2. Descartes And The Scotists

Preface. List of Abbreviations and a Note on the Quotation and Translation. Introduction. Rene Descartes and Modern European Mathematics. 1: The Formation of Descartes's Mathematical Thought. 1. Descartes and Jesuit Mathematical Education. 1. Descartes and the Jesuit College of La Fleche. 2. The Curriculum at La Fleche. 3. Mathematical Studies in the Ratio Studiorum 4. Motives for the Teaching of Mathematics in the Jesuit Colleges. 2: The Mathematical Thought of Christoph Clavius. 1. Descartes and Clavius. 2. The Philosophy of Mathematics of Clavius. 3. Pappus in the Works of Clavius. 4. Diophantus in the Works of Clavius. 5. Descartes's Mathematical Background before the Encounter with Beeckman. 3: The First Attempt at Reforming Mathematics. 1. 'An Entirely New Science': The Idea for the Unification of Arithmetic and Geometry. 2. The Mathematics in the Cogitationes privatae. 3. The De Solidorum Elementis. 4. Descartes's Mathematical and Philosophical Dream of 1619. 4: The Mathematical Background of the Regulae Ad Directionem Ingenii. 1. The Old Algebra: The First Fruit of 'An Entirely New Science'. 2. The Mathematics in the Regulae ad Directionem Ingenii. 3. Mathesis Universalis. 5. The Geometrieof 1637. 1. The Pappus Problem. 2. The Composition of the Geometrie. 3. Descartes's Place in the Formative Period of the Modern Analytic Tradition. 4. Beyond Cartesian Mathematics. Interim Consideration. Descartes and the Beginnings ofMathematicism in Modern Thought. II: The Concept of 'Mathesis Universalis' in Historical Perspective. 6. 'Universal Mathematics' In Aristotle. 1. Aristotle's Metaphysics and Posterior Analytics. 2. Greek Commentators: Alexander of Aphrodisias and Asclepius of Tralles. 3. Medieval Commentators: Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, and the Scotist Antonius Andreae. 4. Renaissance Commentators: Agostino Nifo and Pedro da Fonseca. 5. The Status of Mathematics in the Aristotelian Scheme of Learning. 7: 'Mathesis Universalis' in the Sixteenth Century. 1. Proclus Diadochus and Francesco Barozzi. 2. Adriaan van Roomen. 8: 'Mathesis Universalis' in the Seventeenth Century. 1. Reviewing Descartes's Concept of 'Mathesis Universalis' from His Philosophy of Mathematics. 2. The Leibnizian Synthesis. Conclusion: Descartes and the Modern Scheme of Learning. Bibliography. Indices. Name Index. Subject Index. Treatise Index.

