Thomas M Lennon
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 871667 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Thomas M Lennon |
| PRENOMES | Thomas M |
| SOBRENOME | Lennon |
| ASSINATURA | LENNON T M |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Western University |
| VERIFICADO | Não |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 42 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 14 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 40 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 2 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1975 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2019 |
| ÍNDICE H | 2 |
Sacrifice and Self-interest in Seventeenth-Century France
How much of our own self- interest should we be willing to sacrifice for love of another? The Quietists answered, all of it, even the salvation of our own soul. Opposing them were the Jansenists, including Arnauld, who saw self-interest as inescapable. The debate swept across French society in the 17th century, with Bossuet and Fénelon on opposite sides, and was multi- dimensional, with political and ecclesiastical intrigue, charges of heresy, an…
Pierre-Daniel Huet, Skeptic Critic of Cartesianism and Defender of Religion
Pierre-Daniel Huet (1630–1721) was Cartesianism’s most implacable critic ever. And more than any other critic, he raised the Cartesian issues that have been of perennial interest: the method of doubt, the cogito , clarity and distinctness as criteria of truth, the natural light, the circularity of the Meditations , proofs of God’s existence, etc. Moreover, under the term Cartesianism his Censura Philosophiae Cartesianae (1689) attacks both Descar…
Sacrifice and Self-Interest in Seventeenth-Century France
Battle of the Gods and Giants
The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon
The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon is the definitive reference source on René Descartes, 'the father of modern philosophy' and arguably among the most important philosophers of all time. Examining the full range of Descartes' achievements and legacy, it includes 256 in-depth entries that explain key concepts relating to his thought. Cumulatively they uncover interpretative disputes, trace his influences, and explain how his work was received by crit…
Malebranche, the Quietists, and Freedom
The Quietist affair at the end of the seventeenth century has much to teach us about theories of the will in the period. Although Bossuet and Fénelon are the names most famously associated with the debate over the Quietist conception of pure love, Malebranche and his erstwhile disciple Lamy were the ones who debated the deep philosophical issues involved. This paper sets the historical context of the debate, discusses the positions as well as the…
Descartes and the Seven Senses of Indifference in Early Modern Philosophy
Indifference is a term often used to describe the sort of freedom had by the will according to the libertarian, or Molinist account. It is thought to be a univocal term. In fact, however, it is used in at least seven different ways, in a variety of domains during the early modern period. All of them have plausible roots in Descartes, but he himself uses the term in only one sense, and failure to notice this consistent use by him has bedeviled int…
The Plain Truth
The skeptic Pierre-Daniel Huet's Censura philosophiae cartesianae (1689) is the most comprehensive, unrelenting and devastating critique of Descartes ever. It incisively captures all the issues that now interest readers of Descartes: the method of doubt, the cogito, clarity and distinctness as criteria of truth, the circularity of the Meditations, proofs of God's existence, etc. Naturally, the work provoked great controversy among the Cartesians,…
The plain truth
Brills Studies In Intellectual History
This section of the book The Plain Truth: Descartes, Huet, and Skepticism contains a list of recent volumes in the book series Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History. Descartes’s critic, Pierre-Daniel Huet, thinks that human reason cannot get at the truth at all, and therefore cannot produce any certainty about having it. As it was put by Democritus, an author Huet is fond of citing, “truth has been submerged in an abyss. More than any other fig…
The Achilles of Rationalist Psychology
"How is it that the mind perceives the words of a verse as a verse and not just as a string of words? One answer to this question is that to do so the mind itself must already be unified as a simple thing without parts (and perhaps must therefore be immortal). Kant called this argument the Achilles, perhaps because of its apparent invincibility, and perhaps also because it has a fatal weak spot, or perhaps because it is the champion argument of r…
The Rationalist Conception of Substance
