The ‘model approach’ facilitates a quantitative-oriented study of conceptual changes in large corpora. This paper implements the ‘model approach’ to investigate the erosion of the traditional art-nature distinction in early modern natural philosophy. I argue that a condition for this transformation has to be located in the late scholastic conception of final causation. I design a conceptual model to capture the art-nature distinction and formulate a working hypothesis about its early modern fate. I test my hypothesis on a selected corpus (...) of 25 works published in the Dutch academic milieu between 1607 and 1748. I analyse the corpus through a procedure based on concordancing of keywords associated with the model. I argue that the results obtained constitute a successful pilot study for the implementation of the model approach on larger scale research. (shrink)

_The Dutch Legacy_ investigates the political philosophy and philosophy of religion of Franciscus van den Enden, Lodewijk Meyer, the brothers De la Court, and Adriaan Koerbagh in order to assess their contributions to the development of radical movements in the Enlightenment.

How did the relations between philosophy and science evolve during the 17th and the 18th century? This book analyzes this issue by considering the history of Cartesianism in Dutch universities, as well as its legacy in the 18th century. It takes into account the ways in which the disciplines of logic and metaphysics became functional to the justification and reflection on the conceptual premises and the methods of natural philosophy, changing their traditional roles as art of reasoning and as (...) science of being. This transformation took place as a result of two factors. First, logic and metaphysics were used to grant the status of indubitable knowledge of natural philosophy. Second, the debates internal to Cartesianism, as well as the emergence of alternative philosophical world-views progressively deprived such disciplines of their foundational function, and they started to become forms of reflection over given scientific practices, either Cartesian, experimental, or Newtonian. (shrink)

1848 is a watershed in Dutch political and intellectual history. In the wake of liberalism positivism and empiricism dominated Dutch philosophy. In this paper it is argued that Spinoza’s philosophy played an important part in developing a liberal Weltanschauung. Dutch Spinozism started with the theological dissertation of Johannes van Vloten, who from the 1860s onwards became the great pamphleteer of Spinozism. However due to his break with Christianity he remained an exception in Dutch intellectual life. The (...) Utrecht professor of philosophy Cornelis Willem Opzoomer and his friend the classical scholar D. Burger jr., for example, propagated a liberal Christianity purged from its mythical elements. Adopting Schleiermacher’s example Opzoomer developed a morality inspired by Ethics V. In 1850 he turned to J. S. Mill and A. Comte. From that year onwards he justified the methodological unity of the natural and ‘moral’ sciences in Spinoza’s doctrine of the passions. According to Burger the Ethics contains an obsolete metaphysics, but due to its morality consistent with science the book deserves a large 19th-century readership. In 1858 he translated Spinoza’s main work into Dutch. (shrink)

This book attempts to provide a general interpretation of the history of philosophy in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic.

