Professor Margaret Jo Osler of the University of Calgary, an historian of early modern science and philosophy (and a member of the Board of Directors of the Journal of the History of Philosophy since 2002) died on September 15, 2010. Born on November 27, 1942, she proudly proclaimed herself to be a "red diaper baby" and particularly delighted in telling her right-wing friends how her middle name was her parents' homage to Stalin. An energetic scholar with a vibrant (...) and positive personality, Maggie, as everyone who worked with her came to call her, never considered retirement and was actively working right up to her diagnosis with pancreatic cancer in early July, 2010.After graduating from Swarthmore College in .. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.3 (2003) 407 [Access article in PDF] Reply By Margaret J. Osler and Richard A. Watson In his comments on our historiographical Notes in the October 2002 issue of JHP, A. P. Martinich misrepresents our position by erroneously claiming that we presume a sharp dichotomy between the analytic history of philosophy and the historical history of philosophy. Neither of us accepts (...) such a premise. Once that misreading is eliminated there are few disagreements between each of us and Martinich.We agree that any meaningful history of philosophy must be both philosophically sophisticated and historically grounded. History without philosophy would be nothing but chronicle; history of philosophy without historical context would describe a series of moves, but explain nothing. A desideratum of both history and philosophy is careful reading, exposition, and analysis of texts.... (shrink)

Margaret J. Osler - Jan W. Wojcik 1944-2006 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 44:4 Journal of the History of Philosophy 44.4 iv Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Jan W. Wojcik 1944–2006 Margaret J. Osler Jan Wojcik, who served as Book Review Editor for The Journal of the History of Philosohy, died in Paris, France,..

Margaret J. Osler - René Descartes: Tutte le lettere, 1619-1650 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 45:2 Journal of the History of Philosophy 45.2 332-333 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Margaret J. Osler The University of Calgary Giulia Belgioioso, editor. René Descartes: Tutte le lettere, 1619–1650. Testo francese, latino, e olandese. Milano: Bompiani/ Il Pensiero Occidentale, 2005. lviii + 3104. Cloth, e 48.00. The publication of a new scholarly edition of important primary (...) sources is an event to be celebrated. This new edition of Descartes's correspondence—the fruit of decades of close textual study by Giulia Belgioioso.. (shrink)

This book is about the influence of varying theological conceptions of contingency and necessity on two versions of the mechanical philosophy in the seventeenth century. Pierre Gassendi and René Descartes both believed that all natural phenomena could be explained in terms of matter and motion alone. They disagreed about the details of their mechanical accounts of the world, in particular about their theories of matter and their approaches to scientific method. This book traces their differences back to theological presuppositions they (...) inherited from the Middle Ages. Theological ideas were transformed into philosophical and scientific ideas which led to the emergence of different styles of science in the second half of the seventeenth century. (shrink)

Margaret J. Osler - Early Modern Philosophy: Mind, Matter, and Metaphysics - Journal of the History of Philosophy 44:3 Journal of the History of Philosophy 44.3 478-479 Christia Mercer and Eileen O'Neill, editors. Early Modern Philosophy: Mind, Matter, and Metaphysics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Pp. xxi + 298. Cloth, $55.00. The editors of this collection of essays by the late Margaret Wilson's former students and colleagues present this book "as a snapshot of state-of-the-art history of (...) early modern philosophy" . Many of the usual suspects make an appearance in these pages: Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Berkeley, Malebranche, and Kant. A couple of new faces also come on stage: Damaris Cudworth , best known as Locke's companion but presented here as a philosopher in her own right, and the Cartesian Bernard le Bouvier de.. (shrink)