The Genesis of Berkeley's Theory of Vision Vindicated
Berkeley's Theory of Vision, or Visual Language Showing The Immediate Presence and Providence of A Deity, Vindicated And Explained was published in 1733, occasioned by an anonymous letter of the previous year to the London Daily Post Boy. The letter criticized Berkeley's New Theory of Vision, which had been published in 1709, but which had been appended to Berekely's Alciphron, published in 1732. No one has ever identified the author whose critic…
The significance of the Barrovian Case
Theology and the God of the philosophers
The God that philosophers in the early modern period intended to refer to was the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition, which is to say, the being who created the world, who spoke to Moses from the burning bush, and who, through Jesus Christ, saved mankind from the consequences of sin. But who that being is, and what he means for human existence, was a matter of serious and sometimes mortal debate, even, and especially, within this tradition. Thi…
The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Philosophy
The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Philosophy is a comprehensive introduction to the central topics and changing shape of philosophical inquiry in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It explores one of the most innovative periods in the history of Western philosophy, extending from Montaigne, Bacon and Descartes through Hume and Kant. During this period, philosophers initiated and responded to major intellectual developments in natural…
Percorsi anticartesiani nelle lettere a Pierre-DanielHuet
Elena. Rapetti Percorsi anticartesiani nelle lettere a Pierre-Daniel Huet. Le corrispondenze lettererie, scientifiche ed erudite dal Rinascimento all’età moderna 4. Florence : Leo S. Olschki, 2003. 236 pp. index. append. €23. ISBN: 88-222-5276-4. - Volume 58 Issue 3
A Rejoinder to Mori
Gianluca Mori and I are broadly in agreement about everything in my paper except answer to its main question, viz., how use of Saint-Evremond is to be understood in third Eclaircissement. Mori thinks that use of Saint Evremond was one of his provocations aimed orthodox readers. It is an instance of his thesis that Bayle's professions of Christian faith, though frequent, are generally far from being above suspicion: indeed almost every one of them…
Huet, Malebranche and the Birth of Skepticism
Did Bayle Read Saint-Evremond
Of course Bayle read Saint-Evremond—he quotes him. Moreover, he published one of Saint-Evremond's texts. But there is reading, and then there is reading. There is selective, inattentive perusal of excerpts or even secondary sources, with no attempt to penetrate beyond a superficial understanding; and then there is comprehensive, close scrutiny of the best primary sources, with sensitivity to nuance, and attention to context. In short, there is a …
True believers
Both Nicholas Malebranche and Pierre-Daniel Huet were at first positively influenced by Descartes's Meditations, and both came to perceive shortcomings in that work. With respect to mind-body dualism, Malebranche attempted to strengthen Descartes's position by jettisoning clarity and distinctness basing it instead on a principle of intentionality. Huet jettisoned the whole position in favor of skepticism. The source of their different responses l…
Berkeley on the Act-Object Distinction
Moore attribuah l'idéalisme de Berkeley à sa négligence de la distinction entre l'acte d'appréhension et son objet. Bien que Berkeley ait justement tracé cette distinction dans le premier Dialogue, et l'ait rejetée, peu s'en sont aperçu, et ceux qui l'ont remarqué lui reprochent habituellement de confondre l'acte d'appréhension avec une action. La thèse ici développée est que Berkeley n'est pas coupable de cette confusion et qu'il rejette la dist…
The Cartesian dialectic of creation
By the seventeenth century, theology had established constraints on the development of metaphysics not unlike those it had imposed nearly a millennium earlier on church music. Like the cantus firmus, to which counterpoint and polyphony are conjectured to owe their existence, these constraints were both a source of problems and a standard for success. In the seventeenth century, a main cantus firmus was the notion of God as creator ex nihilo. Alth…
A correspondência entre Locke e Molyneux
A correspondência entre J. Locke e W. Molyneux é conhecida principalmente como a fonte da famosa questão relativa ao que pode ser aprendido por um homem cego de nascença e que depois ganha a visão. Curiosamente, a correspondência oferece muito pouco esclarecimento sobre a questão. Outros tópicos importantes, entretanto, são apontados e explorados: entusiasmo pela obra de Malebranche, liberdade e responsabilidade, identidade pessoal, etc. Além dis…
Treatise on the Human Mind . Louis de La Forge , Desmond M. Clarke