This book attempts to provide a general interpretation of the history of philosophy in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic. It concentrates on the heritage of Humanism, and on the rise of Dutch Cartesianism and Spinozism.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Dutch Cartesianism and the Birth of Philosophy of Science by Andrea StrazzoniAaron SpinkAndrea Strazzoni. Dutch Cartesianism and the Birth of Philosophy of Science. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2019. Pp. ix + 245. Hardback, $124.99.Andrea Strazzoni's Dutch Cartesianism and the Birth of Philosophy of Science is a clear step forward in our understanding of the rise and fall of Cartesianism. The work, limited to the (...) class='Hi'>Dutch context with one notable German excursion, covers roughly one hundred years starting from the 1630s. While the time frame is rather large in scope, the majority of the work is narrower in focus, with a heavy emphasis on the academic circles in mid-to-late seventeenth-century Leiden and Utrecht. It is thus a welcome addition to the growing body of literature dealing with the unique political, religious, and academic contexts in which Dutch Cartesians found themselves. While much of the book deals with the philosophy of Descartes and then Newton, Strazzoni is not concerned with giving any novel interpretations of either figure; instead, he sheds a great deal of light on a cast of characters who are only now coming to be appreciated for their contributions and influence on philosophical movements of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The book has two main explicit goals. First, Strazzoni wants to show why foundationalism came to play such a prominent role in Dutch Cartesian circles and what foundationalism's effects were. Second, through this examination, Strazzoni hopes to show that the multiplication of worldviews [End Page 154] shaped a new function for metaphysics and logic as tools for examining principles, which in turn determined a change in the function of philosophy itself that eventually gave birth to a kind of philosophy of science familiar to us today.Strazzoni divides this project into eight chapters, with a focus on six figures: Henricus Regius, Johannes Clauberg, Johannes de Raey, Arnold Geulincx, Burchard de Volder, and Willem Jacob's Gravesande. In addition to a brief overview of the goals and structure of the work, the first chapter includes a survey of how methodologies have changed in the history of philosophy and the history of the philosophy of science, which will be helpful background for those less familiar with the fields.The following two chapters deal with the crises that emerged in Utrecht and Leiden over the spread of Cartesian philosophy. In chapter 2, building on Theo Verbeek's work, Regius takes center stage. While some context of the Utrecht crisis is given, Strazzoni spends much of the chapter detailing how Regius's medical background led to a more empirical approach and lack of metaphysical foundation. While Regius's own controversial positions embroiled both himself and Descartes in the Utrecht Crisis, ripple effects spread to Leiden, resulting in prohibitions against discussions of Cartesian philosophy. In the third chapter, Strazzoni highlights a group of anti-Cartesians, with Jacob Revius as the primary antagonist, and the responses from De Raey and Clauberg. Clauberg, the subject of Strazzoni's only sustained discussion of Cartesianism from Germany, coordinated with de Raey on both a positive campaign of promotion and strategizing responses to the anti-Cartesian front. Outside of discussing Clauberg's explicit role in Leiden, Strazzoni studies his logic and Ontosophia, neatly explaining his shift to more metaphysical foundations.Chapters 4, 5, and 6 continue exploring the various approaches and roles for foundational philosophy in more detail, delving into how these controversies motivated renewed analysis of core Cartesian principles with integration into an academic curriculum in mind. Apart from de Raey's efforts to show that Cartesianism was aligned with Aristotelianism, Strazzoni claims a period of Cartesian physics without an explicit preoccupation with metaphysical questions, especially in light of the restrictions imposed by the curators of Leiden's university. However, as Spinoza and Hobbes came to prominence, multiplying the number of philosophical worldviews, foundational arguments were needed to combat them. Strazzoni highlights how varied these responses could be, as Geulincx's own take on foundations leaned heavily toward ethics rather than epistemology, metaphysics, or logic. However, the discussion of Geulincx is much broader, also including illuminating expositions of Geulincx's theology, epistemology, and metaphysics.Chapter 5 expounds further... (shrink)

In This Paper I Aim to Place Spinoza’s famous injunction in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, to separate philosophy from theology, in its historical context. I contend that in order to properly understand Spinoza’s views concerning the relationship between philosophy and theology, we must view his work in the context of philosophical discussions taking place during his time and in his country of residence, the Dutch Republic. Of particular relevance is a meta-philosophical thesis advocated by a certain group of Cartesian philosophers (...) and theologians. Their thesis was developed in response to attacks on Cartesianism from more conservative authors, who saw it as a source of impiety. It stated that Cartesian .. (shrink)