Margaret J. Osler - Renaissance Readings of the Corpus Aristotelicum - Journal of the History of Philosophy 40:3 Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.3 394-395 Book Review Renaissance Readings of the Corpus Aristotelicum Marianne Pade, editor. Renaissance Readings of the Corpus Aristotelicum. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2001. Pp. 261. Paper, $34.00. Aristotle's philosophy did not suffer a sudden demise with the rise of Renaissance humanism, as many accounts would have us believe. Nor did the Renaissance lack important (...) developments in philosophy, as analytic historians of philosophy implicitly claim by the absence of philosophers in their canon during this period. Rather, in order to understand the content and contexts of Renaissance and early modern philosophy, one must be acquainted with Aristotelianism and.. (shrink)

Writing about the history of science and the history of philosophy involves assumptions about the role of context and about the relationships between past and present ideas. Some historians emphasize the context, concentrating on the intellectual, personal, and social factors that affect the way earlier thinkers have approached their subject. Analytic philosophers take a critical approach, considering the logic and merit of the arguments of past thinkers almost as though they are engaging in contemporary debates. Some philosophers use the ideas (...) of historical figures to support their own philosophical agendas. Scholarly studies of the French natural philosopher Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655) exemplify many of these .. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655): Lettres Latines, and: Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655): Introduction à la vie savanteMargaret J. OslerPierre Gassendi. Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655): Lettres Latines. Edited by Sylvie Taussig. Vol. 1, Traduction. Pp. xxxiv + 622. Vol. 2, Notes. Pp. x + 609. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2004 Paper, € 175,00.Sylvie Taussig. Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655): Introduction à la vie savante. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2003. Pp. 454. € 60,00.The reputation of Pierre Gassendi (...) (1592–1655), the French natural philosopher responsible for recovering Epicurean atomism and hedonism and modifying it to be compatible with Christian theology, has suffered neglect in part because of the difficult Latin in which his works were written. Hence, the publication of translations of large chunks of his work into a modern language is, prima facie, a welcome addition to scholarship in the history of philosophy. Accordingly, the appearance of Sylvie Taussig's translation of Gassendi's Latin correspondence, published in the posthumous Opera omnia (1658), seemed, at first blush, to make an important body of Gassendi's writings accessible to more modern scholars. The three books under review consist of a French translation of Volume 6 of Gassendi's [End Page 489] Opera omnia (the Latin letters to which the title refers); a volume of notes on the letters; and a book about Gassendi's life, based closely on the Latin letters.Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655): Introduction à la vie savante summarizes various aspects of Gassendi's life and career from 1621–1655, the years covered by the published correspondence. Basically summarizing the letters, this book has sections on Gassendi's biography for these years, the nature of the correspondence, Gassendi's science, his Epicurean project, his interactions with various notables, and his role in the history of his time. In fact, the book is little more than a topical analysis of the letters. Despite the inclusion of an extensive—but incomplete—bibliography of scholarship on Gassendi, the notes to Taussig's text refer to the letters but to almost no secondary sources.The same problem characterizes her notes to the letters. Containing 7491 footnotes and filling a volume of 609 pages, the second volume of the Lettres latines contains virtually no mention of the contributions of other scholars. These notes range from the explication of Classical references to political events in Gassendi's lifetime, from scientific and philosophical controversies to the issues of Church governance in Digne where Gassendi was a canon in the cathedral.The devil is in the details, and here the details undermine one's confidence in the project. There are many errors in the notes to the letters. For example, in note 1087, the inventor of logarithms is named 'Brigg' rather than 'Briggs.' There are numerous gaffes in the bibliography in Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655): Introduction à la vie savante. For example, the entry for Steven J. Dick, is 'Dick, St. J.'. The entry for Lynn Sumida Joy is 'Lynn, S. J.'. And the entry for Susanna Åkerman is a mess, obviously because the typesetter was unable to deal with the diacritical mark. Although these points seem trivial, their frequency points to a lack of precision and lack of good proofreading.Unfortunately, these three volumes will not provide a reliable new source for scholars seeking access to Gassendi's writings. The French translation of the letters will provide a shortcut, but they will not eliminate the need to consult the original Latin version.Margaret J. OslerUniversity of CalgaryCopyright © 2005 Journal of the History of Philosophy, Inc.... (shrink)