Malebranche and British Philosophy
Did Bayle Read Saint-Evremond
Of course Bayle read Saint-Evremond—he quotes him. Moreover, he published one of Saint-Evremond's texts. But there is reading, and then there is reading. There is selective, inattentive perusal of excerpts or even secondary sources, with no attempt to penetrate beyond a superficial understanding; and then there is comprehensive, close scrutiny of the best primary sources, with sensitivity to nuance, and attention to context. In short, there is a …
Berkeley and the ineffable
Malebranche, the Quietists, and Freedom
The Quietist affair at the end of the seventeenth century has much to teach us about theories of the will in the period. Although Bossuet and Fénelon are the names most famously associated with the debate over the Quietist conception of pure love, Malebranche and his erstwhile disciple Lamy were the ones who debated the deep philosophical issues involved. This paper sets the historical context of the debate, discusses the positions as well as the…
Descartes and the Seven Senses of Indifference in Early Modern Philosophy
Indifference is a term often used to describe the sort of freedom had by the will according to the libertarian, or Molinist account. It is thought to be a univocal term. In fact, however, it is used in at least seven different ways, in a variety of domains during the early modern period. All of them have plausible roots in Descartes, but he himself uses the term in only one sense, and failure to notice this consistent use by him has bedeviled int…
True believers
Both Nicholas Malebranche and Pierre-Daniel Huet were at first positively influenced by Descartes's Meditations, and both came to perceive shortcomings in that work. With respect to mind-body dualism, Malebranche attempted to strengthen Descartes's position by jettisoning clarity and distinctness basing it instead on a principle of intentionality. Huet jettisoned the whole position in favor of skepticism. The source of their different responses l…
Occasionalism and the Cartesian Metaphysic of Motion
Occasionalism is often taken by historians of philosophy to have been an ad hoc hypothesis to establish the mind-body causal connections which on Cartesian principles are thought otherwise impossible. My aim in this paper is to show that this view is utterly without historical foundation, that, on the contrary, the view that only God can be a real cause of mind-body interaction was but a special case of a claim argued on grounds transcending the …
Jansenism and the Crise Pyrrhonienne
Representationalism, judgment and perception of distance
The recent literature has seriously challenged, and in my view defeated, the traditional representationalist interpretation of Descartes. One contributor to it, John Yolton, has recently extended its arguments to argue that the traditional representationalist interpretation of Locke must be relinquished as well, that Locke, following the Cartesian path of Arnauld, held a semiotic theory of ideas which “de-ontologized” them and construed them as s…
Problems Of Cartesianism
The typical Cartesian collection contains papers which treat the problems arising out of Descartes's philosophy as though they and it appeared for the first time in a recent journal. The approach of this collection is quite different. The eight contributo
Empirisme et théorie de l'espace chez Locke (en réponse à F. Duchesneau)
Nous semblons, mon commentateur et moi, nous accorder sur les points principaux de mon analyse. Notre seul motif de divergence concerne les raisons pour lesquelles Locke aurait rejeté la théorie cartésienne du plein. Je crois que cette divergence est plus apparente que réelle, car elle provient d'une certaine indétermination dans la façon dont j'ai caractérisé la position cartésienne par contraste avec l'empirisme de Locke. Puisque la question es…
Sources et signification de la théorie lockienne de l'espace
Leibniz avait certes raison d'opposer Locke à Descartes et de le situer plutôt dans la lignée de Gassendi et l'atomisme antique. Mais le problème est de distinguer entre Gassendi et ses disciples contemporains de Locke comme source immédiate d'inspiration pour celui-ci. Ses Commonplace Books attestent que Locke avait lu Gassendi avec attention, et son Journal indique que pendant ses séjours à Paris (mai 1677–juin 1678, novembre 1678–avril 1679), …
Malebranche and British Philosophy
Introductory note
Berkeley and the ineffable
Demon Rum
Journal Article Demon Rum. Prod. by Thomas Lennon. Thomas Lennon Productions, Inc., 1989. 58 mins. (PBS Video, 1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria, VA 22314-1698) Get access W. J. Rorabaugh W. J. Rorabaugh University of Washington Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 77, Issue 3, December 1990, Pages 1114–1115, https://doi.org/10.2307/2079157 Published: 01 December 1990
