Henri Krop

Medicine and Philosophy in Leiden around 1700: Continuity or Rupture?

This chapter first deals with Archibald Pitcairne and his Cartesian predecessors in the medical faculty. It then focuses on Burchard De Volder, the key figure in Leiden Cartesianism around 1700. Pitcairne maintains that medicine is independent of philosophy since it has a different origin. Philosophy on the other hand is the result of leisure, and has as its object the perfection of the soul. Both Theodoor Craanen and De Volder consider the human body as being ruled by the same laws as all other bodies: the laws of mechanics. Medicine should be based on philosophy without, however, being reduced to it. The Leiden Cartesians always accepted the necessity of sense experience and did not indulge in a priori reasoning and logical deduction. Not unlike their Newtonian successors, they sought to combine reason and experience. Keywords: Archibald Pitcairne; Burchard De Volder; laws of mechanics; Leiden Cartesians; medicine; philosophy; Theodoor Craanen

Fides et ratio: An early enlightenment defence of non-confessional religion by poiret and his circle

textabstractIn 1707 an anonymous collection of treatises Fides et ratio was published in Amsterdam. The voluminous work of several authors contains a fierce critique of Lockes notion of faith and the moderate Enlightenments conception of a reasonable Christianity. The sympathiser with mystic theology Pierre Poiret (1646-1719) wrote the general introduction. In the preface Poiret outlined a counter philosophy. However, the book deserves the interest of modern scholars because of the notions of religion and faith conceived by its authors. They are basically modern. Fides et ratio exemplifies the intense intellectual connections between Great Britain, the Netherlands and the German hinterland during the early modern period. The authors of the collection were part of an international non-denominational web. With some exceptions relations between the philosophes and the counter philosophers among the illuminati are neglected in modern research. In the final parts of this essay it will be argued that the ideas on faith and the ensuing separation of religion and the state created a common ground between Poiret and Christian Thomasius, the luminary of early German Enlightenment, who for some years had been directly influenced by the formers ideas.

The Secularism of Spinoza and His Circle

The introduction will outline the position of religion in the Dutch Republic after the Reformation and the Dutch Revolt‚ and the seventeenth-century controversies about the identity of religion and the relation of the state and ‘its’ church. After this, the concept of the circle of Spinoza will be introduced. The theories that its members—Jelles, Meyer and Koerbagh—had about the relationship of religion and state will be presented in separate sections. Where Jelles argued for a full identity between “reformed” Christianity and Spinoza’s philosophy, Meyer identifies Cartesian philosophy with proper theology and considers traditional religion only to be of social relevance, hence the church should be totally dependent on the state. Koerbagh sees the Bible as only of a temporary use in morally reforming people. Finally, Spinoza’s basic ideas on religion, some of which were strikingly similar to the ideas of these less well-known thinkers, will be presented. The conclusion will suggest that the works of each: Jelles, Koerbagh, Meyer, and Spinoza be read as political interventions in the public debate during the “Era of True Freedom,” a period in which the Dutch Republic was without a stadtholder.

Spinoza's Library: The Mathematical and Scientific Works

In 1888 a beautifully printed, costly book was published, both in The Hague and Paris, carrying the title Inventaire des livres formant la bibliothèque de Bénédict Spinoza. The book contained, among other things, a transcription of the recently discovered inventory of the books once in Spinoza’s possession. The municipal archivist of The Hague, Abraham Jacobus Servaas van Rooijen (1839–1925), wrote an elaborate introduction. A few years later, in his edition of Kuno Fischer’s Spinoza classic, the famous German Spinozist Carl Gebhardt (1881–1934) called the finding of this catalogue of Spinoza’s private book collection ‘the happiest discovery after the Short Treatise. It enables us to gain an insight into the intellectual workshop of the philosopher.’ In order to assess the truth of this remark one should take into account the fact that in the seventeenth century public libraries were hardly in existence and so every scholar needed to have at his disposal a private collection of books. According to its 1674 catalogue the Leiden University library, for example, contained somewhat fewer than 250 philosophical books, out of a total of about a thousand works. Compare this number with that of exceptionally well-provided private libraries such as Gerard Vossius’s, auctioned in 1656, which contained no less than 2,500 books, and those of Constantijn and Christiaan Huygens, auctioned at the end of the century. Each of these aristocratic brothers owned more than 3,000 books. The notes added to the Inventaire were written by the

Radical Cartesianism In Holland: Spinoza And Deurhoff

The traditional view of the relationship between Spinoza and Willem Deurhoff has recently been challenged. It should not be overlooked that Deurhoff never calls himself a Spinozist, and that he frequently criticizes Spinoza. Spinozas definition of substance is of immediate consequence for his view of the relation between God and the universe, for as a perfect being the substance is also all-knowing and this omniscience concerns nothing outside God, but all the objects of its knowledge are included in it. This chapter shows that Deurhoff is a radical Cartesian and possesses on that score a fundamental affinity with Spinoza. Reading Deurhoff s explanation of the miracles in the Bible, one could ask whether the difference with Spinoza, who denied their possibility, is as great as Deurhoff pretends, because both presuppose a naturalistic view of nature. Keywords: God; radical Cartesian; Spinoza; Willem Deurhoff