288 BOOK REVIEWS certing in many ways. Many of the basic authors on Descartes are omitted. One is happy to note five works of Professor Gilson but these concern rather St. Thomas and Thomism. The only work of Professor Gilson on Descartes listed in his Etudes sur le role de la pensee medievale dans la formation du systeme cartesien. The Discours de la methode, with its precious notes, the Index scolastico-cartesien, and Professor Gilson's articles on Descartes are nowhere mentioned. For most of the authors cited in the List, one notes, upon checking the Index of the book, that they are cited only once in the book. In the List of Works Cited each of these authors is given an abbreviation-symbol. One wonders why these symbols are necessary if the author is only mentioned once. R is used as the symbol for the Regulae of Descartes and also for the work of J. Wahl entitled Du role de l'idee de l'instant dans la philosophie de Descartes. One is tempted to find the reason for certain errors in Descartes and the Modern M·ind in the author's insufficient knowledge of the literature on Descartes. We have particularly in mind the question of the dates of Descartes' stay at La Fleche. In the table: " Life of Descartes " placed at the end of the Preface (pp. ix-xii) the dates given are from l604-l6Hl. But the question has been the subject of careful research by Monsignor Monchamps (Hll3), by Cohen (1920), and by Sirven (1928). All agree Descartes went to La Fleche in 1606 and left in 1614 or 1615. The whole question has been very exactly summed up Professor Gilson in his commentary on the Discours de la methode, Paris, 1947, pp. 103-105. We regret that in referring to review articles the author gives no page references. The reader is thus unable to realize immediately the length of the articles. The Index of proper names leaves much to be desired. Certain names appearing in the book are not in the Index (Rosenfeld, p. 316, Roth, p. 4, 6, etc.) , others are in the Index but with incomplete references. University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Ind. ELIE DENISSOFF Counseling in Catholic Life and Education. By CHARLES A. CURRAN. New York: Macmillan, 1951. Pp. 488. $4.50. Historically, Father Curran's text is the mature unfolding of a thesis that was worked out several years ago in the clinical laboratory of Dr. Carl S. Rogers, then professor of psychology at Ohio State University. Himself an eminent authority in the field of non-directive counseling, Dr. Rogers always regarded Father Curran as a psychologist of great promise, despite the fact that differences of opinion existed between the two men BOOK REVIEWS ~89 in matters of interpretation. These differences, in the main, arose from a simple cause. Thus, Rogers was content to remain at an empiriological level in the explanation of his findings; whereas Father Curran, because of his philosophic and theological training, and especially because of his interest in the prudential wisdom of St. Thomas Aquinas, envisioned meanings and applications of the counseling process that would effect not only the more formal aspects of Catholic education, but also the wider reaches of Christian perfection and the Christian way of life in a secular world. After a brief introduction in which the general nature of counseling is set forth, and the particular nature of the non-directive method is fitted within its Thomistic framework, Father Curran applies himself with care to the task of analyzing the relation of counsel to prudence. The latter, as we all know, is first in the line of the cardinal virtues. More important to Father Curran's purpose is the fact that it is an incommunicable body of knowledge; enabling us to make moral decisions about the singular and contingent events in our lives. Because of the uniqueness of these events, prudence is an intensely private affair, lying at the core of all those movements that make for the integration of personality. From this point of view, it is the most individualistic of all our natural virtues; and since counsel is the prologue...

This work presents a facet of the religious-philosophical prose of Francisco de Quevedo (1580-1645) in which the presence of Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy, assimilated by the poet both in the Jesuit Colleges at the University of Alcalá and through numerous Thomistic readings, is evident. Quevedo lived in a Baroque environment of great theological interest and wrote his religious treatise Providencia de Dios from prison in the Convent of San Marcos de León. There he wrote an admonition to atheists and those who denied the immortality of the soul, relying on different authorities, especially the scholasticism of Francisco Suárez and Saint Thomas Aquinas

Discussion on just what makes a university Catholic, and how a Catholic university should relate to the Church and the local bishop, date long before Ex corde Ecclesiae, and indeed go back to the early universities of Bologna, Paris, Oxford, and Cambridge, including St. Thomas Aquinas and his troubles with the Archbishop of Paris. More recently, we can cite 1949 and the establishment of the International Federation of Catholic Universities (IFCU), in collaboration with the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education (Gallin, 1992, 1996; Gleason, 1995; Leahy, 1991; O’Brien, 1994; O’Keefe, 1997). Under the leadership of Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C., and with the support of Pope Paul VI, IFCU evolved into an organization increasingly independent of the Congregation. This foreshadowed the tensions accompanying the development of Ex corde Ecclesiae. Meeting in Tokyo in 1965, IFCU decided to develop a document on the distinctive character of a Catholic university in the context of the recently published Vatican Council II (1965) document The Church in the Modern World. Prior to the 1968 IFCU meeting, a number of delegates met at Land O’Lakes, Wisconsin, to develop the Land O’Lakes Statement: The Nature of the Contemporary Catholic University (as cited in O’Keefe, 1997). This statement helped frame the issues that have been the basis for tensions between Church authorities and American Catholic higher education for over 40 years, especially its insistence that

