Censorship, Condemnations, and the Spread of Cartesianism
Descartes and the Cartesians suffered a series of condemnations aimed at several fundamental propositions of corpuscularianism and mechanism, such as the denial of substantial forms and real qualities. Also condemned was the theory of matter and place: ex
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Censorship, Condemnations, and the Spread of Cartesianism Roger Ariew
Abstract Descartes and the Cartesians suffered a series of condemnations aimed at several fundamental propositions of corpuscularianism and mechanism, such as the denial of substantial forms and real qualities. Also condemned was the theory of matter and place: extension as the principal attribute of matter, the indefinite extension of the world, and the impossibility of the void. With these objections, came an increased critique of hyperbolic doubt. The rejection of hyperbolic doubt caused Cartesians no longer to distinguish between the absolutely and the morally certain—between that which we cannot doubt and that about which we have no doubt although we could doubt it—and to treat all principles on a par with one another. As a result, Cartesians became more empirical and pursued aggressively a limited hypothetical-deductive method. For example, Huygens describes a hypothetico-deductive method that ends up with high probability, not absolute or moral certainty; in this, Huygens follows a path taken by closer followers of Descartes. This chapter will investigate such issues and their consequences for Cartesianism in the works of Cartesians such as Du Roure and Cordemoy.
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Censorship and Condemnations
I assess two large phenomena in seventeenth-century Cartesianism, first the widespread criticism and condemnation of Cartesian physics and second the multiplication of a more empirical Cartesianism. There is surely a relationship between these two movements. For one, perhaps because of the rampant censorship at the time,
R. Ariew (*) Department of Philosophy, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA e-mail: [email protected] M. Dobre and T. Nyden (eds.), Cartesian Empiricisms, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 31, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-7690-6_2, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
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many Cartesians, while maintaining Descartes’ disposition for mechanistic explanations, aggressively pursued a quasi-hypothetical-deductive method and thus became more empirical. Although I think that the two phenomena are interrelated, I do not think that those relations are obvious and direct; it is clear that some Cartesians adopted positions that were censored, despite their numerous critiques. The denunciations of Cartesianism were unusually frequent and ferocious. For most of the seventeenth century, the official response to Descartes’ philosophy was unfavorable. During his life, Descartes waged fierce battles with his opponents. In the 1640s, he thought himself at war with the Jesuits; he had political problems and received official condemnations by Protestants at Utrecht around 1642 and at Leiden in 1647.1 The battles intensified after Descartes’ death in 1650. There were condemnations by Catholics at Louvain in 1662,2 culminating with Descartes’ works being put on the Index of Prohibited Books by the censors of Rome in 1663.3 The fighting raged in the second half of the seventeenth century: the Jesuits held anti-C
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