Journal of Early Modern Studies, Volume 14, issue 1 (Spring 2025)
ISSN: 2285-6382 (paperback) / ISSN: 2286-0290 (electronic)
Articles
ÉLODIE CASSAN, Le mouvement et la logique. Remarques sur l’aphorisme 48 du second livre du Novum organum
Abstract: According to traditional historiography, the Novum Organum stands out in the history of logic for its major provocation: the disqualification of the syllogism as the operative tool of science, in favor of a newly conceived induction—both in terms of its role within the logical framework and its internal structure. Why does Bacon envision such a reversal? How does he go about developing it conceptually? This study seeks to contribute to answering these questions, which have been relatively neglected by interpreters, in order to clarify the function Bacon assigns to his logic. To this end, it examines the longest of the aphorisms composing the work, which is dedicated to the distinction of 19 fundamental motions of matter. How can Bacon conceive of logic as an organon—that is, as the instrument of a future natural philosophy—while at the same time constructing this logic based on several principles of that very philosophy? The article argues that this does not entail a contradiction, but rather introduces a new approach to logical instrumentality. Bacon aims to refute Aristotelian logic, insofar as it serves as the source of erroneous principles of natural philosophy, in order to prevent a false logic from distorting the analysis of nature.
PETER R. ANSTEY, Descartes on laws of nature as principles
Abstract: This paper attempts to advance our understanding of the emergence of the modern notion of physical Laws of Nature by situating the earliest known discussions of laws of nature, those of Descartes, in the context of the theory of principles and the broader neo-Aristotelian theory of knowledge acquisition. It is claimed that together these theories are an important, though hitherto overlooked, seam within the conceptual resources from which Descartes’ distinctive and novel notion of Laws of Nature was developed.
ALEXANDRA BACALU, “Let them run out, and entertain themselves”: Imagination, the Thinking Heart, and the Treatise on the Government of Thoughts in Seventeenth-Century England
Abstract: Scholarship on early modern popular psychology has so far neglected the importance of English treatises on the government of thoughts, despite their popularity—and increasing proliferation—over the course of the seventeenth century. This literature was written by a highly diverse and eclectic group of authors, ranging from Cambridge theologians to High-Anglican clergymen and from natural philosophers to astrologer-physicians. These include works by William Perkins (1607), Thomas Cooper (1619), Thomas Goodwin (1637), Robert Boyle (1645), Edward Reyner (1656), John Angell (1659), William Shewen (1679), William Penn (1682), Richard Saunders (1682), Richard Allestree (1694), John Sharp (1694), George Tullie (1694), and William Chilcot (1698). In this article, I look at two early treatises by Reformed theologians Perkins and Goodwin, and two late High-Anglican works by Allestree and Sharp. My aim is to reconstruct the precise conception of human “thoughts” foregrounded in this literature and examine two important consequences that stem from this articulation: (1) the elevation of the imagination to the status of an “arch-faculty” of the mind that participates in all other operations of the soul and (2) the tension between depravity and diversion that shapes the practical rules for self-government offered in this literature. I explore these alternatives to the standard faculty psychology and moral instruction found in competing genres of popular psychology and practical moral philosophy at the time, with the aim of complicating more traditional historical interpretations of Protestant self-regulation.
MOGENS LÆRKE, Oliver Hill: An Impertinent Ass. A Puritan Mystic and Cambridge Philosopher at the Royal Society, 1677–1682 [OPEN ACCESS]
Abstract: The early Royal Society was an intellectual movement with remarkably homogenous epistemological and methodological features. Despite the petty squabbles fellows occasionally engaged in, general agreement existed among them about the principles, methods, and aims of their collective enterprise. On rare occasions, however, the society was genuinely infiltrated by someone with incompatible conceptions and principles, upsetting the sober equilibrium of society meetings. One spectacular example of such an intruder was the Cambridge-educated Oliver Hill who was fellow of the society from 1677 to 1682. This paper offers an account of Hill’s short tenure and studies some possible sources for better reconstructing two discourses, today lost, that he presented at meetings in December and January 1677/78. Drawing in particular on a later work by Hill written against followers of William Harvey, the paper aims to show how Hill, most often presented as a puritan mystic, also pursued a natural philosophical project in which he defended a speculative philosophy and spiritualist cosmology not unlike Henry More’s.
Reviews
THOMAS BROCHARD
Gerhard Seibold, Ewiges Gedächtnis wahrer Freundschaft: Alba amicorum – ein kulturgeschichtliches Ausdrucksmittel (Verlag Brüder Hollinek, 2024)
DANIEL HEIDER
Sebastian Bender and Dominik Perler (eds.). Powers and Abilities in Early Modern Philosophy (Routledge, 2024)