Reviewed by: Jesuit Pedagogy, 1540–1616: A Reader ed. by Cristiano Casalini and Claude Pavur John Patrick Donnelly S.J. Jesuit Pedagogy, 1540–1616: A Reader. Edited by Cristiano Casalini and Claude Pavur, S.J.[Sources for the History of Jesuit Pedagogy, Volume 1.] (Boston: Institute of Jesuit Sources. 2016. Pp. xxii, 346. $45.00. ISBN 978-0-997282-30-6.) The editors of this volume hope it is the first in a series of volumes based on the Monumenta paedagogica, seven volumes in the Monumenta historica Societatis Iesu. This book begins with a table of contents, a timetable of early Jesuit education up to 1613, a list of nine pictures, and ends with an excellent index. The volume includes an excellent Introduction (pp. 1–33) and thirty documents, each a separate chapter. Each chapter has an introduction almost a page long, which provides readers with information about the topic and its author. The first seven chapters were written in Spanish, all by St. Ignatius of Loyola or his close associates from 1547 until his death in 1556. Thereafter twelve chapters were written in Latin and eleven in Italian. Three of the thirty chapters were written by Germans, one by a Frenchman, all the rest by Italians or Spaniards. Interestingly, after Loyola's death only one of these documents was written by the Jesuit Superior General, that by Claudio Acquaviva in 1613, twenty years later than any other of the thirty documents here published. Acquaviva insisted that Jesuits teaching philosophy should follow Aristotle and those teaching theology should follow Thomas Aquinas. That directive affected Jesuit schools well into the twentieth century. The book is divided into four parts. Part 1 is Inspirations: its seven chapters deal with the first Jesuit colleges, 1541–1556. Two chapters are by Loyola, three by his secretary Juan Polanco. Part 2 is about Administration. It has nine chapters dealing with the early colleges in Italy. The first important college was at Messina in Sicily, where the Jesuits taught local students from ages roughly fourteen to twenty. The town government and benefactors paid for most of the expenses. Three chapters deal with the prestigious Roman College. Rome was also the home of the German College, which had many Germans and Hungarians, but the majority were sons of wealthy Italians. Most students there were boarders and had to pay for their upkeep, unlike most Jesuit schools, which had free tuition. Here the Jesuits had to deal with often unruly students twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Chapter 14 looks at similar problems at the Roman College. Imposing discipline was not easy. Chapter 15 examines the plan and order of study at the Roman College, which in many respects was the model for Jesuit colleges through much of Europe. Part 2 closes with a chapter on the Roman Seminary, where the students resisted or ignored the rules of conduct; the Jesuit author of the chapter suggested that the Jesuits should simply leave the school or impose drastic measures on the students. Part 3, Formation, is the shortest part and covers chapters 17 to 22. Chapters 17, 19, and 20 deal with humanistic studies and values. Chapter 18 deals with spiritual and academic progress. Chapters 21 and 22 deal with doctrinal content and uniformity of doctrine. [End Page 346] Part 4, Teaching Practice, is likely the most interesting for today's readers. Loyola himself wrote chapter 23, on teaching composition. Chapter 24 explains "How to teach children Latin and Greek." Then come chapters of literary studies, mathematics, Hebrew, teaching philosophy, and teaching theology. I found this book interesting: there was good scholarship and immersion in topics and primary texts I had not thought about. The book was well organized. The main weakness was too much focus on Spain and Italy, too little on Germany and France. John Patrick Donnelly S.J. Marquette University (Emeritus) Copyright © 2017 The Catholic University of America Press

MAIN CURRENTS IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY LOGIC Until fairly recently, the study of the development of logic in the seventeeth Century suffered from a certain lack of comprehensiveness, depth, and historical sensitivity. Yet, there can be little doubt that during this period some remarkable changes in the conception of that discipline took place. Indeed, it would be misleading to treat the seventeenth century as a kind of organic unit in the history of logic. In point of fact, there is a marked discontinuity between the principal features of the varieties of viewing logic that were predominant in roughly the first half. The century and the way of viewing logicthat came to the fore in the second half. The first half of the seventeenth century may becharacterised by a general tendency to continue teaching logic in one of the versions that had been handed down from the remote or near past. Among those traditional forms of logic, Artistotelianism, either of a scholastic type or more independent of mediaeval interpretations, maintained its strong position. The scholastic type of Aristotelianism, elaborated in the spirit of such influential thinkers as Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus or adapted to the ideals of the Counter-Reformation by members of the Jesuit order, flourished especially in Roman Catholic countries but had considerable impact on the teaching of logic in the other parts of Europe as well. Authritative expositions of orthodox Thomistic doctrines are the treatises on logic included in the Collegium Complutense philosophicum of 1624 and in the Cursus philosophicus Thomisticus published by the Portuguese Dominican John of St. Thomas in 1634, while the part dealing with logic in Johannes Poncius's Integer Philosophiae cursus ad mentem Scoti of 1643 is a good specimen of the Scotist approach.

