Descartes’s Sixth Meditation?’ Philosophica, 74
(2006),67–90;(withMonteRansomeJohnson),‘LucretiusandtheHistory
of Science’, in Philip Hardie and Stuart Gillespie (eds.), The Cambridge
Companion to Lucretius (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007);
‘From Limits to Laws: Origins of the Seventeenth Century Conception
of Nature as Legalite´,’ in Lorraine Daston and Michael Stolleis (eds.), The
Laws of Nature (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007); ‘Two Opponents of Epicurean
Atomism:LeibnizandCavendish’, inStuartBrownandPaulinePhemister
(eds.), Leibniz and the English Speaking World (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007);
‘Motives and Incentives for the Study of Natural Philosophy: The Case of
RobertBoyle’,inCharlesRamondandMyriamDennehy(eds.),(eds.),La
philosophie naturelle de Robert Boyle (Paris: Vrin, 2007).
QuotationsatthestartofeachchapteraretakenfromLucyHutchinson’s
translation of Lucretius’ De rerum natura from the early 1650s, edited and
viii preface
publishedbyHughdeQuehen(London:Duckworth,1996),fromaBritish
Librarymanuscript. Line numbersinthisedition are slightlydifferent from
those in the Loeb edition cited in the footnotes.
The cover illustration, The Forest Fire is from Piero di Cosimo’s cycle,
Storie dell’ umanitaprimitiva, painted about 1500.(See p. 189.)
Contents
Introduction: The Revival of Ancient Materialism 1
1. Atomism and Mechanism 39
1.1 Ancientatomism 40
1.2 PlatonicandAristoteliancriticism 45
1.3 Thecorpuscularianphilosophy 51
1.4 Particlesandqualities 55
1.5 Mechanism 60
1.6 Corpuscularianismandtheexperimentalphilosophy 63
2. Corpuscular Effluvia: Between Imagination and Experiment 71
2.1 Morbificandsalutaryparticles 72
2.2 Theexperimentalcaptureoftheaerialcorpuscle 76
3. Order and Disorder 82
3.1 OrderandregularityintheEpicureancosmos 85
3.2 Theologyanddeontology 88
3.3 Cosmogenesis:ancientandmodern 95
3.4 LeibnizandtheEpicureans 101
4. Mortality and Metaphysics 106
4.1 Lucretianmortalism 108
4.2 Descartesandtheimmortalityofthehumansoul 111
4.3 ThecalculatedambiguityofSpinoza 125
4.4 Leibniz’simmortalorganisms 135
5. Empiricism and Mortalism 142
5.1 Englishmortalism 143
5.2 Lockeandthinkingmatter 150
6. Some Rival Systems 156
6.1 Leibnizandatomism 158
6.2 Berkeley’sdesperateremedies 169