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Dutch Cartesian Empiricism and the Advent of Newtonianism

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Cartesian Empiricisms

Part of the book series: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science ((AUST,volume 31))

Abstract

At least since Voltaire, the perception of Cartesianism has often suffered from comparison to Newtonianism. In particular, Descartes’ ‘Rationalism’ has been regarded as basically flawed on account of its incompatibility with Newton’s approach to natural philosophy, which was to dominate much of eighteenth-century thought. In this paper it is argued that, on the contrary, both Descartes and some of his most tenacious Dutch admirers did not eschew Empiricism at all, but were actually instrumental in the early dissemination of Newtonianism on the Continent, and at Leiden University in particular.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Or so experts have traditionally inferred from Voltaire 1964, esp. 71, but there is no clear evidence that he actually attended the funeral of Newton, whom he incidentally never met either. See Barber 1979. For more on Voltaire and Newton in general see Rousseau 1976.

  2. 2.

    Voltaire 1964, 75: “La Géometrie était un guide que lui-même avait en quelque façon formé, et l’aurait conduit sûrement dans sa Physique; cependant il abandonna à la fin ce guide et se livra à l’esprit de système. Alors sa Philosophie ne fut qu’un roman ingénieux, et tout au plus vraisemblable pour les ignorants.”

  3. 3.

    Voltaire 1964, 76: “que deux et deux ne font quatre que parce que Dieu l’a voulu ainsi.”

  4. 4.

    Cassirer 1951, Chap. 1.

  5. 5.

    Voltaire 1826, 90: “La véritable physique consiste donc à bien déterminer tous les effets. Nous connaîtrons les causes premières quand nous serons des dieux.…Il nous est donné de calculer, de peser, de mesurer, d’observer: voilà la philosophie naturelle; presque tout le reste est chimère.”

  6. 6.

    Voltaire 1826, 95: “Il ne substitua donc qu’un chaos au chaos d’Aristote.”

  7. 7.

    [Voltaire] 1771, 218–225. In a passage added to the 1739 edition of the (fifteenth of the) Lettres philosophiques Voltaire specifically mentions Bacon as the man of whom Descartes should have taken heed. Voltaire 1964, 232.

  8. 8.

    Von Borzeszkowski and Wahsner 2000.

  9. 9.

    Herivel 1965; McGuire 1995; Guiccardini 2009, 59–136 and 293–308; Ducheyne 2012, esp. 253–263 and 269–278.

  10. 10.

    Koyré 1968, 115. In addition Koyré stressed the religious nature of Newton’s opposition to Descartes: 127. See more recently I. Bernard Cohen’s highly detailed “Guide to Newton’s Principia” in Newton 1999; Janiak 2008; Janiak and Schliesser 2011.

  11. 11.

    Thijssen-Schoute 1989; Dibon 1990; Verbeek 1992; Van Bunge 2001; Vermij 2002. For a detailed analysis of some of the early critiques, see Van Ruler 1995.

  12. 12.

    ’s Gravesande 1717.

  13. 13.

    Boerhaave 1715. On Boerhaave, see most recently Knoeff 2002; Kooijmans 2012.

  14. 14.

    ’s Gravesande 1720–1721, 1723, 1736.

  15. 15.

    Brunet 1926; Gori 1972; Ruestow 1973; de Pater 1979, 1994; Schuurman 2004, Chap. 8; Van der Wall 2004.

  16. 16.

    Israel 2001, Chap. 27 and 2006, Chap. 8; Vermij 2003; Jorink 2009. See also Ruestow 1973, Chap. 7.

  17. 17.

    Vermij 1991.

  18. 18.

    Jorink 2009.

  19. 19.

    See Chap. 1 by Dobre and Nyden.

  20. 20.

    See Chap. 10 by Nyden; Gori 1972, 20–42. See, more recently, also Feingold 2004, 69: “The person to put Holland on the Newtonian map, so to speak, was Burchard de Volder.” Wim Klever has tried to turn De Volder into a covert supporter of Spinoza: Klever 1989. This has been refuted by Lodge 2005.

  21. 21.

    Wiesenfeldt 2002, 1: “die Abkehr von einer dogmatischen Naturphilosophie und eine empirische Ausrichtung der philosophischen Lehre.”

  22. 22.

    Wiesenfeldt 2002, 56.

  23. 23.

    See, on De Bruyn and De Le Boë Sylvius, as well as on most of the Dutch authors mentioned in this paper: Van Bunge et al. 2003.