Food consumption has been identified as a realm of key importance for progressing the world towards more sustainable consumption overall. Consumers have the option to choose organic food as a visible product of more ecologically integrated farming methods and, in general, more carefully produced food. This study aims to investigate the choice for organic from a cultural–historical perspective and aims to reveal the food philosophy of current organic consumers in The Netherlands. A concise history of the organic food movement is (...) provided going back to the German Lebensreform and the American Natural Foods Movement. We discuss themes such as the wish to return to a more natural lifestyle, distancing from materialistic lifestyles, and reverting to a more meaningful moral life. Based on a number of in-depth interviews, the study illustrates that these themes are still of influence among current organic consumers who additionally raised the importance of connectedness to nature, awareness, and purity. We argue that their values are shared by a much larger part of Dutch society than those currently shopping for organic food. Strengthening these cultural values in the context of more sustainable food choices may help to expand the amount of organic consumers and hereby aid a transition towards more sustainable consumption. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.2 (2003) 276-277 [Access article in PDF] Wiep Van Bunge. From Stevin to Spinoza: An Essay on Philosophy in the Seventeenth-Century Dutch Republic. Leiden: Brill, 2001. Pp. xii + 217. Cloth, $80.00 By 1660 there were probably more followers of Descartes in the Dutch Republic, population 1.4 million, than in France, population 20 million. Protestantism and prosperity encouraged high rates of (...) literacy and the universities of Leiden and Utrecht were among the liveliest in the world. This vibrancy infused the metaphors that Descartes put into his great Discours de la methode published first in Leiden in 1637. In it he spoke about the beauty of cities that looked as if they had been built by a single architect and of the freedom to be found among people so busy with their business as to leave thinkers to their pursuits. Indirectly he spoke about his adopted homeland where he found many followers—some more eager than loyal. By the 1640s disputes raged in the Republic and the anti-Cartesian forces were led by the Aristotelian and anti-Copernican Gisbertus Voetius. What has been missing in our scholarship up to now has been any convincing account as to why these disputes occurred, and how they resonated within the Dutch context. Wiep Van Bunge's book takes a big step toward closing that knowledge gap.Van Bunge convincingly argues that the vibrancy of the stadtholder-less period up to 1672 produced a willingness to entertain new ideas. It also did not hurt to have Descartes on the scene and active on behalf of his mechanical philosophy, even to the point of addressing the Utrecht magistrates publicly and asking that his critics be chastised. What is remarkable—especially given the resistance to Descartes seen at Oxford and Cambridge—was the speed with which Cartesian ideas entered the Dutch classrooms where as many as a third of the students came from abroad. Again Van Bunge provides context when he starts with the Dutch engineer Simon Stevin and demonstrates the vitality of mathematics for a commercial society but also for a militant one. (The Netherlands was at war with Spain up to 1609.) A recent exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, April to July 2002, also illustrates another aspect of mathematics in the Republic. Precisely in the 1630s when Descartes was putting the finishing touches on his Discours, Pieter Saenredam applied geometry to the interiors of the elegant Utrecht churches so as to give his paintings a regularity and precision worthy of the Cartesian dream of order and clarity. The Dutch commitment to discipline and order also made their army one of the most accomplished in the world. It was perhaps over-determined that Descartes, who had trained with it, would find such a sympathetic audience in the Republic.One of the more fascinating aspects of Van Bunge's detailed study, first of Cartesianism and then of Spinozism in the Republic, concerns the political and ideological meanings to be extracted from the new philosophy. Hobbes also finds a place in the narrative, surprisingly taken up by republicans eager to construct a state that could control the passions. Abraham van Berkel, who put Hobbes's Leviathan into Dutch in 1667, gave the allegiance of his text and himself to Jan de Witt and the cause of the regents and the estates. We can only wonder what Hobbes would have made of the association. The republican affiliations of the mechanical philosophy in the Republic provide a distinctively Dutch context to the [End Page 276] political writings of Spinoza, the most famous and outrageous Cartesian of the century. Van Bunge is especially deft in finding Spinozists and providing far more evidence than I could back in 1981 when I argued for a radical enlightenment within the late seventeenth-century Dutch context (see The Radical Enlightenment. Pantheists, Freemasons and Republicans [London: 1981]). None of these positions with their deeply heretical implications could be taken lightly or without danger. Men lost... (shrink)

Review of Alexander X. Douglas, Spinoza and Dutch Cartesianism: Philosophy and Theology.

Trude Dijkstra discusses how Chinese religion and philosophy were represented in printed works produced in the Dutch Republic between 1595 and 1700. By focusing on books, newspapers, learned journals, and pamphlets, this study sheds new light on the cultural encounter between China and western Europe in the early modern period. Form, content, and material-technical aspects of different media in Dutch and French are analysed, providing new insights into the ways in which readers could take note of Chinese religion (...) and philosophy. This study thereby demonstrates that there was no singular image of Chinese religion and philosophy, but rather a varied array of notions on the subject. (shrink)

The Politica as a specific genre of academic reflection on civil life developed from the later sixteenth century and flourished until at least the mid-seventeenth century, especially at universities in the Holy Roman Empire and where their influence was felt, as in the Dutch Republic. Theologians, Philosophers, Jurists, and Medical Doctors contributed books. Aside from few and only with difficulty accessible surveys, and a few individual well-researched authors, research into this genre remains a task for the future. This survey (...) collects contributions from a number of senior and younger researchers and their various approaches and arguments. In particular, by providing examples of the heterogeneity of current research, it serves as an introduction to the genre and to a more complete assessment of the development of Early Modern political thought. The volume also stresses the importance of this genre for several transformations of political thought in the Early Modern Age. (shrink)

This volume contains 14 studies on various aspects of Duns Scotus' philosophy. Duns Scotus is one of the most important philosophers of the Middle Ages. His radical conception of contingency means a break in the history of thought. Despite his importance, he has not yet been studied very much. The contributors to the volume discuss a.o. Duns' view on will and intellect, on the law of nature, on man, and on aspects of his logic and metaphysics.