This volume examines the influence that Epicureanism and Stoicism, two philosophies of nature and human nature articulated during classical times, exerted on the development of European thought to the Enlightenment. Although the influence of these philosophies has often been noted in certain areas, such as the influence of Stoicism on the development of Christian thought and the influence of Epicureanism on modern materialism, the chapters in this volume forward a new awareness of the degree to which these philosophies and their (...) continued interaction informed European intellectual life well into early modern times. The influence of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophies in the areas of literature, philosophy, theology, and science are considered. Many thinkers continue to perceive these philosophies as significant alternatives for understanding the human and natural worlds. Having become incorporated into the canon of philosophical alternatives, Epicureanism and Stoicism continued to exert identifiable influences on scientific and philosphical thought at least until the middle of the eighteenth century. (shrink)

This collection reconsiders canonical figures and the formation of disciplinary boundaries during the Scientific Revolution.

A commonplace in traditional historiography is the claim that an important aspect of the demise of Aristotelianism during the Scientific Revolution was a change in the concept of causality, a change which eliminated final causes from science. Projecting twentieth-century metaphysical presuppositions onto the ostensibly revolutionary thought of early modern natural philosophers, E. A. Burtt declared.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.2 (2001) 294-295 [Access article in PDF] Schouls, Peter A. Descartes and the Possibility of Science. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000. Pp. x + 171. Cloth, $35.00. There are at least three ways to write the history of philosophy. Truly historical historians of philosophy emphasize the context and development of ideas, concentrating on the intellectual, social, and personal factors that affect the way (...) philosophers have thought about their subject. Analytic philosophers take a critical approach, considering the logic and merit of the arguments of philosophers who have lived in the past almost as if they are engaging in contemporary debates. Another group of philosophers use the ideas of historical figures to support their own philosophical agendas. Peter Schouls' new book on Descartes falls into this third category.Schouls' aim is to present Descartes' philosophy as the origin of modernity. What he means is that "Descartes believed that the world and humanity exist in a relationship which makes it possible for humanity to improve its state through manipulating the world. This manipulation is by means of developing and applying science." Schouls interprets Descartes' notion of progress as leading to "increases in freedom from the drudgery of labor, from the suffering of illness, and from the anxiety of interpersonal and international quarrels,"(ix) arguing that mind-body dualism is necessary for humanity to accomplish these lofty goals.Schouls asks what conditions are needed for humans to develop the science that is a necessary condition for the kinds of progress Descartes sought (and Schouls clearly endorses). Human progress depends on the possibility of science. Descartes founded his science on the pure metaphysics developed in The Meditations. These metaphysical foundations provided the framework for his claim that the human mind can acquire certain knowledge of the world. Central to Descartes' method, Schouls argues, is the view that the imagination must be incorporeal. If this view can be justified, it is a significant departure from the views of most seventeenth-century philosophers who thought that the imagination is a corporeal organ that translates and transmits mechanical impulses to the incorporeal soul. Schouls argues that because the subject-matter of science, especially geometry, involves imagining relationships apart from empirical [End Page 294] experience, it is necessary that the imagination must be incorporeal. Consequently, mind-body dualism is a necessary condition for the kind of science and progress that Descartes sought.There are flaws in this book, some having to do with Schouls' argument and some having to do with its lack of historical context. The two problems are inextricably linked. Schouls reads Descartes without due consideration of historical context. The book's bibliography reveals no primary sources other than the writings of Descartes. Descartes did not write in an intellectual vacuum. He worked within a community of philosophers, and that community provided both the background and audience for his own thoughts. Ignoring this seventeenth-century context causes Schouls to misread the significance of some of Descartes' ideas. For example, he writes that Descartes' philosophy was condemned in both Protestant and Catholic venues "in part because of its assertion of the limitlessness of human freedom" (4). In fact, Descartes' philosophy was banned because