In the second half of the 18thcentury, the influential Jesuit college named Theresianum ran an educational and scientific project for working systematically on the Lepidoptera occurring in the vicinity of Vienna, Austria. The teachers of the college prepared a document under the title “Ankündung eines systematischen Werkes von den Schmetterlingen der Wienergegend”, with the aim of informing the ecclesiastical and secular authorities about the goal of the enterprise. On the board of the Theresianum there were several Jesuits, who later were considered authorities concerning Lepidoptera, namely: Michael Denis SJ, Sigismund Hohenwart SJ, Ludwig Mitterpacher SJ, Matthias Piller SJ, and Ignaz Schiffermüller SJ. They were acknowledged by Lepidoptera patronyms in the “Ankündung”, which suggests that they may have been involved in this project. This “Ankündung” was mentioned in the book “Versuch eines Farbensystems” in 1771, which was authored by Ignaz Schiffermüller. Also from this book, it can be postulated that Ignaz Schiffermüller regarded himself as a responsible author or editor of the “Ankündung”. Printing of the “Ankündung” was delayed for unspecified reasons, the dissolution of the Jesuit order in 1773 may have been one of them. Subsequently, Ignaz Schiffermüller managed to circulate a limited number of copies of the “Ankündung” in 1775, and then the same document appeared before a wider audience under the new title “Systematisches Verzeichniss der Schmetterlinge der Wienergegend” in 1776. Both these publications were at the time and ever since attributed to Michael Denis and Ignaz Schiffermüller, because some subsequent citations considered these two Jesuits as the principal authors.

The common characteristic of major libertine discourses in Sade's work is that in all of them, the libertine expounds sexual theories, or what might be better described as methodological recipes for jouissance. I I shall analyze two among many similar theoretical discourses, focusing primarily on the best known and most illustrative text, the famous Discours de la methode that Juliette propounds to Madame de Donis. These two discourses lay out the principles and causes of desire and of jouissance, according to leit-motifs common to all libertine discourses. 1) Our pleasure must not be grounded in the senses, over which we have no control. 2) We must identify our passions and explain them according to philosophical principles in order to attain to the state of indifference to passion, the condition of ascetic wisdom achieved by the mastery of one's drives, which the Stoics call Apathy. 3) Apathy, as we shall see later, constitutes for Sade the condition of a superior eroticism, a particular method that guarantees the libertine's mastery over jouissance. With these general considerations in mind, let us now examine the two texts. In the first one, Saint-Fond speaks to Juliette about the pleasures of the imagination.

Focusing on Descartes’ striking phrase “real things” in Discours de la methode, and on the one of “reality of things” written by Pascal in his Pensees, this paper aims to shed light on Cartesian co...

The role of common sense in Duhem’s philosophy is its most pivotal, yet largely overlooked and almost invariably misconstrued aspect. The first to look in the wrong direction was Picard himself who saved for posterity Duhem#x2019;s priceless self portrayal as the apostle of common sense.l Picard singled out the heart, in the sense in which Pascal spoke of it, as the faculty which in Duhem#x2019;s eyes was the ultimate and exclusive wellspring of common sense, Picard mentioned in the same breath Descartes#x2019; Discours de la methode where common sense is presented as the liaison between thought and reality and the ultimate source of discovery and discernment.2/

This article analyzes some of the reasons that led to the adoption of vernacular languages as philosophical languages between the 14th and 17th centuries in France and Italy. The article focuses on Descartes’s Discours de la methode (1637), Sperone Speroni’s Dialogo delle lingue (1542) and Dante Alighieri’s Convivio (circa 1304-1307). The three works not only chose to write philosophy in a language with no philosophical tradition, but also offered a philosophical rationale for this decision. The article exposes and analyzes that set of arguments. Key words: philosphy, vernacular language, Descartes, Sperone Speroni, Dante Alighieri.

In this note I criticize Robert Lenoble’s thesis concerning the presence of beast-machine theory in Mersenne’s Harmonie universelle (1636-37). I claim that the paragraph on which Lenoble grounds his interpretation presents, instead, a central concept for the Cartesian studies, namely that of the ‘evil genius’. The evil genius argument is used by Mersenne in relation to the problem of perception and knowledge, moreover, it is used against skepticism before the publication of Descartes Discours de la methode