Environmental pollution, animal diseases, and food scandals have marked the agricultural sector in the Netherlands and elsewhere in the 1990s. The sector was high on the political and societal agenda and plans were developed to redesign the sector into a more sustainable direction. Generally, monitoring of the agricultural sector is done by means of quantitative indicators to measure social, ecological, and economic performance. To give more attention to the normative character of sustainable development, the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature, (...) and Food Quality requested for a participatory approach to evaluate Dutch agriculture, which was characterized by stakeholder workshops, dialogue, and learning. This article describes and reflects on this approach, using the Fourth Generation Evaluation framework developed by Guba and Lincoln (Fourth generation evaluation, 1989). Although there are several improvements to be made, the evaluation approach was successful in the way that it gave insight into perceptions, visions, and ambitions of agricultural stakeholders with regard to sustainability. It also encouraged learning about ways to make the agricultural sector more sustainable. And it contributed to the development of a monitoring approach that is complementary to the quantitative, indicator-based, evaluation approach that is generally used and that can be used every few years to see how perceptions and ambitions of stakeholders have developed. (shrink)

Objectives: Efficient procedures for obtaining informed (proxy) consent may contribute to high influenza vaccination rates in nursing homes. Yet are such procedures justified? This study’s objective was to gain insight in informed consent policies in Dutch nursing homes; to assess how these may affect influenza vaccination rates and to answer the question whether deviating from standard informed consent procedures could be morally justified. Design: A survey among nursing home physicians. Setting & Participants: We sent a questionnaire to all (356) (...) nursing homes in the Netherlands, to be completed by one of the physicians. Results: We received 245 completed questionnaires. As 21 institutions appeared to be closed or merged into other institutions, the response was 73.1% (245/335). Of all respondents 81.9% reported a vaccination rate above 80%. Almost 50% reported a vaccination rate above 90%. Most respondents considered herd immunity to be an important consideration for institutional policy. Freedom of choice for residents was considered important by almost all. Nevertheless, 106 out of 245 respondents follow a tacit consent procedure, according to which vaccination will be administered unless the resident or her proxy refuses. These institutions show significantly higher vaccination rates (p < 0.03). Conclusions: In our discussion we focus on the question whether tacit consent procedures can be morally justifiable. Such procedures assume that vaccination is good for residents either as individuals or as a group. Even though this assumption may be true for most residents, there are good reasons for preferring express consent procedures. (shrink)

In the early eighteenth century, chemistry became the main academic locus where, in Francis Bacon's words, Experimenta lucifera were performed alongside Experimenta fructifera and where natural philosophy was coupled with natural history and 'experimental history' in the Baconian and Boyleian sense of an inventory and exploration of the extant operations of the arts and crafts. The Dutch social and political system and the institutional setting of the university of Leiden endorsed this empiricist, utilitarian orientation toward the sciences, which was (...) forcefully propagated by one of the university's most famous representatives in the first half of the eighteenth century, the professor of medicine, botany and chemistry Herman Boerhaave. Recent historical investigations on Boerhaave's chemistry have provided important insights into Boerhaave's religious background, his theoretical and philosophical goals, and his pedagogical agenda. But comparatively little attention has been paid to the chemical experiments presented in Boerhaave's famous chemical textbook, the Elementa chemiae, and to the question of how these experiments relate not only to experimental philosophy but also to experimental history and natural history, and to contemporary utilitarianism. I argue in this essay that Boerhaave shared a strong commitment to Baconian utilitarianism and empiricism with many other European chemists around the middle of the eighteenth century, in particular to what Bacon designated 'experimental history' and I will provide evidence for this claim through a careful analysis of Boerhaave's plant-chemical experiments presented in the Elementa chemiae. (shrink)

Scholars of the seventeenth century, the Enlightenment, and Benedict de Spinoza will profit from the essays collected in The Dutch Legacy. Considered as a whole, the volume makes at least two significant contributions. First, it puts firmly to rest the still prevalent idea that Spinoza was a fundamentally lonely thinker whose ideas were sui generis, sprung from the mind of a solitary genius living in social, political, and spiritual exile. Despite the fact that Spinoza's correspondence testifies to a rich (...) network of friendships and associates, a romantic image of him persists as, in the words of Yirmiyahu Yovel, "alone in the deepest sense of the word". The image of a... (shrink)