he attempted to give a mechanical explanation of the Eucharist. On a related point, Schouls' drive to present Descartes as the origin of modernity causes him to sideline important issues such as the role of theology in Descartes' thought.Similarly, the lack of historical context leads to errors of interpretation. As Alan Gabbey and others have recently demonstrated, terms like "mechanics" and "science" meant something different in the seventeenth century from what they mean today. Even the terms a priori and a posteriori had different meanings in early modern thought. Schouls expresses some mystification about Descartes' use of the term "a priori" in the second Meditiation. This mystification would vanish if he had taken into account early modern usage according to which a priori means reasoning from the one, true cause to an effect rather than acquiring knowledge of the world independently of experience.Schouls' argument sometimes loses... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.4 (2003) 558-559 [Access article in PDF] Stephen Gaukroger. Descartes' System of Natural Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. viii + 258. Cloth, $60.00. Paper, $22.00. Stephen Gaukroger, author of a definitive biography of Descartes, has now written an excellent account of Descartes's natural philosophy as presented in his Principia philosophiae. Gaukroger claims that the roots of modernity lay in the (...) philosophies of Francis Bacon and René Descartes, both of whom regarded natural philosophy, rather than either moral philosophy or metaphysics, as the core of the philosophical enterprise. Whereas Bacon developed his ideas from a background steeped in the writings of the Renaissance humanists who emphasized moral philosophy, Descartes developed his ideas in the context of Scholastic philosophy, particularly the textbooks of the Jesuits that he had encountered at La Flèche and that located the foundations of philosophy in metaphysics.Regarding the unpublished early works, Le monde and L'homme, as suppressed parts of Descartes's mature project and taking seriously Descartes's stated intention of dealing with living things and humans along with the physical world in his natural philosophy, Gaukroger presents a detailed account of this "complete" version of the Principia philosophiae. In a series of six chapters, he explicates Descartes's views on the principles of knowledge, the principles of material objects, the visible universe, the Earth, living things, and man. In addition to Le monde and L'homme, Gaukroger draws on Les Passions de l'âme as an important source for Descartes's views on human nature.Gaukroger situates Descartes's natural philosophy in the context of the Scholastic textbook tradition in a chapter preceding his account of the Principa philosophiae. He delves into the history of medieval universities, the place of natural philosophy in the medieval curriculum, and the changing relationship between metaphysics and natural philosophy, particularly after the Condemnations of 1277. Difficulties in reconciling Aristotelian natural philosophy and Christian theology, which had been formulated in terms of Aristotelian metaphysics, continued into the sixteenth century and provided the immediate background to the Jesuit commentaries and textbooks to which Descartes was exposed as a student. In these works, Jesuit philosophers attempted to derive a coherently unified Christian Aristotelianism from first principles. Gaukroger reminds us that Descartes's Principia philosophiae was a deliberate attempt to replace these Jesuit textbooks with one based on mechanistic principles.Despite the strength of Gaukroger's book as a contextualized study of a major philosophical figure who is frequently treated in an entirely ahistorical way, the book is not without its problems. The main problem is one that plagues many studies of Descartes (and other canonical figures in the history of philosophy), to wit, the presumption that he is somehow unique. For example, Gaukroger writes at length about Descartes's views about the differences between animals and humans with regard to cognition, arguing that Descartes did not consider animals to be automata because they lack rational souls but rather that they actually experience some but not all of the more abstract or reflexive forms of cognition usually ascribed to humans. Gaukroger does not mention the fact that many other early modern philosophers held a view like this. For example, Descartes's contemporary and fellow mechanical philosopher Pierre Gassendi claimed that animals could know universals, as when a dog recognizes that it is a human that is approaching, but differ from humans in not being capable of contemplating the nature of universality per se. Descartes was part of a community of thinkers concerned with similar problems, and his natural philosophy can be illuminated by viewing him in that context as well as against the backdrop of Scholasticism.Gaukroger underplays the significance of theology for Descartes's philosophy. Although he discusses how God's attributes, especially immutability, provide the basis for Descartes's laws of motion, he does not explore the specific aspects of Descartes's theological presuppositions and the way they influenced his entire natural philosophical project. Gaukroger repeats the received view that "One of the principal tasks of a mechanistic natural philosophy... