The Philosophy of Kenelm Digby (1603–1665)

Description

This book examines the philosophical and scientific achievements of Sir Kenelm Digby, a successful English diplomat, privateer and natural philosopher of the mid-1600s. Not widely remembered today, Digby is one of the most intriguing figures in the history of early modern philosophers. Among scholars, he is known for his attempt to reconcile what perhaps seem to be irreconcilable philosophical frameworks: Aristotelianism and early modern mechanism. This contributed volume offers the first full-length treatment of Digby’s work and of the unique position he occupied in early modern intellectual history. It explores key aspects of Digby’s metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophical method, and offers a new appraisal of his contributions to early modern natural philosophy and mathematics. A dozen contributors offer their expert insight into such topics as Body, quantity, and measures in Digby's natural philosophy Ecumenism and common notions in Digby Aristotelianism and accidents in Digby's philosophy Digby on body and soul Digby on method and experiments This book volume will be of benefit to a broad audience of scholars, educators, and students of the history of early modern science and philosophy. Contents Abbreviations Chapter 1: Introduction: The Digbean Way, or Navigating Between the ‘Old’ and the ‘New’ 1.1 Biography 1.2 A Plurality of Intellectual Circles 1.2.1 Blackloism 1.2.2 Digby’s Reconciliatory Programme 1.2.2.1 Digby on Aristotle and Aristotelianism 1.2.2.2 Digby and Descartes 1.2.2.3 Digby and Galileo 1.2.2.4 Digby and the Experimentalist Project 1.3 Digby’s ‘Philosophical’ Method 1.4 Digby’s Science of Body 1.4.1 Quantity and Divisibility 1.4.2 Density and Rarity, and the Problem of Quantity over Substance 1.4.3 Introducing Gravity 1.4.4 The Operations of Simple and Mixed Bodies 1.4.5 What Kind of Particulate Theory of Matter? Atomism and Minima Naturalia 1.4.6 The Sympathetic Cure, Radial Theory of Bodies and Operations by Effluvia 1.4.7 Living Bodies 1.5 Digby’s Science of the Soul 1.5.1 The Resurrection of the Body and the Soul as Form 1.6 Conclusion References Chapter 2: Two Treatises in One Volume: Kenelm Digby Between Body and Soul 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Common Notions and Common Language 2.3 Reification 2.4 Identity and Difference Between the Soul and its Objects 2.5 Innate Notions and the Soul’s Reifications 2.6 Conclusion: Digby’s Contribution to the Post-Pomponazzi Debate References Chapter 3: Common Notions and Immortality in Digby and the Early Leibniz 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Ecumenism and Common Theology 3.3 Common Notions and Common Usage 3.4 Common Notions and the Analysis of Matter 3.5 Common Notions and the Analysis of Mind 3.6 Conclusion References Chapter 4: Sir Kenelm Digby, the Immortality of the Soul, and Philosophical Theology in Seventeenth-Century England 4.1 Introduction: From Bodies to Souls in Digby’s Two Treatises 4.2 The Nature of the Soul 4.3 The Soul after Death 4.4 Digby’s and White’s Philosophical Theology 4.5 The Philosophical Theology of the Soul in Seventeenth-Century England 4.6 Conclusion References Chapter 5: Digby, Thomas Browne, and Philosophical Theology 5.1 Roger Bacon and the Disposition to Philosophy 5.2 Pietro Pomponazzi and the Immortality of the Soul 5.3 The ‘Naked Termes’ of the Schools and Philosophical Method 5.4 Aristotle, Thomas White, and the ‘Magnifike Structure’ of Philosophy 5.5 The Resurrection of the Body and Philosophical Theology References Chapter 6: Digby, White, and the English Mathematicians 6.1 Introduction: Court Politics and Religious Toleration 6.2 Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in the Service of Religion 6.3 Squaring the Circle and Higher Goals 6.4 White’s Scientific and Religious Opponents 6.5 Facilitating Fermat’s Challenges 6.6 Digby and Oxford 6.7 Diplomacy and Scientific Mediation 6.8 Contrasting Scientific Cultures 6.9 Conclusion Appendix: A Previously Unpublished Letter from Kenelm Digby to Thomas White, Paris, [7]/17 July 1658 References Chapter 7: Digby on Plants and Palingenesis 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Of Plants and Animals: Digby’s Theory of Living Beings 7.3 Digby’s Chymical Pursuits: Paris and London 7.4 Digby’s Discourse Concerning the Vegetation of Plants 7.5 Palingenesis 7.6 Epilogue References Chapter 8: On Bodies and Their Orbs: Kenelm Digby’s Use of a Metaphysics of Light to Ground an Experimental Physics 8.1 Kenelm Digby and the Dissolution of Bodies 8.2 Substance, Quantity and the Quest for a Metaphysical Definition 8.3 Natural Philosophical Accounts, Principles and Reconstructions from Phenomena 8.4 Redefining Interactions: Collisions and Orbs of Virtue 8.5 The Light Cutter and Digby’s Experimental Program 8.6 Conclusion References Chapter 9: Digby on Accidents 9.1 Introduction 9.2 Real Accidents 9.2.1 Accidents as Actual Beings 9.2.2 Against Accidents as Actual Beings 9.3 Quality 9.4 Quantity 9.4.1 Rarity and Rarefaction 9.5 Location 9.5.1 Suárez on Location 9.5.2 Digby on Location 9.6 Conclusion References Chapter 10: Bodies and Their Potential Parts: The Not-So-Friendly Reception of Digbean Quantity 10.1 Digby’s Corpuscularian Bodies 10.2 Divisibility and Body 10.3 Ross on Digby on Quantity 10.4 Glanvill on the ‘Absurdity’ of Potential Parts 10.5 Actualism, Potentialism, and Cohesion 10.6 Margaret Cavendish on Digby on Potential Parts 10.7 Conclusion References