  24. 24.

    Le Clerc 1709, 356–359.

  25. 25.

    Wiesenfeldt 2002, 61: the Royal Society itself was on summer break, so De Volder will not have been present at one of its sessions, but he appears to have met both Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke. In Cambridge he visited Newton.

  26. 26.

    Wiesenfeldt 2002, 62.

  27. 27.

    Wiesenfeldt 2002, 89.

  28. 28.

    Wiesenfeldt 2002, 90.

  29. 29.

    They were collected in De Volder 1695. De Volder was unhappy with this book since he claimed the disputations involved were not meant to be published and were merely part of an academic exercise. They did not necessarily reflect his personal views. See Wiesenfeldt 2002, Chap. 7.

  30. 30.

    Le Clerc 1709, 398. See Chap. 9 by Dobre.

  31. 31.

    Le Clerc 1709, 383.

  32. 32.

    Vermij 2002, 350–352; Schuurman 2004, Chap. 5.

  33. 33.

    Le Clerc 1709, 398: “sur la fin de ses jours, et même quelques années auparavant, il avoit reconnu le foible du Cartesianisme; autant apparement, par sa propre méditation, que par le secours des habiles Anglois, qui ont établi d’autres principes. Je l’ai ouï se moquer, plus d’une fois, d’une bonne partie des Méditations de Descartes, quoi qu’il les eût expliquées pendant long-tems.”

  34. 34.

    De Volder 1664; Wiesenfeldt 2002, 225.

  35. 35.

    De Volder 1682; Wiesenfeldt 2002, 225–226.

  36. 36.

    De Volder 1698; Ruestow 1973, 106–112; Wiesenfeldt 2002, 227–230.

  37. 37.

    Wiesenfeldt 2002, 108–132.

  38. 38.

    Lodge 2004. A critical edition of this correspondence is forthcoming.

  39. 39.

    Krop 2003, 187–189. Taking his cue from the history of applied mathematics, in the same volume, Vanpaemel 2003 also stresses the continuity between Dutch Cartesianism and Newtonianism.

  40. 40.

    Garber 2001, Chaps. 6 and 5.

  41. 41.

    Garber 2001, Chap. 2 and Garber 1992, Chap. 2. See also, for instance, Schuster 1993.

  42. 42.

    For Regius, see Chap. 7 by Bellis.

  43. 43.

    See, for instance, Verbeek 1993, 2002.

  44. 44.

    Cook 2010, 26.

  45. 45.

    Cook 2007, 259.

  46. 46.

    AT IV 224–225, CSMK 358–359.

  47. 47.

    Clarke 1982, 17; Schuurman 2004, 26–33.

  48. 48.

    Laporte 1988, 477: “Se plier en toutes choses, à ce qu’on voit; l’enregistrer comme on le voit, à quelque ordre qu’il appartienne, sans rien y mêler de sa sensibilité propre: voilà l’attitude cartésienne, telle qu’elle se manifeste dans la théorie de méthode, comme aussi dans le Cogito et dans les démarches qui en precedent. C’est l’attitude empirique, au sens premier et authentique du mot: ceux-là seuls répugnent à en convenir, que des associations invétérées conduisent toujours à confondre empirique et sensualiste. En sorte que, si nous voulons à toute force caractériser la philosophie de Descartes par un nom, le nom qui lui siérait le mieux serait, tout paradoxe à part, celui d’empirisme—empirisme radical et intégral.”

  49. 49.

    Clarke 1982, Chap. 2.

  50. 50.

    Clarke 1982, Chap. 5.

  51. 51.

    See also Buchdahl 1963.

  52. 52.

    See most recently Garber and Longuenesse 2008.

  53. 53.

    Schuurman 2007. See also Ruestow 1973, 78–87; Wiesenfeldt 2002, 82–89, 162–184.

  54. 54.

    Schuurman 2004, 68–69.

  55. 55.

    Haakonssen 2004, 103–104.

  56. 56.

    Haakonssen 2004, 114.

  57. 57.

    See for a very interesting recent account, Aalderink 2010.

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  1. Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Wiep van Bunge

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  1. Faculty of Philosophy, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

    Mihnea Dobre

  2. Philosophy Department, Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa, USA

    Tammy Nyden

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van Bunge, W. (2013). Dutch Cartesian Empiricism and the Advent of Newtonianism. In: Dobre, M., Nyden, T. (eds) Cartesian Empiricisms. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol 31. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7690-6_4

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