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655): Lettres Latines, and: Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655): Introduction à la vie savanteMargaret J. OslerPierre Gassendi. Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655): Lettres Latines. Edited by Sylvie Taussig. Vol. 1, Traduction. Pp. xxxiv + 622. Vol. 2, Notes. Pp. x + 609. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2004 Paper, € 175,00.Sylvie Taussig. Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655): Introduction à la vie savante. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2003. Pp. 454. € 60,00.The reputation of Pierre Gassendi (...) (1592–1655), the French natural philosopher responsible for recovering Epicurean atomism and hedonism and modifying it to be compatible with Christian theology, has suffered neglect in part because of the difficult Latin in which his works were written. Hence, the publication of translations of large chunks of his work into a modern language is, prima facie, a welcome addition to scholarship in the history of philosophy. Accordingly, the appearance of Sylvie Taussig's translation of Gassendi's Latin correspondence, published in the posthumous Opera omnia (1658), seemed, at first blush, to make an important body of Gassendi's writings accessible to more modern scholars. The three books under review consist of a French translation of Volume 6 of Gassendi's [End Page 489] Opera omnia (the Latin letters to which the title refers); a volume of notes on the letters; and a book about Gassendi's life, based closely on the Latin letters.Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655): Introduction à la vie savante summarizes various aspects of Gassendi's life and career from 1621–1655, the years covered by the published correspondence. Basically summarizing the letters, this book has sections on Gassendi's biography for these years, the nature of the correspondence, Gassendi's science, his Epicurean project, his interactions with various notables, and his role in the history of his time. In fact, the book is little more than a topical analysis of the letters. Despite the inclusion of an extensive—but incomplete—bibliography of scholarship on Gassendi, the notes to Taussig's text refer to the letters but to almost no secondary sources.The same problem characterizes her notes to the letters. Containing 7491 footnotes and filling a volume of 609 pages, the second volume of the Lettres latines contains virtually no mention of the contributions of other scholars. These notes range from the explication of Classical references to political events in Gassendi's lifetime, from scientific and philosophical controversies to the issues of Church governance in Digne where Gassendi was a canon in the cathedral.The devil is in the details, and here the details undermine one's confidence in the project. There are many errors in the notes to the letters. For example, in note 1087, the inventor of logarithms is named 'Brigg' rather than 'Briggs.' There are numerous gaffes in the bibliography in Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655): Introduction à la vie savante. For example, the entry for Steven J. Dick, is 'Dick, St. J.'. The entry for Lynn Sumida Joy is 'Lynn, S. J.'. And the entry for Susanna Åkerman is a mess, obviously because the typesetter was unable to deal with the diacritical mark. Although these points seem trivial, their frequency points to a lack of precision and lack of good proofreading.Unfortunately, these three volumes will not provide a reliable new source for scholars seeking access to Gassendi's writings. The French translation of the letters will provide a shortcut, but they will not eliminate the need to consult the original Latin version.Margaret J. OslerUniversity of CalgaryCopyright © 2005 Journal of the History of Philosophy, Inc.... (shrink)

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS It is my lot, if not my duty, in presenting these opening remarks at our conference, to take the title of our meeting seriously. ...

The wheel has come full circle. A century ago scholars were writing books about the warfare of science with theology. That fashion gave way to examinations of the impact of modern science on religion. Now historians of science are expounding the role of Christianity in shaping modern science. In this outstanding book, Margaret Osler, who is far from alone in pursuing such studies, follows the influence of two established traditions of theology on the epistemological assumptions, and conceptions of (...) nature related to them, of the seventeenth century’s mechanical philosophers. Her book cannot fail to leave an enduring mark on our understanding of the Scientific Revolution. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Background The World and Treatise on Man (1633) Optics (1637) Meteorology (1637) Principles of Philosophy (1644) Conclusion References and Further Reading.