Historical knowledge, this noted Dutch historian declares, should be a result of free investigation and criticism. Since it deals with facts, not imagination, it cannot be cast into a predetermined mold to fit a unified pattern of arbitrary principles. "The most we can hope for," he states, "is a partial rendering, an approximation, of the real truth about the past." In this succinct analysis of the philosophy and method of history, Professor Geyl examines the prevailing concepts of history and (...) the new "awareness of distance" from the past that was lacking in earlier historians. History, he points out, provides an elucidation of the present and its problems by showing them in perspective. This important study of the historical point of view is based on the author's Terry Lecture at Yale. (shrink)

Geschiedenissen van de filosofie zijn zo oud als de filosofie. Maar een geschiedenis van de filosofie in de Lage Landen is weer even geleden. In 'Denkers en dwalers' schetst Erno Eskens, die al tientallen jaren publiceert over filosofie en haar plek in de samenleving, met vlotte pen de denkpaden die onze geschiedenis mede hebben bepaald.0In zijn overzichtswerk geeft Eskens speciale aandacht aan onderdrukte denkers. Vrouwelijke filosofen, autodidacten, literaire denkers en denkers uit de voormalige koloniën krijgen eindelijk een plaats op het (...) podium van de geschiedschrijving. Zo staan algemeen bekende denkers als Erasmus, Descartes en Spinoza zij aan zij met Anna Maria van Schurman, Clara Wichmann en Tan Malaka. (shrink)

This article begins by addressing a critique of my book Immaterialism by the archaeologists Þóra Pétursdóttirr and Bjørnar Olsen in their 2018 article “Theory Adrift.” As they see it, I restrict myself in Immaterialism to available historical documentation on the Dutch East India Company (VOC), and they wonder how my account might have changed if I had discussed more typical archaeological examples instead: wrecked and sunken ships, released ballast, deserted harbors, distributed goods, and derelict fortresses. In response, I argue (...) that my account was not therefore non-archaeological, since ruins are the topic of archaeology only by accident: the real subject of the discipline is what Marshall McLuhan describes as “cold media,” in the sense that they are low in information. McLuhan’s distinction between hot and cold media is shown to be surprisingly analogous to Aristotle’s difference between continua and discrete substances, and some consequences are drawn from this analogy. (shrink)

The new Companion to Erasmus in the Renaissance Society of America's Texts and Studies Series draws on the insights of an international team of distinguished experts whose contributions are arrayed in eleven chapters followed by a detailed chronological catalogue of Erasmus' works and an up-to-date bibliography of secondary sources. The ambition of this companion is to illuminate every aspect of Erasmus' life, work, and legacy while providing an expert synthesis of the most inspiring research in the field. This volume will (...) be of invaluable assistance to students and teachers working in any of the numerous disciplines to which Erasmus devoted his tireless efforts, including philosophy, religion, history, rhetoric, education, and the history of the book. (shrink)

Numbers of European hamsters in the Dutch Province of Limburg have been subject to much scrutiny and controversy. In the late nineteenth century, policymakers who considered them too numerous set up eradication programs. In the second half of the twentieth century, even when its domestic relative increasingly circulated as a pet in urban spaces, the numbers of European hamsters in the rural areas collapsed. Large-scale preservation campaigns and reintroduction programs ensued. According to some media, all this has turned the (...) European hamster into the most expensive undomesticated animal of the Netherlands. A whole network of institutions became involved to save the species – ranging from local activist organizations, over zoos and universities, to federal ministries and international organizations. The interactions between the Dutch and ‘their’ hamsters, this article argues, were inscribed in various forms of biopolitics. The article highlights the changing discursive framings and spatial practices that have shaped the management of Cricetus cricetus over time and calls attention to the diversity of living and non-living agents that produced the multispecies choreographies of the present-day Limburg landscape. Finally, it alerts us to the kinds of agency that reside in the numbers of non-human animals. (shrink)

Clandestine philosophical manuscripts, made up of forbidden works including erotic texts, political pamphlets, satires of court life, forbidden religious texts, and books about the occult, had an avid readership in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, becoming objects of historical research by the twentieth century. The purveyors of the clandestine could be found in the Dutch Republic, Switzerland, Denmark, Spain, and not least in Paris or London. Despite the heavy risks, including prison, the circulation of these manuscripts was a prosperous (...) venture. After Ira Wade's pioneering contribution (1938), Clandestine Philosophy is the first work in English entirely focused on the philosophical clandestine manuscripts that preceded and accompanied the birth of the Enlightenment. Topics from philosophy, political and religious thought, and moral and sexual behaviour are addressed by contemporary authors working in both America and Europe. These manuscripts shed light on the birth of pornography and provide an important avenue for investigating philosophical, religious, political, and social critique. (shrink)

