Margaret Cavendish’s Philosophical Letters
The Mod Squad blog
by Stewart Duncan
3y ago
(It’s been rather quiet around here for a long time, but perhaps some people still have this site in their RSS readers.) Thanks to a very helpful email from Jonathan Shaheen, I just updated The Letters in the Philosophical Letters, my page that tries to say what each of the many letters is about. PL 4.23 refers, I learn, to Constantijn Huygens. As the page now says: Number: 4.23 Topic: On assorted further questions Reference: Includes a reference to a Mr V.Z. and his questions “concerning those glasses, one of which being held close in ones hand, and a little piece being broke of its tail, ma ..read more
Visit website
Latitudinarian vs High-Church Philosophy: Two Contrasts
The Mod Squad blog
by Kenny Pearce
5y ago
Religious and political historians of 17th/18th century Britain and Ireland are well aware of the long-running conflict between the ‘latitudinarian’ and ‘high-church’ factions in the Anglican Communion. However, many historians of philosophy are entirely unfamiliar with these terms. To historians of philosophy, religious debate in Britain and Ireland in this period is a conflict between Christians and deists/atheists, in which differences among Christians are either entirely invisible or of secondary importance. This is unfortunate, first, because this internal Anglican conflict can shed light ..read more
Visit website
Berkeley on Divine and Human Spirits
The Mod Squad blog
by Kenny Pearce
5y ago
It is pretty widely accepted, among those scholars who have considered the matter, that Berkeley endorses a univocal account of theological language. That is, Berkeley holds—contrary to traditional philosophical theology—that the word ‘wise’ is applied to God and to Socrates in the same sense, although with an infinite difference of degree. Philosophers who hold such a view are often said to anthropomorphize God (see, e.g., O’Higgins). However, comparing Berkeley’s account with the prior tradition, it would be more accurate to say that Berkeley divinizes the human being than that he anthropomo ..read more
Visit website
Leibnizian Supercomprehension
The Mod Squad blog
by Kenny Pearce
5y ago
In a recent paper, Juan Garcia has argued that Leibniz is, in an important sense, “a friend of Molinism.”1 For those who are familiar with contemporary versions of Molinism (e.g., Flint), this suggestion is rather surprising, since Leibniz is clearly a theological determinist: he holds that God chooses every detail of the actual world. Further, a key feature of Molinism (particularly as it is understood in recent analytic philosophy) is the idea that God’s options for creation are limited by contingent but prevolitional counterfactuals of creaturely freedom. The contrary assumption, that God c ..read more
Visit website
Browne and Berkeley on the Influence of Words
The Mod Squad blog
by Kenny Pearce
5y ago
At the beginning of the final (and by far the longest) chapter of his 1733 Divine Analogy, Peter Browne reports that “JUST as this Treatise was finished and sent away to the Press, I was very accidentaly surprised with a threatning Appearance of a powerful Attack upon the Doctrine of Divine Analogy, from an anonymous Author under the Disguise of a Minute Philosopher” (p. 374). The reference is, of course, to Berkeley’s 1732 Alciphron: or, the Minute Philosopher. Browne proceeds to offer a lengthy critique of the account of religious language found in Berkeley’s fourth and seventh dialogues. Br ..read more
Visit website

Follow The Mod Squad blog on FeedSpot

Continue with Google
Continue with Apple
OR