Op de grond zijn schetsen. Hij hád een schetsboek weten we van Colerus
[Afbeelding op de cover van Tad M. Schmaltz, Early Modern Cartesianisms: Dutch and French Constructions. Oxford University Press, 2016]
[Afbeelding op de cover van Tad M. Schmaltz, Early Modern Cartesianisms: Dutch and French Constructions. Oxford University Press, 2016]
Al speurend stuitte ik wel op dit review van Aaron Spink, University of South Florida, [in: HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science, Vol. 8, March, 2018] dat ik hier nu maar overneem, om een indruk van het boek te krijgen.
In Early Modern Cartesianisms, Tad M. Schmaltz demonstrates the tremendous insight the study of early Cartesians can provide. The topic of the book is, of course, Cartesian philosophy, but just what that means is not quite so easy to define. Indeed, his decision to make use of a slightly unconventional term,“Cartesianisms,” appears to be recognition of just that problem. Whereas many recent studies focus on following arguments made by Descartes through to his supporters or detractors, judging their Cartesian status by adherence to Descartes’s corpus, Schmaltz is not so restrictive. Instead, we find a study that traces the struggle of early Cartesians to address problems in Descartes’s own philosophy as well as their attempts to break new ground and advance beyond the constraints placed on them by the father of modern philosophy. In this way, the term “Cartesianisms” might be slightly deceptive, as there are a great many topics broached by the figures in this book that were not part of Descartes’s corpus (e.g., the incorporation of Kepler’s three laws into vortex theory) or that he was directly opposed to (e.g., the indefectibility of creatures). This is, however, one of the strongest features of Schmaltz’s book. Far from painting a picture of slavish servants to their master, Schmaltz gives us a picture of a fractious group of competing Cartesian camps, each with wildly diverse motivations and goals. In so doing, he invites us to consider Cartesianism under a much larger tent, where things are not quite so familiar. Even though each philosopher discussed is indebted intellectually to Descartes in some capacity, there is no unifying thread among them. Schmaltz rightly points out that there is no one essential feature that defines “Cartesianism” in the first 100 years following Descartes’s death, and so there can be no one argument or theory that binds a study of early Cartesians (6). That being said, the six thematically grouped chapters are, more or less, self-contained.
The first chapter centers around two important problems that were never given a truly systematic treatment by Descartes: the problem of human freedom and the transubstantiation of the Eucharist (a familiar topic for Schmaltz). This careful study weaves through the various condemnations and controversies to highlight the theological and political problems faced by early adopters of Descartes’s philosophy. Distinguishing between Dutch and French constructions of Cartesianism, which is the organizational strategy used for the majority of the book, is particularly helpful here. Indeed, as many of the debatesSchmaltz is interested in center around problems unique to either Catholic France or the Calvinist United Provinces, his careful presentation of the religious and political landscape is helpful for understanding what was at stake for early adopters of the new philosophy.
The next two chapters, “Ancient andModern Descartes(es)” and “Augustinian Cartesianisms,” are the most cohesive. These deal with the strategies of some prominent Cartesians to incorporate, and at times subvert, the philosophies usurped by Descartes and his followers. In “Ancient and Modern Descartes(es),” we see Cartesians appropriating Scholastic concepts and modes of presentation. Then, in “Augustinian Cartesianisms,” there is a similar attempt from a subgroup of Cartesians to adopt elements of Augustinianism into their projects. Both cases of appropriation are presented to lend credibility to their philosophies and ease the transition between old and new. Yet, in a few cases, there is pushback from the Cartesians to retain what was genuinely advantageous in the old systems. While Schmaltz is doubtful of Augustine’s direct influence on Descartes, he is able to show the oftentimes conflicting influence Augustine held over some of Descartes’s early followers, tracing its lineage primarily through the course of two debates: the implications of reducing animals to beast-machines and the doctrine of eternal truths. In the former, Schmaltz runs through attempts to
reconcile Augustine’s apparent endorsement of animal souls with Cartesian mechanism, ultimately concluding that there is no unified approach to this problem, nor is there even universal interest. For the latter debate, there is an excellent display of Cartesians both for and against Descartes’s doctrine of the eternal truths—most notably, Desgabets, Malebranche, and Arnauld. The section culminates with the convincing claim that the great debate between Arnauld and Malebranche on the nature of ideas is better understood as “a combat of Augustines,” as well as Jansenism versus the mainstream.
