Op
8 september 2018 had ik het blog: ‘Over #Spinoza’s reis in
1673 naar Utrecht’ – het ging over de lezing die dr. Albert Gootjes op 20
december 2018 in het Bartholomeus Gasthuis in Utrecht hierover zal geven.
Welnu,
inmiddels verscheen zijn artikel "Spinoza Between French Libertines and Dutch Cartesians:
The 1673 Utrecht Visit," In: Modern
Intellectual History, online 16 november 2018.
Extract: In the summer of 1673, in
what Koenraad O. Meinsma once qualified as “one of the most inexplicable events
in Spinoza's life,” the philosopher left his residence in The Hague to travel
to Utrecht and stayed there for some three weeks. This event has garnered much
interest, for two main reasons. In the first place, it is agreed that something
must have induced the rather homebound Spinoza to undertake the journey,
especially since Utrecht was occupied at the time by the French, rendering
travel dangerous. The paucity of available sources has kept most scholars from
suggesting a motive, but those who have been so bold are virtually unanimous in
positing that Spinoza traveled on a diplomatic or political mission, referring
in support to his first biographer Johannes Colerus's report, gathered from the
philosopher's landlord Hendrik van der Spyck, that at his return he was greeted
by a frenzied crowd that was ready to lynch him as a “spy, murmuring that he
treated with the French of matters pertaining to state and nation,” with
Spinoza countering that “many among the highly placed know why I went to
Utrecht.” A second reason for the interest is formed by the connection the trip
offers between Spinoza and the French general in Utrecht, Louis II de Bourbon
(1621–86), the prince of Condé, renowned not only for his military exploits but
also for his interest in the arts and sciences, as evinced in his patronage of
dissident thinkers like Isaac La Peyrère of pre-Adamite fame. Condé thus
figures in all early accounts of Spinoza's trip, and yet the conflicting nature
of these accounts, combined with the paucity of firsthand sources, has left
later scholars debating at length the precise nature of the prince's
involvement as Spinoza's inviter, as his host, and as his ready benefactor.
Hij stelt via zijn pagina bij academia.edu zijn artikel beschikbaar. Wie die lezing wil bijwonen
kan zich goed voorbereiden!
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