It is difficult to overestimate the influence of Descartes on his contemporaries and following generations. While still alive he had followers and detractors, and after his death, numerous books and pamphlets, with his name prominently featured in their titles, adopted and developed his ideas, twisted them to fit into a wide variety of intellectual agendas, or argued passionately against them. While he may not deserve the title of father of modern philosophy, in many circles he was considered the iconic modern (...) philosopher from the 1640s on.The subject of Tad Schmaltz's book is Cartesianism, philosophy and science as done by Descartes and his followers. But from the beginning, Schmaltz appreciates the difficulty... (shrink)

Studies of Bernard Mandeville by economists and historians ofeconomic thought have focused overwhelmingly on the problem ofsituating his work within the development of the theory of laissez-faireand evaluating his influence on major figures in the ScottishEnlightenment, especially Adam Smith. This paper explores Mandeville’seconomic thought through the lens of a very different transition:England’s rapid growth following the Glorious Revolution and itsgradual eclipse of Dutch economic hegemony. By situating Mandevillewithin an Anglo-Dutch context and carefully examining his commentson the Dutch (...) in Remark Q of The fable of the bees, the paper shows themanner in which Mandeville’s ideas both appropriated lessons fromDutch history and sought to revise ideas about the Dutch current amonghis English contemporaries. The paper thus sheds new light on coreconcepts in Mandeville’s economic thought and permits exploration ofan important moment in the development of political economy. (shrink)

After Jacobus Henricus van't Hoff had passed away on 1 March 1911, his pupil Charles Marinus van Deventer wrote a very personal ‘in memoriam’ in the Dutch literary periodical De Gids, pointing out that van't Hoff had merely been interested in scientific facts, not in the people discovering these facts. Van't Hoff considered the study of the history of chemistry, although by no means uncongenial, a matter of little importance. He once even said: ‘To me historical research appears to (...) be appropriate for a chemist in the decline of life, when he no longer creates professional ideas, and when the laboratory has become a burden to him’. Although van Deventer had studied physical chemistry at van't Hoff's Amsterdam laboratory and had been his assistant from 1885 until 1893, he disagreed with this verdict. Van Deventer was not only a capable physical chemist, he was also an active member of the Tachtigers, a circle of Dutch poets who around 1880 brought about a renewal in Dutch literature. He took a special interest in Greek philosophy. He did not graduate with van't Hoff, but with his colleague Jan Willem Gunning . His thesis was not based on physical-chemical, but on historical research: Schetsen uit de Geschiedenis van de Scheikunde . From 1922 to 1923 he lectured on the history of chemistry at Utrecht University. His fascinating lectures were published as Grepen uit de Historie der Chemie . This work reveals his particular interest in the development of chemical concepts. (shrink)

SummaryThis study considers the range of thinking about end-of-life decisions (ELD) in France from a Dutch point of view, taking a small number of interviews with important French opinion-leaders as a basis. Until today, end-of-life care in France has been clouded with uncertainty pending the enactment of more specific definitions and regulations. French physicians could face a dilemma in treating a dying patient, caught between an official ban on ELD and a professional obligation to treat cases individually. The practical (...) consequence of this climate is a lack of accountability of the French physician towards colleagues and patients. Rationalistic, paternalistic, and religious traditions have been obstructive to the adoption of regulatory reforms. In November 2004, Parliament accepted a law proposal by which the practice of the withholding and withdrawal of life-saving therapies would become more transparent, which would diminish the physician’s fear of legal persecution. This proposal was then converted into law by the Senate. In the Netherlands, euthanasia – the active termination of life – is legal and regulated according to specific criteria. The Dutch approach has been shaped by an Anglo-Saxon emphasis on individual autonomy, and conforms to a broad preference in Dutch society to disclose and regulate controversial activities rather than to tolerate them sub rosa. As the Dutch regulations have been enacted, reporting rates – but not euthanasia cases–have risen. Compliance with the criteria and doctor–patient communication have been high. The French vigilance of professional autonomy provides a valuable example to the Dutch. The Dutch, in return, offer the French concrete examples for ELD policy. (shrink)