Chapter 4 slips away from the broad “Cartesianisms” motif and turns specifically to the various “occasionalisms” of six notable Cartesians: Arnauld, Clauberg, La Forge, Cordemoy, Geulincx, and Malebranche. Schmaltz argues that Descartes held a thoroughgoing causal interactionism and convincingly defends the view that Descartes did not necessarily hold the doctrine of continual recreation. These two points showcaseDescartes’s separation fromsome of the later occasionalists, again playing into the general theme that there was no real doctrinal
orthodoxy in early Cartesianism. Schmaltz, with laser focus, methodically lays out three groups of these occasionalists: mind-body occasionalists, an inbetween variant he labels 1666 occasionalism, and complete occasionalism. The careful attention Schmaltz gives to detailing the various argumentative strategies, unique problems, and changing positions of these six philosophers is sure to make this chapter essential reading for any future scholarship on the topic of occasionalism.
Chapters 5 and 6 move away from the more theological and metaphysical debates and shift to a discussion of the more empirical Cartesian medicine and physics. In the Dutch context, Schmaltz argues that, despite Regius’s open and well-publicized conflict with Descartes, it is Regius who principally comes to define Cartesian medicine and to reign as one of its central authorities. Another
significant contribution comes in tracing the empirical traditions throughout the Dutch medical tradition, which gives a nice context to Regius’s controversial claim that humans are accidental beings. The discussion on Cartesian
physics again highlights the diversity in Cartesian thought, contrasting the experimentalist physics of Jacque Rohault and the metaphysical physics of Pierre-Sylvain Régis. These two mark the paradigmatic cases of Cartesian qualitative physics, which offered a version of physics that (1) shared many properties with Scholastic physics, thus easing the transition, and (2) lacked the type of rigorous quantitative methodology that eventually led to the ultimate victory of Newtonianism. Yet, Schmaltz also recognizes an often ignored quantitative movement in later Cartesianism, which was born mostly out of the Académie des sciences through Malebranche, Fontenelle, and Joseph Privat de Molières. Schmaltz shows that while there was a substantial faction of Cartesians engaged in updating their mechanical philosophies, their focus on accommodating the many discoveries of Newtonians led to a stagnation of progress and its ultimate falsification.
There are a few issues that arise in Schmaltz’s ambitious approach to breaking down the monolithic “Cartesianism” (singular) of past historians of philosophy. The general shift in the history of philosophy away frombroad generalized groups and isms was in direct reaction to the problem of overgeneralizing and losing the nuances and major differences of thinkers contained under those broad terms. Schmaltz is aware of these pitfalls and expressly tries to avoid them, but there is still an internal tension in his work that belies the methodological warnings he cautiously lays out. At one point, for example, he questions whyMalebranche should be considered a Cartesian, whereas he argues Heerebord is best understood as an eclectic Aristotelian (150). In this case, the issue is settled through noting thatMalebranche was cited and used as an authority on Cartesianism by his contemporaries, whereas Heerebord was not (150–51). This problem reoccurs when Schmaltz spends several pages discussing Fontenelle’s status as a Cartesian (323–27). In this case, it appears that Fontenelle’s relevance to Schmaltz’s project is simply in his commitment to a plenum and Cartesian vortex theory. If “Cartesianism” is defined at times as an actor’s category and at other times by commitment to certain tenets of Cartesian physics, the choice of which figures to include begins to seem slightly arbitrary. Yet, much of this can be easily forgiven, as Schmaltz often seems forced into these types of debates over the “Cartesianness” of different philosophers by the literature he is engaging with. To offer one more example of a similar problem, in his chapter titled “Cartesianisms in Dutch Medicine,” Schmaltz has no problem defining Cartesian medicine as “distinctively mechanical,” and he goes on to claim that “the commitment to a systematic form of mechanistic reduction in physiological explanation can be seen as an essential element of Cartesian medicine” (264). It is unclear why this type of essentialism can be legitimately applied here, especially since it is so carefully avoided in the rest of Schmaltz’s chapters. This problem is compounded, as there is no clear definition of what counts as “mechanistic reduction,” a concept whose scope is not immediately obvious. Yet, these minor criticisms are easily overshadowed by the massive contribution this book makes to our understanding of the early reception of Descartes in both the French and Dutch contexts. To be sure, the level of detail, breadth, and subtlety in Schmaltz’s presentation make this an essential text for any scholar of Cartesianism(s) or the rapidly changing scientific thought of the modern period.
Aaron Spink, University of South Florida
Aaron Spink, University of South Florida
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten