Branching Off: The Early Moderns in Quest for the Unity of Knowledge (Foundations of Modern Thought)

by Vlad Alexandrescu

As Francis Bacon put it on the frontispiece of his Novum Organum, grafting an apocalyptic vision on a research program, multi pertransibunt et multiplex erit scientia. The development of science becomes steadily associated with the end of earthly life, a theme that would resound deeply in Western thought up until Goethe s Faust. What grounds then the multiplicity of knowledge? What is the common trunk out of which all realms of knowledge unfold, like the burgeoning branches of the celebrated tree? After the Augustinian imprint of the first Christian centuries and after the admirable effort of the high scholastics Aristotelian and Christian synthesis, the seventeenth century undertakes new scientific work with the need of a new steady ground. All the big names of the modern era, Francis Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, Robert Boyle, Spinoza or Leibniz, found themselves engaged in the search for a common trunk of wisdom, each of them nourishing the intimate conviction that they possessed the philosophical core which would satisfy the learned men s newly found appetite for indefinitely extending knowledge. In doing this, all of these masters needed to confront the philosophical tradition that they received, reworking and merging together the old structures of science through this epistemological prism of the search for the unity of knowledge. (Vlad Alexandrescu) CONTENTS Vlad Foreword I. Faces of knowledge Nathan Mathesis, Mathematics and Method in Descartes s A Reprise Elodie Théorie de la science et physique chez Descartes Vlad The double question of the individuation of physical bodies in Descartes Roger Descartes and Leibniz on the Principle of Individuation Lucian Descartes and the Internal Senses. On memory and remembrance Stephen The unity of natural philosophical foundations of Spinoza s politico-theology Daniel Leibniz, Theology and the Mechanical Philosophy Sorana Locke on the Study of Nature II. Mapping Knowledge and Traditions Massimiliano La Panacea Philosophica de Johann Heinrich un projet architectonique d accès au savoir Dana The fascination of Solomon s House in seventeenth century Baconianism revisited Giulia «Toute hyperbole tend là, de nous amener à la vérité par l excès de la vérité, c est-à-dire par la mensonge»: les parcours hyperboliques qui amènent à la vérité de Balzac à Descartes Igor Caterus on God as ens a se Justin E.H. Descartes and Henry More on living bodies Mihnea The Scientific Journals of the Cartesianism in Journal des Sçavans and Philosophical Transactions, 1665-1670 Eric Sir Kenelm Digby and the Weapon Salve in Seventeenth Century England Brandon Leibniz and Locke on Real and Nominal Essences

416 pages, Paperback

Published December 10, 2009