Over the past three or four decades, the concept of medical ethics has changed from a limited set of standards to a broad field of debate and research. We define medical ethics as an arena of moral issues in medicine, rather than a specific discipline. This paper examines how the disciplines of health care ethics and health care law have developed and operated within this arena. Our framework highlights the aspects of jurisdiction and the assignment of responsibilities . This theoretical (...) framework prompted us to study definitions and changing responsibilities in order to describe the development and interaction of health care ethics and health law. We have opted for the context of the Dutch debate about end-of-life decisions as a relevant case study. We argue that the specific Dutch definition of euthanasia as ‘intentionally taking the life of another person by a physician, upon that person’s request’ can be seen as the result of the complex jurisdictional process. This illustrates the more general conclusion that the Dutch debate on end-of-life decisions and the development of the two disciplines must be understood in terms of mutual interaction. (shrink)

Conditions for philosophy of science in the Netherlands are not optimal. The climate of opinion in Dutch philosophy is unsympathetic to the sciences, partly because of the influence of theology. Dutch universities offer no taught graduate programmes in philosophy of science, which would provide an entry route for science graduates. A great deal of Dutch research in philosophy of science is affected by an exegetical attitude, which fosters the interpretation and evaluation of other writers rather than the (...) development of original theories. Doctoral candidates in particular should be trained to greater originality and assertiveness. Nonetheless, much good research in philosophy of science is conducted in the Netherlands, both in philosophy faculties and in institutes dedicated to the foundations of the special sciences. Distinguished work is done also in the neighbouring disciplines of logic, history of science, and social studies of science. (shrink)

In the first half of the 17th century, Dutch astronomers rapidly abandoned the practice of astrology. By the second half of the century, no trace of it was left in Dutch academic discourse. This abandonment, in its early stages, does not appear as the result of criticism or skepticism, although such skepticism was certainly known in the Dutch Republic and leading humanist scholars referred to Pico’s arguments against astrological predictions. The astronomers, however, did not really refute astrology, (...) but simply stopped paying attention to it, as other questions became the focus of their scholarship. The underlying physical view of the world, with its idea of celestial influences, remained in vigor much longer. Even convinced anti-Aristotelians, in explaining the world, tried to account for the effects of the oppositions and conjunctions of planets, and similar elements. It is only with Descartes that the by now widespread skepticism about predictions found expression in a philosophy that denied celestial influence. (shrink)

This book examines the theological methodology of Dutch theologian, Herman Bavinck (1854-1921). The focus of the book is on the influence of the German historicist movement on his theological method and uses Bavinck's doctrine of the Trinity as a way to test the argument that while not embracing all of the relativising implications of the movement, the role of history as a force that both shapes the present and allows for development into the future has a demonstrable influence on (...) his theological methodology. To make this argument the book considers Bavinck's larger nineteenth century context. It traces the development of both history and theology being understood as sciences in the university and how this required a reimagining of both disciplines. It could be said that the theology is thoroughly historicised in the nineteenth century. The book then considers the three principia of Bavinck's theological methodology: Revelation, Confession, and Christian Consciousness, demonstrating how Bavinck both appropriates and adapts historicist assumptions. (shrink)

Over the past three or four decades, the concept of medical ethics has changed from a limited set of standards to a broad field of debate and research. We define medical ethics as an arena of moral issues in medicine, rather than a specific discipline. This paper examines how the disciplines of health care ethics and health care law have developed and operated within this arena. Our framework highlights the aspects of jurisdiction (Abbott) and the assignment of responsibilities (Gusfield). This (...) theoretical framework prompted us to study definitions and changing responsibilities in order to describe the development and interaction of health care ethics and health law. We have opted for the context of the Dutch debate about end-of-life decisions as a relevant case study. We argue that the specific Dutch definition of euthanasia as 'intentionally taking the life of another person by a physician, upon that person's request' can be seen as the result of the complex jurisdictional process. This illustrates the more general conclusion that the Dutch debate on end-of-life decisions and the development of the two disciplines must be understood in terms of mutual interaction. (shrink)

Over the past three or four decades, the concept of medical ethics has changed from a limited set of standards to a broad field of debate and research. We define medical ethics as an arena of moral issues in medicine, rather than a specific discipline. This paper examines how the disciplines of health care ethics and health care law have developed and operated within this arena. Our framework highlights the aspects of jurisdiction and the assignment of responsibilities. This theoretical framework (...) prompted us to study definitions and changing responsibilities in order to describe the development and interaction of health care ethics and health law. We have opted for the context of the Dutch debate about end-of-life decisions as a relevant case study. We argue that the specific Dutch definition of euthanasia as ‘intentionally taking the life of another person by a physician, upon that person’s request’ can be seen as the result of the complex jurisdictional process. This illustrates the more general conclusion that the Dutch debate on end-of-life decisions and the development of the two disciplines must be understood in terms of mutual interaction. (shrink)