Atoms, Pneuma, and Tranquillity
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 thi…
Arnauld and the Cartesian Philosophy of Ideas
The Battle of the Gods and Giants
By the mid-1600s, the commonsense, manifest picture of the world associated with Aristotle had been undermined by skeptical arguments on the one hand and by the rise of the New Science on the other. What would be the scientific image to succeed the Aristotelian model? Thomas Lennon argues here that the contest between the supporters of Descartes and the supporters of Gassendi to decide this issue was the most important philosophical debate of the…
The Battle of the Gods and Giants
The Battle of the Bulge
Journal Article The Battle of the Bulge. Prod. by Thomas Lennon. Lennon Documentation Group Productions, 1994. 87 mins. (PBS Video, 1320 Braddock Pl., Alexandria, VA 22314-1698) Get access Allan R. Millett Allan R. Millett Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 82, Issue 3, December 1995, Pages 1325–1326, https://doi.org/10.2307/2945295 Pub…
Divine Will and the Mechanical Philosophy
Bayle's Anticipation of Popper
Bayle's Anticipation of Popper Thomas M. Lennon A comprehensive history of skepticism might someday argue, what now perhaps seems prima facie implausible, that Karl Popper (1902–96) was anticipated by Pierre Bayle (1647–1706). Now, pointing out adumbrations, anticipations, or even outright earlier statements of later philosophical views is by itself of only antiquarian interest. Questions of priority may be of importance in the history of science…
Treatise on the Human Mind . Louis de La Forge , Desmond M. Clarke
The Cartesian dialectic of creation
By the seventeenth century, theology had established constraints on the development of metaphysics not unlike those it had imposed nearly a millennium earlier on church music. Like the cantus firmus, to which counterpoint and polyphony are conjectured to owe their existence, these constraints were both a source of problems and a standard for success. In the seventeenth century, a main cantus firmus was the notion of God as creator ex nihilo. Alth…
A correspondência entre Locke e Molyneux
A correspondência entre J. Locke e W. Molyneux é conhecida principalmente como a fonte da famosa questão relativa ao que pode ser aprendido por um homem cego de nascença e que depois ganha a visão. Curiosamente, a correspondência oferece muito pouco esclarecimento sobre a questão. Outros tópicos importantes, entretanto, são apontados e explorados: entusiasmo pela obra de Malebranche, liberdade e responsabilidade, identidade pessoal, etc. Além dis…
Berkeley on the Act-Object Distinction
Moore attribuah l'idéalisme de Berkeley à sa négligence de la distinction entre l'acte d'appréhension et son objet. Bien que Berkeley ait justement tracé cette distinction dans le premier Dialogue, et l'ait rejetée, peu s'en sont aperçu, et ceux qui l'ont remarqué lui reprochent habituellement de confondre l'acte d'appréhension avec une action. La thèse ici développée est que Berkeley n'est pas coupable de cette confusion et qu'il rejette la dist…
Did Bayle Read Saint-Evremond
Of course Bayle read Saint-Evremond—he quotes him. Moreover, he published one of Saint-Evremond's texts. But there is reading, and then there is reading. There is selective, inattentive perusal of excerpts or even secondary sources, with no attempt to penetrate beyond a superficial understanding; and then there is comprehensive, close scrutiny of the best primary sources, with sensitivity to nuance, and attention to context. In short, there is a …
True believers
Both Nicholas Malebranche and Pierre-Daniel Huet were at first positively influenced by Descartes's Meditations, and both came to perceive shortcomings in that work. With respect to mind-body dualism, Malebranche attempted to strengthen Descartes's position by jettisoning clarity and distinctness basing it instead on a principle of intentionality. Huet jettisoned the whole position in favor of skepticism. The source of their different responses l…
Huet, Malebranche and the Birth of Skepticism
A Rejoinder to Mori
Gianluca Mori and I are broadly in agreement about everything in my paper except answer to its main question, viz., how use of Saint-Evremond is to be understood in third Eclaircissement. Mori thinks that use of Saint Evremond was one of his provocations aimed orthodox readers. It is an instance of his thesis that Bayle's professions of Christian faith, though frequent, are generally far from being above suspicion: indeed almost every one of them…
Philosophy (35 obras) · Epistemology (26 obras) · Historical Philosophy and Science (23 obras) · Classical Philosophy and Thought (17 obras) · History (13 obras) · Art (11 obras) · Historical and Literary Studies (11 obras) · History of Science and Medicine (8 obras) · Linguistics (8 obras) · Humanities (7 obras)