Preview: Philosophy has notably struggled in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries to come to terms with how it participated in the erasure and invisibility of persons across the globe. Western philosophy over hundreds of years found itself immersed in the colonial project, in all its economic, social, political, legal, disciplinary, and aesthetic dimensions. Its logic of Western racial superiority, grounded in eugenics, social Darwinism, and deterministic accounts of racial realism, grew and deepened, especially in Europe and the Americas. No domain (...) was free, even Hugo Grotius’ grand work on international law and diplomacy, Mare Liberum (The Free Sea) was founded in justifying Dutch colonial seizures of ships and resources. The haunting of those shorn of their dignity besets us. We have forgotten, in a sense to go “backwards”; not just to “bracket” our stories of the world, but to see the persons we have continued to ignore through certain horizons of dominating meaning. It has been up to these people to find themselves even when under the erasure of the dominant mode of history, and in turn they have much to teach those of us willing to turn back to listen. (shrink)

How can we take history seriously as real and relevant? Despite the hazards of politically dangerous or misleading accounts of the past, we live our lives in a great network of cooperation with other actors; past, present, and future. We study and reflect on the past as a way of exercising a responsibility for shared action. In each of the chapters of Full History Smith poses a key question about history as a concern for conscious participants in the sharing of (...) action, starting with “What Is Historical Meaningfulness?” and ending with “How Can History Have an Aim?” Constructing new models of historical meaning while engaging critically with perspectives offered by Ranke, Dilthey, Rickert, Heidegger, Eliade, Sartre, Foucault, and Arendt, Smith develops a philosophical account of thinking about history that moves beyond postmodernist skepticism. Full History seeks to expand the cast of significant actors, establishing an inclusive version of the historical that recognizes large-scale cumulative actions but also encourages critical revision and expansion of any paradigm of shared action. (shrink)

International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, Vol. 196. -/- Introduction, S. Hutton; Nicholas of Cusa : Platonism at the Dawn of Modernity, D. Moran; At Variance: Marsilio Ficino Platonism And Heresy, M.J.B. Allen; Going Naked into the Shrine:Herbert, Plotinus and the Consructive Metaphor, S.R.L.Clark; Commenius, Light Metaphysics and Educational Reform, J. Rohls ; Robert Fludd’s Kabbalistic Cosmos, W. Schmidt-Biggeman; Reconciling Theory and Fact:The Problem of ‘Other Faiths’ in Lord Herbert and the Cambridge Platonists, D. (...) Pailin; Trinity, Community and Love: Cudworth’s Platonism and the Idea of God, L. Armour; Chaos and Order in Cudworth’s Thought, J-L. Breteau; Cudworth, Prior and Passmore on the Autonomy of Ethics, R. Attfield; Substituting Aristotle: Platonic Themes In Dutch Cartesianism, H. van Ruler; Soul, Body, And World: Plato’s Timaeus And Descartes’ Meditations, C. Wilson ; Locke, Plato and Platonism, G.A.J. Rogers; Reflections on Locke’s Platonism, V. Nuovo; The Platonism at the Core of Leibniz’s Philosophy, C. Mercer; Leibniz and Berkeley: Platonic Metaphysics and ‘The Mechanical Philosophy’, S. Brown; Which Platonism for which Modernity? A Note on Shaftesbury’s Socratic Sea-Cards, L. Jaffro; Platonism, Aesthetics and the Sublime at the Origins Of Modernity, D. Hedley. (shrink)

This is a fundamental re-assessment of the world-view of the alchemists, natural philosophers and intelligencers of the mid 17th century. Based almost entirely upon the extensive and hitherto little-researched manuscript archive of Samuel Hartlib, it charts and contextualises the personal and intellectual history of Johann Moriaen (c.1592-1668), a Dutch-German alchemist and natural philosopher. Moriaen was closely acquainted with many of the leading thinkers and experimenters of his time, including René Descartes, J.A. Comenius, J.R. Glauber and J.S. KÃ1⁄4ffler. His detailed (...) reports of relations with these figures and his response to their work provide a uniquely informed insight into the world of alchemy and natural philosophy. This study also illuminates the nature and mechanisms of intellectual and technological exchanges between Germany, The Netherlands and England. (shrink)